by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Sep 7, 2012 | Agriculture, Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction
By Agence France-Presse
A large palm oil plantation project in development in Cameroon since 2010 will put livelihoods and ecosystems in peril if allowed to continue, a US-based think-tank warned Wednesday.
“With the loss of livelihoods by thousands of Cameroonians on the line and critical and unique ecosystems in peril, this project must be stopped,” the Oakland Institute said in a report Wednesday.
Authoured in collaboration with Greenpeace International, the report said the project from SG Sustainable Oils Cameroon (SGSOC) was a case of massive deforestation disguised as a sustainable development project.
In 2009, Cameroon granted SGSOC, a subsidiary of US firm Herakles Farms, over 73,000 hectares (180,000 acres) of land in the country’s southwest to develop the plantation and refinery through a 99-year land lease.
But much of the project area is in a “biodiversity hotspot” that “serves as a vital corridor between five different protected areas,” the institute said.
It added that many locals fear the plantation would “restrict their access to lands held by their ancestors for generations” or that they would “lose land for farming as well as access to critical natural resources and forest products.”
In April, “11 of the world’s top scientists issued an open letter urging the Cameroonian government to stop the project that they say will threaten some of Africa’s most important protected areas,” the think-tank said.
But Bruce Wrobel, CEO of Herakles Farms, told the institute that “our project, should it proceed, will be a big project with big impacts — environmentally and socially.”
“I couldn’t be more convinced that this will be an amazingly positive story for the people within our impact area,” he was quoted saying in the report.
From Agence France-Presse:
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | May 15, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction
By Jeremy Hance / Mongabay
In 48 years wildlife populations in the tropics, the region that holds the bulk of the world’s biodiversity, have fallen by an alarming 61 percent, according to the most recent update to the Living Planet Index. Produced by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), the index currently tracks almost 10,000 populations of 2,688 vertebrate species (including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish) in both the tropics and temperate regions.
“Much as a stock market index measures the state of the market by tracking changes in […] a selection of companies, changes in abundance (i.e., the total number of individuals in a given population) across a selection of species can be used as one important indicator of the planet’s ecological condition,” the report reads.
Between 1970 to 2008, species abundance in the tropics fell by 44 percent on land, 62 percent in the oceans, and 70 percent in freshwater environments, culminating in an average loss of 1.25 percent every year since the baseline was set in 1970. Wildlife populations are declining due to a number of large-scale human impacts including ongoing deforestation, habitat degradation, overexploitation for food or medicine, pollution, agricultural, overfishing, invasive species, disease, climate change, dams, mining, and other industrial projects.
The report also examines impacts in particular regions. Wildlife populations in tropical Africa have dropped by 38 percent, by half in the Neotropics (Central and South America) by half, and by 64 percent in the Indo-Pacific (including India, Southeast Asia, Australia, and Pacific Islands). This is perhaps not surprising since the world’s highest deforestation levels are in Southeast Asia.”These declines reflect large-scale forest and other habitat loss across these realms, driven by logging, growing human populations, and agricultural, industrial and urban developments,” the report reads.In the Neotropics, recent years have seen amphibians decimated by a fungal disease. The disease, known as chytridiomycosis, is not only cutting populations down but also pushing dozens of species to extinction.
“This report is like a planetary check-up and the results indicate we have a very sick planet. Ignoring this diagnosis will have major implications for humanity. We can restore the planet’s health, but only through addressing the root causes, population growth and over-consumption of resources,” Jonathan Baillie, conservation program director with the Zoological Society of London said in a press release.
Biodiversity provides many services to global society, including pollination, carbon sequestration, food production, soil health, and life-saving medicines among others, although few of these ‘ecosystem services’ are yet recognized by the global market.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | May 2, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction
By Jeremy Hance / Mongabay
For decades scientists have been warning that if global society continues with “business-as-usual” practices the result will be a mass extinction of the world’s species, an extinction event some researchers say is already underway. However, the direct impacts of global biodiversity loss has been more difficult to compile. Now a new study in Nature finds that loss of plant biodiversity could cripple overall plant growth.
