By Jon Christensen
July-September 2005 (Vol. 6, No. 3)
It’s a shame. Conservationists are sitting on the sidelines while the Big Game unfolds before our eyes. A major campaign is under way to change the terms of development, alleviate crushing debt, and help poor people around the world live better lives. Successes are being […] Read More »
July-September 2005 (Vol. 6, No. 3)
The Jury’s Not Out — It’s Not Even in Session
Efforts like the collaboration between economists and ecologists, detailed by Jon Christensen in “Are We Consuming Too Much?” (Conservation In Practice, April-June 2005), are essential if we are to harness the power of the economy for achieving environmental sustainability […] Read More »
Out of Eden: An Odyssey of Ecological Invasion
By Alan Burdick
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005
Reviewed by Jason Van Driesche
It is not often that a book presents a contradiction before you even open the cover. But such is the case with Out of Eden.
At the heart of the matter lies a well-worn […] Read More »
By Robin Meadows
July-September 2005 (Vol. 6, No. 3)
How well are we preserving tropical forests and their remarkable biodiversity? The first comprehensive assessment of changes in tropical forest cover has yielded both good and bad news: formally protected forests are largely stable, but the unprotected buffers around most have shrunk, increasing their isolation and […] Read More »
By Robin Meadows
July-September 2005 (Vol. 6, No. 3)
A new paper argues that we are taking the wrong approach to dealing with biological invasions. Right now, we let most species in and hope for the best. When the worst happens and they become invasive, society pays for the resulting ecological damage. But the best […] Read More »
By Robin Meadows
July-September 2005 (Vol. 6, No. 3)
The environmental effects of pesticides may be even worse than we thought. A new study of how pesticides affect wetland species yielded a surprising result: a popular herbicide also kills tadpoles. Realistic concentrations of Roundup® essentially exterminated three out of five frog species tested in simulated […] Read More »
By Robin Meadows
July-September 2005 (Vol. 6, No. 3)
Having a relatively simple way to assess the effects of conservation corridors is critical to determining whether they are working as intended. Now, new research shows that corridors do work for bluebirds and the seeds they disperse in South Carolina: the birds dispersed about one-third more […] Read More »
By Robin Meadows
July-September 2005 (Vol. 6, No. 3)
Killing a few lions may help the rest survive. New research suggests that relatively few lions are responsible for most of the livestock kills on African ranches, which means that targeted lion-culling could ease conflicts with ranchers and thus benefit the species as a whole. […] Read More »
By Robin Meadows
July-September 2005 (Vol. 6, No. 3)
Huge populations may not be enough to safeguard commercially fished stocks against genetic risks. New research shows that, even though there are a billion plaice (Pleuronectes platessa) in the North Sea, this flatfish is still inbred. This is because the breeding population is naturally much smaller […] Read More »
By Robin Meadows
July-September 2005 (Vol. 6, No. 3)
Wolves and other top predators may help other species cope with climate change. Milder winters in Yellowstone National Park mean fewer elk (Cervus elaphus) die late in the season, which is tough on bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), grizzly bears (Ursus arctos), and other scavengers that depend […] Read More »
Numbers in Context
When will populations double … and where?
“THE GREATEST SHORTCOMING OF THE HUMAN RACE is our inability to understand the exponential function.”
Albert A. Bartlett
July-September 2005 (Vol. 6, No. 3)
Click charts and graphs above to see an enlargement
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By Katherine Ellison
July-September 2005 (Vol. 6, No. 3)
Conservationists have always known that biodiversity has value. But only in recent years has anyone envisioned “ecosystem assets” that might eventually be traded like pork bellies and soybeans. Unsettling as this concept may seem to those who revere nature’s worth as immeasurable, it is quickly […] Read More »
By Nancy Bazilchuk
July-September 2005 (Vol. 6, No. 3)
When Patty Zaradic sees the spiny alien body of a mayfly nymph or the rough geometric tube of a caddisfly nymph, she sees more than an aquatic insect adapted to clear running water. In the patterns and assemblages of these macroinvertebrates, she sees a river’s memory. […] Read More »
By Adelheid Fischer
July-September 2005 (Vol. 6, No. 3)
When the early woodland people of North America needed diaper material, they stripped mosses from trees, rocks, and downed limbs. Packing the plants snugly around their infants, they created a cushioned layer that could absorb ten times its weight in liquid.
The ability of mosses to […] Read More »
By Natasha Loder
July-September 2005 (Vol. 6, No. 3)
Contrary to the opinion of a number of the citizens of Kansas, evolution is not merely a “nice theory” but rather a demonstrable fact. Evolution is all around us. In our hospitals, bacteria have become so difficult to control that fatal postoperative infections are now […] Read More »
