Archive for the "conservation" Category

  • Oil development may destroy richest part of the Amazon rainforest

    688,000 square kilometers (170 million acres) of the western Amazon is under concession for oil and gas development, according to a new study published in the August 13 edition of the open-access journal PLoS ONE. The results suggest the region, which is considered by scientists to be the most biodiverse on the planet and is home to some of the world's last uncontacted indigenous groups, is at great risk of environmental degradation. Tracking some 180 oil and gas projects operated across Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and western Brazil, researchers from Save America's Forests, Land Is Life, and Duke

  • Oil and gas projects in western Amazon threaten biodiversity and indigenous peoples

    The western Amazon, home to the most biodiverse and intact rainforest left on Earth, may soon be covered with oil rigs and pipelines. According to a new study, over 180 oil and gas "blocks" – areas zoned for exploration and development – now cover the megadiverse western Amazon, which includes Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and western Brazil. These oil and gas blocks stretch over 688,000 km2 (170 million acres), a vast area, nearly the size of Texas. The study appears in the August 13 edition of the open-access journal PLoS ONE. For over three years, researchers from two U.S. non-profit organizations –

  • Pushing back the NBAF

    National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility The proposed National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) would research high-consequence biological threats involving zoonotic (i.e., transmitted from animals to humans) and foreign animal diseases. It would allow basic research; diagnostic development, testing and validation; advanced countermeasure development; and training for high-consequence livestock diseases. And best of all, it will be run by Homeland security. NBAF in NC: NOBIO pt.1 from LibertyTUBEtv on

  • Obras na Amazônia põem espécies de aves em perigo

    PAULO - Mais oito espécies de aves da Amazônia poderão entrar para a lista de ameaçadas de extinção até 2020, caso as obras de infra-estrutura planejadas pelo governo federal sejam de fato implementadas na região. Outras oito serão severamente afetadas, com redução de pelos menos 50% na sua área de ocorrência, segundo um estudo publicado na revista internacional Conservation Biology. More

  • Expert: U.S. population to hit 1 billion by 2100

    If the USA seems too crowded and its roads too congested now, imagine future generations: The nation's population could more than triple to 1 billion as early as 2100. That's the eye-popping projection that urban and rural planners, gathered today for their annual meeting in Las Vegas, are hearing from a land-use expert. "What do we do now to start preparing for that?" asks Arthur Nelson, co-director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech, whose analysis projects that the USA will hit the 1 billion mark sometime between 2100 and 2120. "It's a realistic long-term challenge." The nation currently has almost 304

  • Grupo pede status de proteção especial para campo amazônico

    RAFAEL GARCIA da Folha de S.Paulo Uma dupla de biólogos lança hoje uma proposta para a reclassificação dos ecossistemas de campos abertos localizados em meio à floresta amazônica. Os cientistas afirmam que essas áreas devem ser classificadas como "zonas úmidas" --ao lado de pântanos, charcos e mangues-- o que daria a elas um status de proteção especial. Elaborada pelos ecólogos Mario Cohn-Haft, do Inpa (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia) e Marion Adeney, da Universidade Duke, da Carolina do Norte (EUA), as bases científicas da proposta serão apresentadas hoje à tarde em Cuiabá (MT), na 8ª Intecol, a Conferência Internacional de Áreas Úmidas.

  • Monsanto wants to patent the pig.

    From the corporation which wants to control the world by controlling the food, this video tells how Monsanto wants to patent the pig. But how can a corporation get a patent on something that already exists? http://www.documentarywir... Jane Akre, from that great video about Monsanto, bovine growth hormones, and Fox News, "The Corporation- Unsettling Accounts", is also in this video.

  • Nobel Prize Winning Climate and Conservation Scientists Call Visionary Plan to Protect Vast Canadian Boreal Forest Unprecedented

    SEATTLE, July 21 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- As news spreads of Ontario's commitment to protect over 55 million acres of Canada's Boreal Forest, an area the size of the United Kingdom, leading international scientists and conservationists are expressing their strong support for Premier Dalton McGuinty's science-based leadership. More

  • Study: Species math wrong

    Species already listed as endangered may be racing toward extinction 100 times faster than originally thought, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder. Author Brett Melbourne says today's extinction-risk models have drastically underestimated the speed at which endangered species will perish. "It's a mathematical misdiagnosis," said Melbourne, an assistant professor in the ecology and evolutionary biology department at CU-Boulder.  More

