Policy and Social Issues
Flying Solo
The Conservation Hero Re-examined
Eco Barons: The Dreamers, Schemers, and Millionaires Who Are Saving Our Planet
By Edward Humes, Ecco Press 2009.
Review by Florence Williams
How important are individuals to social change? The question has been a topic of lively debate since at least the Enlightenment. In Eco Barons: The [...]
Bat tunnels
Special highway underpasses restore bat migrations
Blinded by the Light
Skyscrapers, gravestones, and oil slicks create a new kind of light pollution
Wrongful death
Culling buffalo to prevent disease transmission may be overkill
Kilpatrick, A.M. et al. 2009. Wildlife-livestock conflict: the risk of pathogen transmission from bison to cattle outside Yellowstone National Park. Journal of Applied Ecology. DOI:10.1111/j.1365-2664.2008.01602.x.
So much for “home on the range.” When heavy snow forces Yellowstone bison to move down to nearby ranchlands, wildlife managers try [...]
Under Siege
War zones and biodiversity hotspots overlap
Hanson, T. et al. 2009. Warfare in biodiversity hotspots. Conservation Biology DOI: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2009.01166.x
Not even conservation areas are safe from war. Eighty percent of the 146 armed conflicts occurring between 1950 and 2000 took place within the world’s biodiversity hotspots, according to a study in Conservation Biology.
To reach this conclusion, researchers [...]
Not So Silent Spring
As humans drown out nature’s precisely partitioned symphony of cries, clicks, and calls, researchers may be witnessing the first steps in an evolutionary shakeup
The Mushroom Messiah
Five ways mushrooms can save the world
Watch Your Step
Even low-impact recreation scares off key predators
Reed, S.E. and A.M. Merenlender. 2008. Quiet, nonconsumptive recreation reduces protected area effectiveness. Conservation Letters 1(3):146–154.
Conservationists often hail nature-based recreation and ecotourism as critical tools in the fight to preserve wild lands. This support is based on the assumption that many recreational activities have little impact on parks and [...]
Living on the Edge
Human population soars near protected areas
Wittemyer, G. et al. 2008. Accelerated human population growth at protected area edges. Science 321:123–126.
Human populations in areas adjoining nature reserves grow faster than in other areas. And, in a surprising twist, this growth is not due to people moving out of newly protected areas and then populating their boundaries. [...]
The Problem of What to Eat
Organic farming and eating locally make intuitive sense. But does conventional wisdom about eating sustainably hold up to the science?
By Natasha Loder, Elizabeth Finkel, Craig Meisner, and Pamela Ronald
July-September 2008 (Vol. 9, No. 3)
At first glance, it doesn’t seem that tough a question. Organic farming and eating locally make intuitive sense. Yet does [...]