Cool Green Budget: What’s Good for Nature in FY2011
One of these days I hope to write a blog about accompanying a Nature Conservancy scientist in exploring an isolated forest cove in Tennessee and discovering a graceful new orchid species growing near the entrance of a cave.
Ecosystem services - it’s an easier concept to turn into practical actions than biodiversity
"The climate alters the natural environments people are used to. Deciding what to protect is an ethical problem," says research scientist Markku Kanninen.
Report: British Columbia to spent 50% of it's land for forest conservation
Nature, Carbon and Climate Change in British Columbia by Dr. Jim Pojar; Commissioned by the Working Group on Biodiversity, Forests and Climate, an alliance of ENGOs including ForestEthics
"Cutting down the worlds forests is responsible for about a fifth of global carbon emissions, but what many people may not realise is that this is linked to the illegal trade in timber. This is a major problem for many timber-producing countries in the developing world. It not only causes environmental damage, but costs governments billions of dollars in lost revenue, often involving corruption and funds armed conflict."
Coal Exploitation Threatens Ecology In East Kalimantan
SAMARINDA, Jan 18 (Bernama) -- Business oriented coal exploitations in East Kalimantan are threatening the local ecology, Indonesia's Antara news agency reported, citing environment observer Abrianto Amin as saying here on Sunday.
"Ecological balance will be seriously threatened if coal exploitations are exclusively oriented to commercial aspects, and the social and environmental sectors are ignored," he stressed.
Guwahati, Jan. 18: The French development agency, Agence Française de Développement, has given the go ahead to the Assam forest department to undertake a feasibility study of the Rs 450-crore Assam project on forestry and bio-diversity conservation.
PES, Present, and Future: the Year in Environmental Finance
2009 opened with the formation of a new Office of Ecosystem Services and Markets and closed with a disappointing Copenhagen Accord that nonetheless included provisions for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. EM takes a brief look back on the year in PES and the decade it capped off.
2009 may prove to be an important turning point for tropical forests.
Lead by Brazil, which had the lowest extent of deforestation since at least the 1980s, global forest loss likely declined to its lowest level in more than a decade. Critical to the fall in deforestation was the global financial crisis, which dried up credit for forest-destroying activities and contributed to a crash in commodity prices, an underlying driver of deforestation.