Archive for the "conservation" Category

  • Engaging conservationists through social media

    The Neotropical Conservation Foundation provides a great example of how a conservation organization can use social media to engage its audience while at the same time meeting its own needs. The NCF wants a new logo. Rather than roll out a new logo fait accomplis, it posted ideas on its Facebook page and asked "Fans" of the page to comment. Ted Kahn, Executive Director of the NCF and who founded its Facebook Fan page, posted the logo to the page’s photo album and wrote "I created a new logo for NCF. I value your

  • Suit Seeks to Protect 70,000 Additional Acres for Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow

    WASHINGTON— The Center for Biological Diversity and Florida Biodiversity Project filed suit today to obtain a larger protected area for the highly endangered Cape Sable seaside sparrow by reversing a Bush-era decision that struck down 70,000 acres of critical habitat identified by scientists as essential for the survival of the rare songbird. The lawsuit is part of a larger campaign on the part of the Center to undo a slew of decisions by the Bush administration that ignored the government’s own scientists and weakened protections for endangered species. More

  • An Inordinate Passion for Tropical Moths

     National Geographic grantee Professor Roger Kitching wants to know how much less diversity there is in tropical rainforest that has been logged than in unlogged "primary" forest. He finds some clues from the moths he draws to his lamp, Stuart Pimm reports in words, images, and video from the field, deep in the Borneo jungle. By Stuart L. Pimm Special Contributor to NatGeo News Watch More

  • Going, Going,…

    By Stuart Pimm, Doris Duke Professor of conservation ecology This century will surely be remembered as the time the Earth bit back—not that Mother Nature hadn't been a little testy before now. In the fourteenth century, plague spread more easily as the population both grew and became more concentrated in urban areas. When Europeans began to travel widely to other parts of the world, they took diseases with them to vulnerable continents—smallpox to the Americas, for example. And, there were plenty of regional examples of cultures, some sophisticated, that declined precipitously, abandoning long-occupied sites where

  • Florida Keys Shifting Baselines – Thoughts on World Oceans Day

    Since last December, we've been involved with a number of good friends in Key West, Florida, on a green initiative that includes the investigations of medicinal plants of the Florida Keys and northern Caribbean. Following from these interactions with students and colleagues at Duke University and in Key West itself, I had the good fortune of being interviewed last week together with conservation biologist Stuart Pimm on KONK-1630AM community radio by Erika Biddle for her biweekly Eco-Centric World program. Raised in Germany, she participated in the formations of the first political Green Party after witnessing the destruction of

  • Birding at the BioBlitz with Stuart Pimm

  • Many Mammal Migrations Are at Risk of Extinction

    By Stuart L. Pimm for NatGeo News Watch There's an urgency to find quality food and water that forces many large mammals to migrate. A new study finds that human activities increasingly threaten their ability to do so. Photo of zebra migration by Stuart L. Pimm   read more

  • Friday Cocktail: The Conflagration: Splash the G-Word, 1 Shot of Rainforest, Light My Fire & Pass the Ganga

    As Steve Allen said: Do not allow children to mix drinks. It is unseemly and they use too much vermouth. Round 1: The G-word punched through the media membrane this week. Geoengineering. Big word for the headlines. Uttered by none other than John Holdren, Obama's chief scientific adviser. He was referring to the possibility that we might be well advised to at least talk about some potential solutions to climate change that involve mitigating the shitstorm coming our way. You'd think he'd just come out in favor of pedophilia. Pour that man a drink. He's going to need

  • Klimawandel betrifft Tierarten unterschiedlich stark

    Washington DC/Wien (pte/09.03.2009/15:45) - Nicht alle Tier- und Pflanzenarten werden von der Klimaveränderung gleich stark betroffen sein. Zu diesem Schluss kommt ein Forscherteam der Universität von Wisconsin-Madison http://www.wisc.edu und der University of Arizona im Fachmagazin Science. Einige der Spezies werden sich aufgrund schneller Evolution den neuen Gegebenheiten sehr rasch anpassen.  More

  • Predicting diversity within hotspots to enhance conservation

    IMAGE:

