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How much is clean water worth? New report guides payments for ecosystem services
Posted by Mongabay: Morgan Erickson-Davis on July 3rd, 2015
Mongabay: The first-ever set of comprehensive guidelines for designing, implementing and managing mechanisms to facilitate payments for ecosystem services has been established by a group of experts and researchers.
The authors of a report published in the journal Science that lays out the guidelines argue that as payments for ecosystem services schemes become increasingly popular, too many of these financial mechanisms – investments and markets focused on, for example, carbon emissions, clean water and...
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Big reserve expansion gives tigers a boost in India
Posted by Mongabay: Morgan Erickson-Davis on June 29th, 2015
Mongabay: A hundred years ago, there were thirteen times as many tigers in the world as there are today, ranging from Turkey across the Eurasian continent to the eastern coast of Russia. The 13 countries that contain the world’s last tigers today - a mere, 2,500 mature individuals - are challenged with increasing protected tiger habitat to prevent crowding and inbreeding, while facing extreme funding and space constraints. One state in India, however, has found a cost-effective way to give tigers more room....
China investment in Latin America taking toll on the environment, setting stage for conflict
Posted by Mongabay: Morgan Erickson-Davis on May 18th, 2015
Mongabay: China has been investing heavily in Latin America’s natural resources and crude oil. Recently, the country even pledged to invest $250 billion over the next decade to strengthen its presence in the region, and compete with the U.S. But this increasing Chinese trade and investment in Latin America is also increasing environmental and social conflict, finds a new report published by Boston University.
“The press is full of stories about what China’s rise to the world’s largest economy means for...
Canada: Woman defeats mine, saves wildnerness, wins $175,000
Posted by Mongabay: Morgan Erickson-Davis on April 20th, 2015
Mongabay: Marilyn Baptiste, 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize winner for North America, led the Xeni Gwet'in community in defeating one of the largest proposed gold and copper mines in British Columbia that would have destroyed Fish Lake--a source of spiritual identity and livelihood for the Xeni Gwet’in. Photo courtesy of the Goldman Environmental Prize.
When a huge open-pit mine threatened a pristine lake and surrounding forest in British Columbia, Canada, Marilyn Baptiste jumped into action, spearheading...
Study finds econ costs climate change hugely underestimated
Posted by Mongabay: Morgan Erickson-Davis on March 30th, 2015
Mongabay: Look at most climate change projection graphs and you will see a smoothly rising red line of increasing temperature, melting ice and other impacts. But climate does not work that way. Studies of the paleoclimate record indicate that when heat energy is rapidly added to the atmosphere -- as humans are doing today -- the climate can experience “tipping points,” with abrupt shifts and potentially disastrous results.
Researchers who have studied economic climate change impacts have until recently...
Scientists warn of global warming threat to temperate rainforests
Posted by Mongabay: Morgan Erickson-Davis on March 13th, 2015
Mongabay: If you Google "rainforest," you're almost assured to get a page of search results mostly about the tropics. Yet, another kind of rainforest also exists: temperate rainforests. Far less expansive than the tropical kind, temperate rainforests occur in isolated patches and strips around the world – from the coasts of western North America and eastern Siberia, to throughout much of New Zealand and Tasmania. In a new study published recently in Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences, researchers warn...
UN report warns of grave consequences if mangroves not protected
Posted by Mongabay: Morgan Erickson-Davis on March 11th, 2015
Mongabay: Protecting Mangrove Forests Good For Environment And Economy: UN Global destruction of mangrove forests impacts biodiversity, food security, and the lives and livelihoods of some of the most marginalized communities in the world, according to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). Mangroves, which are forests of salt-tolerant trees and shrubs that lie along coastlines in the tropics and subtropics, are also invaluable carbon sinks. And we’re not doing nearly enough to protect them, says a...
Firewood fervor may turn Zimbabwe into ‘outright desert’
Posted by Mongabay: Morgan Erickson-Davis on March 5th, 2015
Mongabay: Zimbabwe, home to more than 14 million people, is currently facing a severe economic crisis. Under President Robert Mugabe’s land distribution reforms, in the year 2000 all white-owned commercial farms were forcibly seized for redistribution to landless native Zimbabweans. In February this year, the BBC reported Mugabe had finally admitted his land reforms amounted to badly thought-out land policies. These reforms are thought to be the driving force behind Zimbabwe’s agriculture-based economy’s thunderous...
Amazon gold rush destroying huge swaths rainforest
Posted by Mongabay: Morgan Erickson-Davis on January 14th, 2015
Mongabay: The rainforests of South America face many threats. The deforestation occurring on the continent is among the highest in the world and results in losses of habitat, biodiversity and massive amounts of sequestered carbon. While the usual culprits such as farming, ranching and logging are well known, gold mining is fast extending its destructive reach into some of the world’s most untouched landscapes, according to research published this week in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
"Although...
Attack of the parasite plants: vines taking over forests in Panama
Posted by Mongabay: Morgan Erickson-Davis on July 14th, 2014
Mongabay: A worrying trend has emerged in tropical forests: lianas, woody long-stemmed vines, are increasingly displacing trees, thereby reducing forests’ overall ability to store carbon.
Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Stanford University and the University of Pittsburgh, and led by Dr. Stefan A. Schnitzer, studied the impacts of liana-tree competition in central Panamanian treefall gaps. Treefall gaps, known as the “engines of regeneration” in tropical forests, are sites of high...