In the early 1900s, felling California’s redwoods was considered an amazing feat of manpower rather than the destruction of a natural resource.
Source: Progress there you go. - Retronaut
This just makes me so sad.
November 19th, 2012
October 8th, 2012
Oil palm plantations are clearing carbon-rich tropical forests in Borneo, researchers show
ScienceDaily (Oct. 7, 2012) — Expanding production of palm oil, a common ingredient in processed foods, soaps and personal care products, is driving rainforest destruction and massive carbon dioxide emissions, according to a new study led by researchers at Stanford and Yale universities.
Plantation expansion is projected to contribute more than 558 million metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere in 2020 — an amount greater than all of Canada’s current fossil fuel emissions.
October 4th, 2012
Grasslands:
Grasslands go by many names. In the U.S. Midwest, they’re known as prairies. In South America, they’re called pampas. Central Eurasian grasslands are referred to as steppes, while in Africa they’re named savannas. What they all have in common is grass as their naturally dominant vegetation. Grasslands are found where there is not enough regular rainfall to support the growth of a forest, but not so little as to form a desert.
In fact, most grasslands are located between forests and deserts. About one quarter of the Earth’s land is covered with grasslands, but many of these lands have been turned into farms. Grasslands are generally open and fairly flat, and they exist on every continent except Antarctica. Most lie in the drier portions of a continent’s interior.
There are two different kinds of grasslands: tropical and temperate. Grasslands in the southern hemisphere tend to get more precipitation than those in the northern hemisphere. Some grasses grow more than 7 feet (2 meters), and have roots extending several feet into the soil.
Read more @ Grasslands — National Geographic
September 22nd, 2012
Excerpt from “Thinking Like A Mountain” by Aldo Leopold
“Since then I have lived to see state after state extirpate its wolves. I have watched the face of many a newly wolfless mountain, and seen the south-facing slopes wrinkle with a maze of new deer trails. I have seen every edible bush and seedling browsed, first to anaemic desuetude, and then to death. I have seen every edible tree defoliated to the height of a saddlehorn. Such a mountain looks as if someone had given God a new pruning shears, and forbidden Him all other exercise. In the end the starved bones of the hoped-for deer herd, dead of its own too-much, bleach with the bones of the dead sage, or molder under the high-lined junipers.
I now suspect that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer. And perhaps with better cause, for while a buck pulled down by wolves can be replaced in two or three years, a range pulled down by too many deer may fail of replacement in as many decades. So also with cows. The cowman who cleans his range of wolves does not realize that he is taking over the wolf’s job of trimming the herd to fit the range. He has not learned to think like a mountain. Hence we have dustbowls, and rivers washing the future into the sea.
We all strive for safety, prosperity, comfort, long life, and dullness. The deer strives with his supple legs, the cowman with trap and poison, the statesman with pen, the most of us with machines, votes, and dollars, but it all comes to the same thing: peace in our time. A measure of success in this is all well enough, and perhaps is a requisite to objective thinking, but too much safety seems to yield only danger in the long run. Perhaps this is behind Thoreau’s dictum: In wildness is the salvation of the world. Perhaps this is the hidden meaning in the howl of the wolf, long known among mountains, but seldom perceived among men.”
A smuggled Amboina box turtle is held by a conservationist in suburban Quezon City, north of Manila, Philippines. About 105 smuggled reptiles were returned to the Philippines after they were discovered inside baggage at Hong Kong airport.
(Source: Guardian)
September 3rd, 2012
Photographs, clockwise from top left: Alejandra Parra/Getty; Theo Allofs/Corbis; Pete Oxford/NPL/Rex Features
An alliance including national governments, regional councils and film stars has agreed to pay Ecuador not to exploit oil in its rainforest - but is the project working?
June 25th, 2012
The life and times of Lonesome George
Lonesome George, the last of the Pinta island giant tortoises and a conservation icon, has died of unknown causes. He was believed to be about 100 years old. He was found in 1972 and become a symbol of the Galápagos Islands. His species helped Charles Darwin formulate his theory of evolution in the 19th century
What a sad day indeed and not just for tortoises.
June 18th, 2012
This week the extent of Arctic sea ice dipped below the extent for 2007, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). As you may remember, the 2007 season holds the record for lowest Arctic sea-ice extent in recorded history.
May 29th, 2012
30 years ago, efforts began to save the California condor, an iconic species on the brink of extinction. Since then, a lot of progress has been made, and the last count revealed 405 known California condors. The population is split between 179 individuals living in zoos, and 226 living in the wild. But while the progress that has been made so far is encouraging, it’s too early to say that the California condor has been saved.
Key among issues are lead poisoning caused by condors eating animals, or gut piles from animals, shot with lead ammunition.
(via California Condor Population Rebounds to 405 After Near Extinction : TreeHugger)
May 17th, 2012
It’s a sad fact of life in wildlife management: Every now and then, wild animals have to be killed for the sake of ecological or agricultural protection. “Culling,” as it’s known, is often a last resort and is usually carried out with a grim sense of necessary duty. After all, most wildlife professionals aren’t big on the idea of killing wildlife. Right?
An unsettling new investigation by the Sacramento Bee found that the federal Wildlife Services agency, an obscure bureau within the USDA tasked with “resolving wildlife conflicts,” has in the last decade accidentally killed over 50,000 animals that posed no threat to people or the environment (in addition to nearly a million coyotes killed intentionally). The execution roster would make John Muir roll over in his grave: wolverines, river otters, migratory shorebirds, bald and golden eagles, and more than a thousand dogs (averaging eight a month!), including family pets. (via Why Is the Government Killing Bald Eagles? | Mother Jones)
