Top Photo: Siegfried Modola/Reuters Annette Hübschle, University of Cape Town Wildlife crimes – like rhino poaching, overfishing or the harvesting of cycads – were once considered a “green” matter. But this has changed. Such crimes have moved higher up on global security and policy agendas. This is partly linked to concerns about the extinction of […]
Indigenous forests could be a key to averting climate catastrophe
By Sue Branford and Maurício Torres This article originally appeared on Mongabay.com, 6 November 2017 (Republished under under Creative Commons BY-NC-ND). A new study finds the world’s tropical forests may no longer be carbon sinks, with a net loss of 425 million tons of carbon from 2003 to 2014. Also, 1.1 billion metric tons of carbon is […]
Urban noise pollution is worst in poor and minority neighborhoods and segregated cities
Top Photo: Under the El tracks, downtown Chicago. Franck Michel, CC BY Joan A. Casey, University of California, Berkeley; Peter James, Harvard Medical School , and Rachel Morello-Frosch, University of California, Berkeley Most Americans think of cities as noisy places – but some parts of U.S. cities are much louder than others. Nationwide, neighborhoods with […]
Micro solutions for a macro problem: How marine algae could help feed the world
Microalgae (shown here, Haematococcus) convert water and carbon dioxide to oxygen and nutritious biomass in the presence of light. Algaennovation, CC BY William Moomaw, Tufts University and Asaf Tzachor, UCL Our planet faces a growing food crisis. According to the United Nations, more than 800 million people are regularly undernourished. By 2050, an additional […]
For cattle farmers in the Brazilian Amazon, money can’t buy happiness
Rachael Garrett, Boston University and Joice Ferreira, Federal University of Pará Picture the Brazilian Amazon. You probably don’t see a lot of cows in that image. But, in fact, in this rainforested part of South America – home to the world’s most booming tropical agricultural region – ranching has been the most common land use […]
Unfair trade: US beef has a climate problem
By Sean Mowbray This article originally appeared on Mongabay.com, 18 October 2017 (Republished under Creative Commons BY-NC-ND). Across the globe, beef consumption, is seeing rapid growth, fed by cheap imports and served by an industrialized agricultural global trade model that’s been linked to a host of environmental impacts, climate change chief among them. Beef consumption in previously meat-light […]
Saving amphibians from a deadly fungus means acting without knowing all the answers
Pictured above: A male boreal toad waits for opportunities to mate near a Colorado mountain lake. Photo by Brittany Mosher, CC BY-ND Article by: Brittany A. Mosher, Colorado State University; Brian Gerber, University of Rhode Island, and Larissa Bailey, Colorado State University The calls of frogs on warm nights in the spring are a welcome […]
Brazil scraps bid to mine Amazon natural reserve
The Brazilian government backed off a controversial proposal to authorize private companies to mine a sprawling Amazon reserve Monday after blistering domestic and international criticism. President Michel Temer’s office will issue a new decree Tuesday that “restores the conditions of the area, according to the document that instituted the reserve in 1984,” the Ministry of […]
New study provides a blueprint for engaging indigenous peoples in REDD+ forest monitoring
By Mike Gaworecki Accurately evaluating forest carbon stocks is difficult to do in remote rainforests where researchers are afforded limited access. It is widely believed that only experts can properly measure forest biomass, but a new study found that well-trained indigenous technicians are just as effective at collecting the necessary data to monitor forest carbon variability. […]