  • Symposium tackles big question: how many species will survive our generation

    An overview of the Smithsonian’s Symposium: “Will the rainforests survive? New Threats and Realities in the Tropical Extinction Crisis” Nine scientists dusted off their crystal balls Monday at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC, weighing in on the future of the world’s tropical forest. Despite the most up-to-date statistics, prognosis for the future of tropical forests varied widely. More

  • Species at the Brink – An interview with Stuart Pimm on NPR

    Stuart Pimm tracks extinction, from Madagascar to the Amazon to South Florida, and maybe your backyard. Out in the world where Cuban crocodiles and Indian tarantulas, Caspian seals and Florida panthers are in trouble. He tracks species one-by-one — panther by panther, antbird by antbird — in the Everglades and Brazilian rain forest. And he tracks the big picture — where, he warns, a quarter, maybe half, of the world’s species could be gone in a century. Maybe half!

  • A Conversation With Stuart L. Pimm Asking ‘Why Do Species Go Extinct?’

    Alex di Suvero for The New York Times ‘I realized that extinction was something that as a scientist, I could study. I could ask, Why do species go extinct?’ - Stuart L. Pimm function getSharePasskey() { return \\'ex=1383541200&en=8fc1cdb2508d800a&ei=5124\\';} function getShareURL() { return encodeURIComponent(\\'http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/science/04conv.html\\'); } function getShareHeadline() { return encodeURIComponent(\\'Asking ‘Why Do Species Go Extinct?’\\'); } function getShareDescription() { return encodeURIComponent(\\'Stuart L. Pimm has made one of the grimmest topics on earth — extinction — his specialty.\\'); } function getShareKeywords() { return encodeURIComponent(\\'Endangered and Extinct

  • Q&A: Paul Ehrlich

    INTERVIEW: The Stanford biologist behind The Population Bomb and The Dominant Animal discusses the frog problem, environmental evangelicals, and Chinese population control. more

  • Europe and Arnold clamp down on toxic chemicals

    Hundreds of chemicals likely to be identified by the European Union (E.U.) as "substances of very high concern" are produced throughout the U.S., sometimes in large quantities. In fact, chemicals such as varieties of plastic-softening phthalates—linked to developmental and reproductive problems because they mimic hormones—are produced in excess of hundreds of million of pounds per year, according to a new report from Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) that is based on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data from 2001. more

  • Ecuador grants rights to nature – September 29, 2008

    They didn’t cast a single vote, but Ecuador’s monkeys, tortoises (pictured) and orchids just acquired constitutional rights, along with the rest of the nation’s nature. On Sunday, Ecuador’s human citizens voted their approval of a new constitution; reports vary but approximately two-thirds of people voted yes (New York Times). The document included language making Ecuador the first nation to legislate rights for nature: “Nature or Pachamama [the Andean earth goddess], where life is reproduced and exists, has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and

  • A new law of nature

    Ecuador next week votes on giving legal rights to rivers, forests and air. Is this the end of damaging development? The world is watching The South American republic of Ecuador will next week consider what many countries in the world would say is unthinkable. People will be asked to vote on Sunday on a new constitution that would give Ecuador's tropical forests, islands, rivers and air similar legal rights to those normally granted to humans. If they vote yes - and polls show that 56% are for and only 23% are against - then an already approved bill of rights

  • An Interview with Lyle Estill

    Discussing his new book Small is Possible, Piedmont Biofuels and sustainability in general.

  • Drilling for Oil Way, Way Offshore

    Time Magazine - U.S. - August 18, 2008 Going Green Drilling for Oil Way, Way Offshore By BRYAN WALSH Anyone who ever doubted the centrality of oil and natural gas to the global economy should have been convinced by the political events of the past few months. INCLUDES AUDIO PODCAST INTERVIEW

  • Alpine ‘Boulder Bunny’ Imperiled by Global Warming

    SAN FRANCISCO— Conservation groups filed two lawsuits today seeking protection of the American pika, whose survival is imperiled by global warming. The groups went to state court seeking protection of the pika under the California Endangered Species Act and to a federal court seeking protection under the federal Endangered Species Act. more >

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »