By William Stolzenburg
January-March 2006 (Vol. 7, No. 1)
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Discussion Questions
What were the key premises agreed upon by the 12 co-authors of the “Rewilding” paper? Do you agree with these premises? Is there any other information that would be helpful to you in considering this?
Why do the co-authors of […] Read More »
By Adelheid Fischer
January-March 2006 (Vol. 7, No. 1)
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Discussion Questions
(Note to teachers: if students do not already have previous knowledge of carbon emissions, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and its Kyoto protocol, you may want to have the students review the Protocol and/or sections of the […] Read More »
By Frances Cairncross
January-March 2006 (Vol. 7, No. 1)
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Discussion Questions
The biologist Yossi Leshem is described as a “connector.” Why is this an important role in conservation today?
Why is Israel such an important hotspot for conflict between bird migration and human activity? What geophysical, biological, and historical factors combine […] Read More »
By Jon Christensen
January-March 2006 (Vol. 7, No. 1)
Some ideas are like burrs stuck in your boots. If you don’t stop and deal with them, they’ll keep on troubling you. But coming to terms with a troubling idea is never as simple as shaking out your boots. If it were, conservationists would not still […] Read More »
January-March 2006 (Web Edition)
Conservation and Governance
I was very surprised to read in “The Uneasy Chair” in the July-September 2005 Conservation in Practice, “…I wondered whether there might be a new way back into the heart of the development dialogue. Not through conservation. But through something the development community has put at the […] Read More »
January-March 2006 (Vol. 7, No. 1)
Appearances Can Be Deceiving
After reading “A Garden Gone to Seed” (Conservation In Practice, July-Sept 2005), I was troubled by the assumption that Mayan traditions will be compatible with conserving significant tracts of biologically diverse forests. In my opinion, the author has confused diversity that is a result of […] Read More »
By Robin Meadows
A new, high-resolution analysis of satellite images reveals that in the Brazilian Amazon, as much forest is lost to selective logging as to outright deforestation, such as clearcutting or burning.
“Selective logging has been mostly invisible to satellites,” say Gregory Asner of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in Stanford, California, and five […] Read More »
By Robin Meadows
Deer overpopulation is blamed for a host of ecological woes, from wildflower losses to songbird declines. Now there’s an unexpected addition to the list: new research suggests that white-tailed deer have driven black bears to extinction on Québec’s Anticosti Island.
“To my knowledge, this is the first evidence of what appears to […] Read More »
By Robin Meadows
The conventional wisdom that nitrogen pollution threatens biodiversity may be wrong. Rather, the culprit might be too much phosphorus. New research shows that many more endangered plants are still surviving in areas where phosphorus is scarce than in those where nitrogen is scarce, which means these species are more likely to die […] Read More »
By Robin Meadows
New research shows that highways have reduced the genetic diversity of desert bighorn (Ovis canadensis nelsoni) sheep in southern California. The effects of barriers on these at-risk bighorns are particularly dire because the populations live in scattered mountain ranges and so are already naturally isolated.
“Interstate highways, canals, and developed areas, where […] Read More »
By Robin Meadows
Biodiversity could help control West Nile virus (WNV), an untreatable disease that can spread from wild birds to people. The key is that some birds are poor hosts for the virus, and new research suggests that the greater the diversity of these species, the lower the incidence of the disease in […] Read More »
By Robin Meadows
New research shows that chloride levels are rising so fast that many streams in the northeastern U.S. could be toxic to sensitive freshwater life by the next century.
Salt contamination is “one of the most significant threats to the integrity of freshwater ecosystems in the northeastern United States,” say Sujay Kaushal and […] Read More »
By Robin Meadows
January-March 2006 (Vol. 7, No. 1)
Not all biodiversity hotspots are equal. New research shows that for birds, most hotspots are rich in either overall diversity, threatened species, or endemics but that very few are rich in all three types of diversity.
“The different types of hotspots vary greatly in their utility […] Read More »
By Adelheid Fischer
At first glance, it seemed like one of those win-win scenarios. To provide charcoal fuel for its pig iron works, Plantar S.A. Reflorestamentos, a private company in southeastern Brazil, sought to plant 23,000 ha of cloned eucalyptus trees. Using cultivated trees, the company argued, would sequester one metric ton of carbon for […] Read More »
By Joshua Brown
Paula Sullivan’s backyard in Alexandria, Virginia, sits on a cul-de-sac six blocks from the Interstate highway and a few miles from Reagan National Airport. It’s not exactly where John James Audubon would have taken out his paint box.
But for house wrens (Troglodytes aedon) looking to nest, this suburban plot may be […] Read More »