“Some people have assumed that biodiversity effects are relatively minor compared to other environmental stressors,” lead author David Hooper with Western Washington University said in a press release. “Our new results show that future loss of species has the potential to reduce plant production just as much as global warming and pollution.”
Looking at nearly 200 studies, the researchers compiled data on how primary production, i.e. plant growth, and decomposition are impacted by biodiversity loss in a wide-variety of ecosystems. According to the study, it depends on the magnitude of biodiversity loss. If up to 20 percent of the world’s plant species are lost, the impact on growth will be “negligible” says the study. However if 21-40 percent of the world’s plants vanish, primary production would be hit to the tune of 5-10 percent, and if half the world’s plant species vanish, primary production will fall by 13 percent. Some biologists have warned that species could be halved by the end of this century.
“Our analyses suggest that biodiversity loss in the 21st century could rank among the major drivers of ecosystem change,” the authors write, noting that a 13 percent loss in primary production compares to the impact of anthropogenic climate change on primary production.
While scientists found that the overall loss in decomposition was generally less than primary production, it was still worrisome. Moreover, the lopsided nature in which biodiversity loss impacts production over decomposition could hamper ecosystems’ ability to sequester carbon.
“Species loss ranks among the major drivers of primary production and decomposition—key processes involved in the carbon cycle and the provisioning of many ecosystem services,” the authors write.
The paper is buoyed by a number of recent studies which have shown that the more biodiverse an ecosystem, the more productive it is.
Complicating the situation is the fact that the world is not just facing mass extinction, but a wide variety of global environmental issues including climate change, nutrient pollution, and ozone loss.
“The biggest challenge looking forward is to predict the combined impacts of these environmental challenges to natural ecosystems and to society,” says co-author J. Emmett Duffy of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Apr 10, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, NEWS
By Oregon State University
A survey on the loss in the Northern Hemisphere of large predators, particularly wolves, concludes that current populations of moose, deer, and other large herbivores far exceed their historic levels and are contributing to disrupted ecosystems.
The research, published today by scientists from Oregon State University, examined 42 studies done over the past 50 years.
It found that the loss of major predators in forest ecosystems has allowed game animal populations to greatly increase, crippling the growth of young trees and reducing biodiversity. This also contributes to deforestation and results in less carbon sequestration, a potential concern with climate change.
“These issues do not just affect the United States and a few national parks,” said William Ripple, an OSU professor of forestry and lead author of the study. “The data from Canada, Alaska, the Yukon, Northern Europe and Asia are all showing similar results. There’s consistent evidence that large predators help keep populations of large herbivores in check, with positive effects on ecosystem health.”
Densities of large mammalian herbivores were six times greater in areas without wolves, compared to those in which wolves were present, the researchers concluded. They also found that combinations of predators, such as wolves and bears, can create an important synergy for moderating the size of large herbivore populations.
“Wolves can provide food that bears scavenge, helping to maintain a healthy bear population,” said Robert Beschta, a professor emeritus at OSU and co-author of the study. “The bears then often prey on young moose, deer or elk – in Yellowstone more young elk calves are killed by bears than by wolves, coyotes and cougars combined.”
In Europe, the coexistence of wolves with lynx also resulted in lower deer densities than when wolves existed alone.
In recent years, OSU researchers have helped lead efforts to understand how major predators help to reduce herbivore population levels, improve ecosystem function and even change how herbivores behave when they feel threatened by predation – an important aspect they call the “ecology of fear.”
“In systems where large predators remain, they appear to have a major role in sustaining the diversity and productivity of native plant communities, thus maintaining healthy ecosystems,” said Beschta. “When the role of major predators is more fully appreciated, it may allow managers to reconsider some of their assumptions about the management of wildlife.”
In Idaho and Montana, hundreds of wolves are now being killed in an attempt to reduce ranching conflicts and increase game herd levels.
