21 reasons why forests are important Forests cover a third of all land on Earth, providing vital organic infrastructure for some of the planet's densest, most diverse collections of life. They support countless species as well as 1.6 billion human livelihoods, yet humans are also responsible for 32 million acres of deforestation every year. The United Nations declared March 21 the International Day of Forests in late 2012, part of a global effort to publicize both the value and plight of woodlands around the world. It was first celebrated March 21, 2013, nestling in between the U.N.'s International Day of Happiness on March 20 and World Water Day March 22. (It's also near tree-centric Tu B'Shevat in January 2016 and Arbor Day in April).
The ARIES approach Overview With growing interest in using ecosystem services for decision making, demand has grown for systematic methods and tools to quantify ecosystem service values. ARIES maps the potential provision of ecosystem services (sources), their users (use), and biophysical features that can deplete service flows (sinks) using ecological process models or Bayesian models. ARIES then uses a series of agent-based flow algorithms to map actual service flow from ecosystems to people. Integrated modeling platform UK BAP The UK Biodiversity Action Plan (UK BAP) was published back in 1994, and was the UK Government’s response to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which the UK signed up to in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro. The UK was the first country to produce a national biodiversity action plan, and the UK BAP described the biological resources of the UK and provided detailed plans for conservation of these resources. Action plans for the most threatened species and habitats were set out to aid recovery, and national reports, produced every three- to five-years, showed how the UK BAP was contributing to the UK’s progress towards the significant reduction of biodiversity loss called for by the CBD.
Tony Abbott's Tasmanian wilderness claim doesn't check out - Fact Check Updated Tue 8 Apr 2014, 5:22pm AEST The Federal Government has applied to have sections of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area delisted by the United Nations. If successful, tens of thousands of hectares of land could be reopened to logging and other activities.
Global biodiversity information facility Try out the new GBIF portal! Why not try out the new GBIF portal at www.gbif.org, which has many more features and includes lots of information about the GBIF community, including great examples of data uses in research and interesting applications? The old GBIF data portal which you are viewing now will continue to be supported until we are satisfied it can be taken down without causing major inconvenience. Be aware that the content here is static and has not been updated since the launch of the new portal on 9 October 2013.
LBAP Partnerships - Biodiversity Scotland Local Biodiversity Action Plan Partnerships were set up in the UK as part of Britain's response to ratifying the Convention on Biological Diversity following the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. Each partnership is made up of a number of organisations, from one (or more) local authority area with a balance of national agencies and organisations and more local biodiversity expertise. Local authorities normally play host to a biodiversity officer for the partnership other than in the Loch Lomond & Trossachs and Cairngorms National Parks which have their own distinct plans and biodiversity officers.
Fungus governs soil’s carbon content By Tim Radford The soil stores the greater part of the Earth’s carbon. Just how much it stores is determined largely by what sort of fungi live in the roots of plants and trees, researchers have found. HERMES: Hotspot Ecosystem Research on the Margins of European Seas HERMES - an international, multidisciplinary research programme investigating Europe's deep marine ecosystems and their environment Funded by the European Commission, HERMES brought together expertise in biodiversity, geology, sedimentology, physical oceanography, microbiology and biogeochemistry so to better understand the relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. HERMES study sites extend from the Arctic to the Black Sea and include biodiversity hotspots such as cold seeps, cold-water coral mounds and reefs, canyons and anoxic environments, and communities found on open slopes. These important systems were chosen as a focus for research due to their possible biological fragility, unique genetic resources, global relevance to carbon cycling and susceptibility to global change and human impact. HERMES started work in April 2005, and ran for 4 years, with completion in March 2009.
Species 2000 - About Species 2000 A brief description of the Species 2000 programme Species 2000 is a "federation" of database organisations working closely with users, taxonomists and sponsoring agencies. Memorandum and Articles of Association of Species 2000, 11 December 1997Register of the Members The goal of the Species 2000 project is to create a validated checklist of all the world's species (plants, animals, fungi and microbes).
Gone feral: The cats devouring our wildlife A camera trap captures a feral cat that has killed a Pale Field Rat. Photo: Australian Wildlife Conservancy A cat moves through the tall grass with a small, squirming rodent in its mouth. Tree of Life Web Project The Tree of Life Web Project (ToL) is a collaborative effort of biologists and nature enthusiasts from around the world. On more than 10,000 World Wide Web pages, the project provides information about biodiversity, the characteristics of different groups of organisms, and their evolutionary history (phylogeny). Each page contains information about a particular group, e.g., salamanders, segmented worms, phlox flowers, tyrannosaurs, euglenids, Heliconius butterflies, club fungi, or the vampire squid. ToL pages are linked one to another hierarchically, in the form of the evolutionary tree of life. Starting with the root of all Life on Earth and moving out along diverging branches to individual species, the structure of the ToL project thus illustrates the genetic connections between all living things.
Pricing the Environment: How can the environment be priced? - Articles Trees: finding their true value Nancy Beckham As far as I know, the first scientist to attempt estimating the monetary value of a tree was' Professor T M Das of the University of Calcutta. His paper was published in Indian Biologist, Vol XI, No. 1-2, 1979.