  • Getting Trashed

    A giant patch of garbage in the Pacific threatens Hawaii’s beaches and wildlife. Capt. Charles Moore wasn’t always obsessed with plastic. His fixation began in 1997, while sailing back to Los Angeles from Hawaii after a yacht race. He took an unusual easterly route, snubbed by most sailors for its lack of wind, and discovered what’s now called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch—a soupy expanse of plastic bits and marine debris that extends from the Sea of Japan to within 500 miles west of California. More >

  • Conservation Groups Plan Legal Action to Prevent the Extinction of the Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow

    WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Jun. 30 -/E-Wire/-- The Center for Biological Diversity, Florida Biodiversity Project, and Natural Resources Defense Council today notified the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that they will challenge the agency’s failure to adequately protect the critical habitat of the highly endangered Cape Sable seaside sparrow.  Read full press release

  • Tomorrow’s Elders

    By Tim Drake www.primitivepursuits.net Research suggests that young people who spend time in nature grow up to have a greater awareness of environmental issues, yet Richard Louv points out in Last Child in the woods that children of this generation are spending far less time in nature.   David Orr puts it simply:  “The ecological crisis is in every way a crisis of education.”  Despite evidence that ecological literacy and time spent outdoors is critical, the National Environmental Education & Training Foundation reports that, “U.S. environmental and

  • Junk journey highlights ‘plastic soup’ of Pacific Ocean

    The junk is made, literally, from junk: 15,000 plastic bottles, a Cessna cockpit, and a used sail. (Credit: Peter Bennett/Ambient Images Inc.) digg_url = \'http://digg.com/environment/Pacific_Ocean_Voyager_Sickened_by_Garbage_floating_around\';Sailing 4,000 miles on the Pacific Ocean made Marcus Eriksen and Joel Paschal sick. It wasn't waves that turned their

  • Destination America – Immigration, the Environment and Big Population Numbers

    By Jim Motavalli On the outside looking in: a border fence separates San Diego from Tijuana, Mexico. © Francisco Santos In 2006, USA Today ran a lengthy story entitled “How Will the USA Cope with Unprecedented Growth?” The country’s population had just crossed the 300 million mark, up from 200 million in just 39 years. Writer Haya El Nasser listed the many environmental problems made worse by rapid population growth, from

  • Wildlife Conservation 2.0

    A new software-based approach may be the key to saving thousands of species. by Erika Check Hayden Aquatic wildlife of the Great Barrier Reef gets a boost from Marxan software Nothing pushes a species to extinction like wiping out its habitat. Consider the Hawaiian Islands: They were originally covered in trees, but by the 1950s three-quarters of the islands’ natural forests had been destroyed to make way for animal pastures and crops. Many other habitats were overrun by introduced pigs and rats. The effect on Hawaii’s indigenous species was devastating: In the last 200 years, 28 species of birds alone

  • ENVIRONMENT: “Doctor” Nature in Danger

    Caribbean snail (Conus geographus). Credit:Kerry Matz CAPE TOWN, South Africa, May 3 (Tierramérica) - "When we harm nature, we are harming ourselves," says Aaron Bernstein, a doctor at Harvard Medical School and one of the authors of the upcoming book "Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity". "Few people realise that our health is directly tied to the health of the natural world," Bernstein told Tierramérica Bernstein and Harvard colleague Eric Chivian wrote and edited contributions from more than 100 leading

  • Presidential advisers duel for green cred—but not too hard

    Environmental issues, particularly global climate change, enjoyed a star turn a few years ago, mainly as the result of some very bad weather and a newly hirsute Al Gore and his 2006 film An Inconvenient Truth. For a time, as the initial presidential contenders began their campaigns, there seemed to be an historic number of pols willing to accept the premise that climate change was a reality and that environmental issues were at the forefront of voters' minds. Read

  • Dumb as We Wanna Be

    It is great to see that we finally have some national unity on energy policy. Unfortunately, the unifying idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away. Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for this summer’s travel season. This is not an energy policy. This is money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas

  • Policy And Geography Shape Tropical Parks’ Success In Stemming Deforestation, New Paper Finds

    DURHAM, N.C. th Tropical moist forests are home to a majority of the Earth's terrestrial species, yet human activities such as logging, road building and agriculture destroy between one and two million square kilometers of these vital habitats every decade. But a new paper by a trio of Duke University researchers, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, offers cause for cautious optimism th with a major caveat.

  • Watching the detectives

    Protected areas don’t always protect as well as they should, study reveals Conservation projects often hinge on areas of land being given protection, but little is known about how well many protected areas actually do their job. Studying four of the world’s major moist tropical forests, a group of Duke University researchers led by Stuart Pimm found that inaccessibility can be a tree’s best friend. Protected areas within the Amazon and

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