Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options
This report aims to assess the full impact of the livestock sector on environmental problems, along with potential technical and policy approaches to mitigation. The assessment is based on the most recent and complete data available, taking into account direct impacts, along with the impacts of feed crop agriculture required for livestock production. The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
The 'Bad Apple' of Wetlands Banking
On a broiling August morning, two would-be developers, D. Miller McCarthy and Alan Fickett, turned themselves in at the Polk County Jail. Deputies took their fingerprints and snapped their mug shots. Prosecuters dropped all charges.McCarthy and Fickett reinvented themselves. They launched a company called Ecobank and became the kings of a fledgling industry called wetland mitigation banking, which makes it easier for developers to wipe out swamps and marshes.
Monday, December 18, 2006
When Dry is Wet
Over the past decade, a little-known industry has reaped a billion-dollar bounty by convincing lawmakers it is the answer to saving the nation's wetlands. The promise of the wetland mitigation banking industry - a free-market solution that's good for the environment - pleases politicians of every stripe. "It's a great way to make a living," said Allison DeFoor, who works for a mitigation banker and is vice chairman of the Florida Republican Party. "We're doing the Lord's work and getting paid for it."
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
New Book from the University of Nebraska Press
Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Natural Resource Management examines how traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) is taught and practiced today among Native communities. Of special interest is the complex relationship between indigenous ecological practices and other ways of interacting with the environment, particularly regional and national programs of natural resource management.
Friday, December 01, 2006
Seagrass Ecosystems at a Global Crisis
An international team of scientists is calling for a targeted global conservation effort to preserve seagrasses and their ecological services for the world’s coastal ecosystems, according to an article published in the December issue of Bioscience, the journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS). The article "A Global Crisis for Seagrass Ecosystems" cites the critical role seagrasses play in coastal systems and how costal development, population growth and the resulting increase of nutrient and sediment pollution have contributed to large-scale losses worldwide.
