Offsetting the carbon emissions generated by the Inspire4Nature program
Why do we need to curb our carbon emissions?
Climatic changes due to anthropogenic carbon emissions have already increased the frequency of floods, wildfires, droughts and heatwaves around the world. The last report from the IPCC published in August 2021 reminded us that there is a near-linear relation between cumulative CO2 emissions and average global temperature. Each 1000 Gt of cumulative CO2 emissions is predicted to cause an increase in global surface temperature of 0.45°C. Therefore, stabilizing human-induced global temperature increase ...
Is family planning the answer to our climate change and conservation woes?
(Photo by Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition on Unsplash.)
Humans are
currently facing a global triple-threat crisis. Together, population growth,
climate change, and biodiversity loss paint a grim view of a future where
agriculture has replaced wildlife, and humans and nature alike struggle for
survival on a dying, overheated, overpopulated planet. Over the last few months,
it has become clear that the magnitude of climate change is greater than even
most climate scientists expected. And the effects are being felt all over the
world, even in rich western countries, ...
Humans transform the world, but they don’t remember
In the last century, humans have so dramatically transformed the
environment in which they live that the Earth has entered a new geological epoch:
the Anthropocene. The magnitude, extent, and rate of change in the environment
is so great that it is often hard to comprehend.
The difficulty people have to realize how much ecosystems have been transformed partly comes from an environmental generational amnesia 1, caused by shifting baselines between generations 2: children of each generation perceiving the environment into which they are ...
A model to predict migratory connectivity
Migratory birds undertake
epic journeys connecting oceans and continents, awing people across the globe. Sadly,
as spectacular as these seasonal movements are, many populations of migratory
birds are in decline due to human threats, but tackling
their conservation is challenging, as for most species many mysteries of their
migrations remain unknown.
Scientists believe birds migrate to
increase their energetic efficiency:
put simply, birds migrate in pursuit of better access to food, warmer
climates and less competition with birds of their own and other species. On the
other side of ...
The New Global Framework for Managing Nature Through 2030
The last decades, the implications of human actions in
nature became more and more apparent. Exploitation of natural resources,
habitat destruction in the sake of economic development, illegal species trading
are only a few of the activities that have resulted in a new era of mass
extinction, the Anthropocene.
One of the responses to this catastrophe was to set global environmental
goals and specific targets that countries need to reach within a certain
timeframe. The ultimate goal is that, during the attempt to reach these targets,
society ...
Covid-19 and biodiversity one year later
Photo by Jue Huang on Unsplash
One year ago, the world stood still due to
the Covid-19 pandemic, the virus spread inexorably, and most of the world was in
lockdown. As a society,
those were traumatic and confusing days. The uncertainties regarding what was
happening and what was going to happen were immense. In this context, we tried
to find positive and comforting messages to calm our unsettling feelings. One
of the first messages we heard in the media was 'nature is healing its ...
The necessity of behavior change to reach goals in nature conservation
In his 93 years, the famous British naturalist David Attenborough has visited almost every place on earth, exploring the wild pristine nature, telling fascinating stories. “A life on our planet”, is his latest documentary, where he reflects on his life looking back at defining moments and the changes he has seen in nature and the wildlife through the years. Talking to policymakers and economists at the World Economic Forum 2020, he repeated a warning: if continuing maintaining the lifestyle that ...
Conservation tool or environmental threat? Blockchain technology is a double-edged sword.
Bitcoin has been
hailed as ‘the future of money.’ As I write this, a single bitcoin is worth
over $34,000 USD. In 2009, when Bitcoin was released, a single bitcoin was
worth $0.0008. That is less than one tenth of a cent. In between, billionaires
have been made. Bitcoin’s incredible rise in value and popularity occurred
primarily due to the novel technology it is based on, called blockchain.
Blockchain is an
extremely secure record-keeping system, invented as a public transaction ledger
for Bitcoin. Transaction records are created in ...
Killing in the name of greater good? The complexities of trophy hunting
Trophy hunting is a topic that sparks discussion, often debated in the comment section of a trophy picture shared on one of many social media platforms. A middle-aged man with a wide grin on his face, posing proudly with the corpse of a dead animal. Many find such images disturbing. I mean, who wouldn’t, right? What’s even worse, conservation scientists claim that trophy hunting can serve conservation purposes. What? Killing animals to protect animals? That sounds like nonsense. Well, it ...
Will there always be more fish in the sea?