The new analysis makes clear that the potential beneficial ecosystem effects of large predators is far more pervasive, over much larger areas, than has often been appreciated.
It points out how large predators can help maintain native plant communities by keeping large herbivore densities in check, allow small trees to survive and grow, reduce stream bank erosion, and contribute to the health of forests, streams, fisheries and other wildlife.
It also concludes that human hunting, due to its limited duration and impact, is not effective in preventing hyper-abundant densities of large herbivores. This is partly “because hunting by humans is often not functionally equivalent to predation by large, wide-ranging carnivores such as wolves,” the researchers wrote in their report.
“More studies are necessary to understand how many wolves are needed in managed ecosystems,” Ripple said. “It is likely that wolves need to be maintained at sufficient densities before we see their resulting effects on ecosystems.”
The research was published online today in the European Journal of Wildlife Research, a professional journal.
“The preservation or recovery of large predators may represent an important conservation need for helping to maintain the resiliency of northern forest ecosystems,” the researchers concluded, “especially in the face of a rapidly changing climate.”
From Oregon State University Relations and Marketing: http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2012/apr/loss-predators-northern-hemisphere-affecting-ecosystem-health
Photo by M L on Unsplash
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 29, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction
By Emmanuel Barraud / Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
To alter natural waterways is to take a serious risk of endangering species living on the entire length of a river. In a joint project, scientists from EPFL, EAWAG and Princeton University have modeled the flow of organisms living along river networks. Their research will be published this week in the journal PNAS.
Rivers and riverbanks are worlds in themselves; they are teeming with a rich and varied diversity of plant and animal life. But humans are constantly modifying this environment. Enormous projects such as canals, drainage, dams, diversions, and vegetation introduction have been undertaken to reclaim land and divert or obtain access to water.
It is now possible to precisely measure the impact of these alterations on riparian (river zone) biodiversity. Laboratory experiments using microorganisms have demonstrated the relevance of mathematical models that analyze the evolution of populations in these specific situations. The research, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), was conducted by scientists from EPFL, EAWAG (the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology) and Princeton University.
Their conclusions should lead to increased caution when considering the alteration of riverbeds. The researchers showed that the observed biodiversity at a given point in the river is highly dependent on all the smaller tributaries feeding into it, and not uniquely on the specific conditions at that particular location. Channeling a branch of a tributary doesn’t just harm the fauna in that stretch of the tributary, but could have consequences on the entire river, even several kilometers downstream.
A river network in the lab
In their experiment, the scientists used trays, each holding 36 boxes of culture media, into which they distributed ten different species of microorganisms (protozoans and rotifers). In one case, they removed the water and its inhabitants from one box and transferred it to another, following a “dendritic” network based on the real path of an actual river and its tributaries. In the other case, they systematically pipetted it into the four closest boxes. “The organisms chosen allowed us to observe the evolution of populations over 50-100 generations, which took a month,” explains Francesco Carrara, a PhD student in EPFL’s Ecohydrology Laboratory (ECHO) and first author on the paper.
By simplifying the mechanism of the river network in this way, and by eliminating numerous parameters that are impossible to control in a natural setting, the researchers could obtain a precise picture of the direct effects of the network itself on the development and propagation of species. “We were thus able to experimentally prove the relevance of mathematical models that we had already applied to the Mississippi, the Amazon and the Rhine,” says Professor Andrea Rinaldo, director of the ECHO Laboratory.
The main conclusion of the research is that an evolution that follows a branched network ends up yielding a much higher variety of species at locations where waters come together. But that’s not all: populations that live close to the “sources” of each tributary also exhibit a much broader degree of diversity. According to the scientists, maintaining this rich upstream community is indispensable for the development of downstream biodiversity.
It is thus now proven that choking off any of these tributaries or modifying any hydrologic network could compromise the natural balance and downstream biodiversity – a fact that can no longer be ignored by anyone considering water management projects that would alter natural waterways.
From PhysOrg: http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-03-natural-river-networks-essential-biodiversity.html
