January 2011 Blog Posts (11)

Many ecological systems have tipping points - thresholds where small changes in impacts can have very large effects on on ecosystem functioning, often in a bad way.  Lakes, for example, might show little impact from nutrient pollution until…

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Hannes Jaenicke wins NatureLife Environment Prize

Bonn, 25 January 2011 - German actor, film producer and Chair of the Friends of CMS Mr. Hannes Jaenicke was awarded the NatureLife Environment Prize 2011 for his commitment towards saving…

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Hi there, I wanted to let any interested scientists, marine educators, health care workers and journalists know that we are developing a Marine Research Centre and Diabetes awareness program in the provence of Vava'u, Tonga. The centre will be a not for profit, collaborative project focussing on the areas of marine conservation and ecology, marine education, marine mammal, turtle and coral research, and any other research related to the local environment. I won't go into all the information… Continue

Today is the Worldwatch Institute’s 15th Annual State of the World Symposium, hosted at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC. It is being live streamed on the Nourishing the Planet blog at 1:15PM (EST) for those unable to join the event in person. Bringing together leading thinkers in agricultural development,… Continue

I have an article up at GOOD magazine about the abandoned rural lands and how to manage them for ecosystem services:

Brazil has had a declining rural population since 1990. Even as loggers and farmers cut and burn ancient rainforest in the south, emigrants leave northern farmlands fallow. In China, between just 2000 and 2008, the countryside lost 86 million people. The United Nations…

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Over at Yale Environment 360, Richard Stone has an interesting article about ongoing work examining recent blooms of jellyfish populations.  Anecdotal evidence suggests that jellyfish populations have been on the rise, and it is possible that some marine systems are entering alternate stable states that are jellyfish- rather than…

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Today the Worldwatch Institute launches its flagship publication, State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet in New York City. The report spotlights successful agricultural innovations and unearths major successes in… Continue

Forest Peoples Programme (FPP), Inter Mountain Peoples Education and Culture in Thailand Association (IMPECT), Indigenous Knowledge and Peoples Network (IKAP), Thailand, United Organisation for Batwa Development in Uganda (UOBDU) and Vereniging van Inheemse Dorpshoofden in Suriname (VIDS), Suriname have released the following press information (click the title to read the full press release):



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This month's Conservation Letters has a Policy Perspective on the risks of relying REDD+ funding for conservation projects.  REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, with the "+" standing for biodiversity and social benefits), is a…

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2011 is the International Year of Forests, so here is a link to a new post on IIED's Due South blog by Duncan Macqueen — Tick tock — it’s the year of forests

In it he explains why more than a billion forest-dependent poor will probably not see 2011 that way and why local control is key to the…

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Conservation Letters has an article about a situation in Borneo that illustrates how sudden, unpredictable events in ecology are not always bad.  In the past year, the island's forests have undergone an ecosystem-wide event known as…

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