Gray Whale - Photo by Cameron Venti on Unsplash
In May of this ‘exciting’ year of 2020, it was widely reported that the Smooth Handfish (Sympterichthys unipennis) was declared the first species of bony fish to go extinct in modern times. Without a doubt, it is sad that a creature described as having a ‘punk rock hair-do’ has been relegated to a single, discolored specimen on the shelf of a natural history museum discolored specimen on the shelf of a natural history museum. However, ...
Conservation beyond charisma
Despite biodiversity conservation slowly creeping into national and international political agendas, monitoring and protecting all species remains impossible. We simply do not have the people, time or resources. So, at a time in which species are declining at unprecedented levels, which species should we focus on? Which species should concentrate all of our attention and conservation efforts, and which should be left to their fate?
Defining focal species
To
tackle this issue, one of the best-known strategies adopted by
conservation biologists is the designation ...
Cognitive dissonance and conservation: Will our minds subconsciously guide us to the solution?
On a cold February day in Washington D.C. in 2015, United States Senator Jim Inhofe pulled an infamous political stunt on the senate floor. He unraveled a snowball that he had gathered earlier that day, using it as a prop to "disprove" the reality of climate change. He ended his statement by playfully hurling the snowball across the floor, solidifying the spectacle of his statement in the minds of the U.S. media and public. While many observers dismissed the absurdity ...
Killing for conservation
The moral debate surrounding the lethal control of
invasive alien species
Historically, humans have been translocating animal and plant species from one region to the planet to another, from seeds and exotic birds from the new world to rice and spices from Asian regions. Some of these translocations are well documented, like the introduction of rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) from the Iberian Peninsula into the rest of Europe by the Romans during the second Punic wars (201-219 B.C), or the deliberate introduction of ...
Understanding the scale and cost of Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated fisheries
Since 1961, the average annual increase in
global fish consumption has outpaced population growth and exceeded consumption
of meat from all terrestrial animals combined 1. Accordingly, fish stocks have been
increasingly exploited, with 33% of fish stocks overfished and 60% fully exploited
in 2015 1. Demand for fish is driven by
population growth, human migration toward coastal areas, and rising incomes increasing
demand for luxury seafood 1.
To identify a sustainable level of fish stock exploitation, experts use a metric called the Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY), ...
Wind Farms in Greece
Despite some beliefs, climate change is real and humans are the ones to blame for. The increase of greenhouse gases – mainly CO2 - in the atmosphere, is the key driver of climate change. Emissions from human activities are responsible for 100% of the warming observed since 19501. One such activity is the production of energy. All processes of the energy production – from the extraction to the product delivered to the end-users – contribute highly to the greenhouse gas ...
A bird from the Netherlands and an airport in Portugal: local political decisions can threaten migratory birds from afar
Birds undertake epic migrations across the globe. Knowing no borders, they connect many countries - and even the seas beyond national jurisdictions – in the search for safe heavens where to rest, refuel and spend the winter. But these are no easy journeys. Migratory birds face multiple threats and many populations across the world are facing steep declines.
Conserving migratory birds is thus
a shared challenge that hinges on close cooperation between countries. Unfortunately,
more often than not, this is not the ...
Wildlife over-exploitation and the Coronavirus
Underrate threat
After habitat loss by agricultural expansion and logging, over-exploitation stands as the main threat for wildlife worldwide. The extraction of fauna from their natural habitats is known as defaunation, if done faster than natural populations can recover, it is known as over-exploitation. Defaunation can be divided into two categories: Subsistence hunting and commercial hunting (Redford, K., 1992), legal or illegal. Subsistence hunting represents a vital source of protein to people living in rural areas, while commercial hunting includes consumption ...
Is there a future for our planet? Or: How not to lose hope in a world with dystopic visions
Emergency
to act!
Recently,
more than 11’000 scientists from 153 countries signed a paper in which they warn humanity that the planet earth
is facing a climate emergency unless major transformations are made in global
society (1). The scientists point out that the climate crisis is strongly
linked to the excessive consumption of a wealthy lifestyle. Thereby, the
majority of greenhouse gas emissions responsible for the climate warming come
from the most affluent countries. The scientists clearly call to urgent action based
on scientific facts! In the paper they ...
Corporation and conservation partnership
COP 25 is taking place right now in Madrid, and we can observe big corporations sponsoring all types of events. Among them is Endesa, an energy company responsible for 10% of the emissions in Spain1. Big corporations sponsoring environmental events is common, and more and more they are present in the environmental debates and the decision-making platforms. Another context where we can see this controversial involvement is in the donation-based partnership between conservation and NGOs. This article ...
