biodiversity

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And Winter Broke

By Cristina Eisenberg / On March 31st, 2011
In March I participated in a University of Nebraska literary retreat at the Platte River Whooping Crane Maintenance Trust. It was the climax of spring migration on the river, where sandhill cranes pause to feed during their 5,000 mile journey from Mexico to as far as Siberia. I spent my time there ensconced in a primitive blind with several eminent poets, bearing witness to the cranes' sempiternal return. Fossil evidence suggests that cranes have been stopping at this place on their journey north for the past 10 million years.
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Is There a Silver Lining to Our Environmental Actions?

By Dominick A. DellaSala / On March 21st, 2011
Is There a Silver Lining to Our Environmental Actions? Recent human and environmental crises are a stark reminder that we are all connected by the vast meridians spanning planet earth. We share the same atmosphere, affected by the same hydrological and climatic systems, and therefore are vulnerable to the waste products we spew. With population levels expected to rise to 9 billion by century’s end, what kind of planet are we leaving for our children and is there hope for a better future?
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A Conchera Speaks

By Kennedy Warne / On March 18th, 2011
In May 2009 I set out on a two-month “state-of-the-forests” mangrove tour of the Americas. I wanted to document the plight of mangroves in the region and assess the impact of their loss on the thousands of coastal people who rely on these forests for food, shelter and livelihoods.
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Victory for the Tongass Rainforest

By Dominick A. DellaSala / On March 11th, 2011
On March 7, a federal judge in Anchorage ruled in favor of the Organized Village of Kake and conservation groups in reinstating the roadless rule on the 7 million hectare (17 million acre) Tongass National Forest. The judge’s ruling strikes down the 2003 Bush Administration’s decision to “temporarily” exempt the Tongass from the national roadless rule that protects nearly 24 million hectares (60 million acres) of some of the nation’s wildest areas.
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Wild Ibis Chase

By Kennedy Warne / On March 11th, 2011
In May 2009 I set out on a two-month “state-of-the-forests” mangrove tour of the Americas. I wanted to document the plight of mangroves in the region and assess the impact of their loss on the thousands of coastal people who rely on these forests for food, shelter and livelihoods.

Restoring Pacific Salmon Makes Dollars and Sense

By Dominick A. DellaSala / On March 10th, 2011
Pacific salmon are the iconic temperate rainforest species connecting ocean, freshwater, and terrestrial systems, and joining people to the great outdoors. They are a keystone species, on the menu of American bald eagles and grizzly bears of the Great Bear Rainforest, coastal wolves of Alaska and British Columbia, and millions of people that depend on healthy fish runs in the clean, cool water that salmon thrive in.
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Tapioca and Antarctica

By Kennedy Warne / On March 9th, 2011
In May 2009 I set out on a two-month “state-of-the-forests” mangrove tour of the Americas. I wanted to document the plight of mangroves in the region and assess the impact of their loss on the thousands of coastal people who rely on these forests for food, shelter and livelihoods.
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Moving Conservation to the Landscape Scale

By Admin / On February 14th, 2011
Parks, like Yellowstone National Park, and wildlife reserves, are the traditional models for conserving large tracts of land. But as the effects of climate change and development encroaches, it’s now clear that even large, protected tracts aren’t protection enough to help preserve biodiversity. As Nature pointed out in a recent editorial:
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Human Impacts on Natural Systems

By Cristina Eisenberg / On January 17th, 2011
As a conservation biologist, I study the ecological effects of wolves on food webs, focusing on their primary prey (elk) and the foods their prey eat (aspens). My work takes place in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, which has many bears in it. Doing wolf research provides essential lessons about the web of life and coexisting with bears.
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Going Postal on Junk Mail to Save Rainforests

By Dominick A. DellaSala / On January 14th, 2011
Have you gotten that uncontrollable urge to send junk mail back to where it came from? We all have some inkling of protest as we sift through the endless stream of junk mail that arrives in our mailbox every day. Marketing distributors of junk mail have become a consumer pipeline transporting forests to their inevitable resting place at the local refuse dump. The good news is you can stop the madness, but it takes some determination, and maybe save the rainforests with it.

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