A good case of conservation in action : Nepal
Introduction
The
rate of resource use and its implication on environment has been well
documented. According to the Living Planet Index report of 2018, 60%
of wildlife population has declined over the last 40 years. It is
also looking more and more likely that we will be unable to meet the
goals we have set like the 2°C target for global warming,the SDGs
among others. The situation looks particularly bleak in south Asia
where two of the projected dominant economies of the future (India
and China) are flexing their ...
Are species important for the conservation of biodiversity?
© Wikimedia Commons
Biodiversity is an abstract concept without a universally accepted definition (Meinard et al., 2019), with measures often incorporating both processes and entities. These may include: the functional diversity of a system, reflecting its biological complexity; phylogenetic diversity, whereby the distances between evolutionary lineages are summed; or species densities, relative abundances and total richness. Choosing an appropriate measure for conservation can depend on the end goal of the policy maker, the values of the stakeholders or simply the ...
So long, and thanks for all the fish?
© Wikimedia Commons
THEIR habitats are among the most threatened ecosystems on the planet.
And despite
their critical value as a source of food and employment for hundreds of
millions of people worldwide, it is likely that many freshwater fish species
have already disappeared without record.
Freshwaters cover just 0.8% of the Earth’s surface and hold 0.01% of its water yet they harbour astonishing biodiversity, with around 16,000 described resident or migratory fishes accounting for roughly half the global total and 25% of all vertebrates.
They provide ...
Freedom in the high seas: a pickle for nature management
The high seas, or international waters,
encompasses all areas beyond 200 nautical miles (nm) of shore, which in total constitutes
one-half of the world’s surface area. Not only is this a massive area, but also
hosts a diversity of life, with species ranging from sharks and albatrosses, to
tuna and sea turtles using the high seas on a regular basis (Harrison et al. 2018).
Importantly, many species from these groups are in severe decline (here), and
therefore it may not suffice to protect them while within ...
How to make space for nature?
Nairobi national park
Global biodiversity is being lost at an alarming rate. It is well-evidenced that this is the result of human activities, primarily agriculture and other forms of land conversion, as well as overexploitation of species. The World Wildlife Fund for Nature’s most recent Living Planet Report, published in November 2018, shows that surveyed animal populations have declined by more than 50 per cent on average in the last two generations. The recently-released global assessment from the United Nations´ leading ...
One million species are facing extinction, IPBES report warns
Monarch butterflies are one of the species negatively impacted by human activities. © Wikimedia
Up to one million out of the roughly 8 million estimated species are threatened with extinction due to the impact of human activities, affirms the new report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
Compiled by 145 authors and with inputs from another 310 professionals, the IPBES Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services is the most comprehensive ...
New study finds protected areas are compatible with human well-being
Ana Alvarado and Edison Canelos, members of a local Kichwa community, plant seedlings near the Selva Viva protected forest in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Photo credit: Sandra Lucia Almeyda Zambrano
The trade-off between environmental protection and human well-being is a longstanding issue in the realm of conservation. From forced evictions to unjustified restrictions of local resource use, conservation policies have often imperiled the most marginalized members of our societies. New research published earlier this month in Science Advances, however, suggests that this ...
Scientists map Sri Lankan elephants for first time
TRUNK AND DISORDERLY: Sri Lankan elephants often come into conflict with humans. © Wikimedia
Scientists in Sri Lanka have produced the first-ever evidence-based distribution map for Asian elephants.
The
researchers carried out interview surveys across the country and found that the
charismatic mammals occur over around 60 per cent of the island nation, a much
higher proportion than elsewhere in its 13-country range.
Earlier distribution models either covered smaller areas within individual countries, or were based on “guesswork and conjecture”, according to the authors of the ...
Un-bee-lievable! World’s biggest bee rediscovered in Indonesia
STING IN THE TALE: Wallace's giant bee has been dubbed 'the flying bulldog'. © Clay Bolt
It was
feared extinct for almost four decades.
But a team of North American and Australian biologists has filmed Wallace’s giant bee (Megachile pluto) alive on a remote island in Indonesia.
First
discovered in 1859 by renowned English naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, the
thumb-sized species had not been seen since 1981, when American entomologist
Adam Messer found it on three islands in the North Mollucas archipelago.
And after a
report of two individuals ...