Palm | Kelapa Sawit

“Continued reliance on a strategy of setting aside land and marine territories as "protected areas" is insufficient to stem global biodiversity loss, according to a comprehensive assessment published today in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series.”

There are five key technical and practical limitations this study states if we continue with heavy reliance on the protected areas strategy to curb biodiversity loss:

• Expected growth in protected area coverage is too slow
• The size and connectivity of protected areas are inadequate
• Protected areas only ameliorate certain human threats
• Underfunding
• Conflicts with human development


The authors underline the correlations between growing world population, natural resources consumption and biodiversity loss triggered by many human stressors. Protecting areas is mainly useful against overexploitation and habitat loss and isn’t addressing other human stressors like climate change, pollution, and invasive species.



According to Peter F. Sale, fellow author and Assistant Director of the United Nations University's Canadian Institute for Water, Environment and Health, “It is important to address the growth in size and consumption rate of our global population.” Both Mora and Sale agree the importance of recognizing our limitations and the heavy reliance we have on protected areas needs to change immediately. Furthermore, they say we need to allocate more time and effort to the difficult issue of human overpopulation and consumption.


"One of the most important things you can do is to keep learning more about our world, its wildlife and the problems it faces."
 For further information on this topic and learn more about this study go to:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-07/unu-ngb072211.php

Landscape Change Leads to Increased Insecticide Use in U.S. Midwest
Recently a study was published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences linking the increased use of insecticides to landscape simplification. Replacing natural habitat with crop land causes an increase in crop pest problems. The continued growth of cropland and loss of natural habitat have increasingly simplified agricultural landscapes in the U.S. Midwest. The cause of pest increases is brought on as the removal of natural habitats destroys the habitat for the beneficial predatory insects. Creating more cropland creates a larger target area for pests giving them what they need to survive and multiply. According to Tim Meehan, the leading author of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, counties with less natural habitat have higher rates of insecticidal use than counties with more areas of natural habitat. It was noted that perennial crops provide a year round habitat for insects, birds and other animals, which are beneficial to the area.
More on this article:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110711151455.htm


Simplified landscapes, with lots of cropland and little natural habitat, promote crop pest problems and increased use of insecticides. (Credit: Illustration courtesy of Tim Meehan, UW-Madsion)

Fewer Aphids in Organic Crop Fields, Study Finds
According to the results in a study done by the Department of Animal Ecology & Tropical Biology, conventional triticale fields treated with insecticides to kill off aphids does not show any improvement and produces a bigger problem as aphid numbers increase. The problem is when fields are treated with insecticides it not only kills off the aphids but it also kills their natural enemies. They compared this to an organic crop field where they discovered three times the amount of natural enemies and five times fewer aphids.
Read the article at:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110713101944.htm

By Carol Staats

What are Biodiversity Hotspots?
The concept of biodiversity hotspots was penned by British ecologist Norman Myers in 1988.        
        • Myers reasoned that a prudent conservation strategy would be to target dollars and research at those
          regions where these threats are greatest to the greatest number of species.

 Due to limited resources and time in the mid 1990s, Meyers with partners at Conservation International worked out a formula that would designate a hotspot and strategize how they would go about tackling the protection of species.
        • The region must support at least 1,500 plant species found nowhere else in the world.
        • It must have lost at least 70 percent of its original habitat.

Conservationists Name Nine New "Biodiversity Hotspots"
  Nine new "biodiversity hotspots” were named by conservationists. These regions are priorities due to their incredible species richness that has been under constant assault from human activity. All nine of these biodiversity hotspots have lost at least 70 percent of their original natural habitat. About half of all the plant and animal species on Earth are found in these hotspots, which originally covered 15.7 percent of the Earth's surface area. Hotspots are home to 24 families of plants and animals that cannot be found anywhere else in the world. Only about a tenth of their original habitat remains. Their ecosystems account for a high percentage of global biodiversity. Scientists say many of these regions face tremendous pressure from logging, agriculture, hunting, and climate change.

Base map source: USGS National Atlas. http://www.fs.fed.us/monarchbutterfly/migration/index.shtml

Another Hotspot is the Madrean pine-oak woodlands,
a rugged mountainous area that stretches from Mexico
to the southwestern United States. 

Patricio Robles Gil/Sierra Madre  Pinyon pine forest in the Chisos Mountains, Big Bend National Park, Texas.


 A book titled, Hotspot Revisited, details a four year analysis of its global hotspot strategy for biodiversity conservation. It was launched by Conservation International which is based in Washington DC for the purpose of identifying which hotspots are most affected and label them for preserving species threatened by extinction. By focusing attention on these regions, conservationists hope to maximize their efforts at saving as many species as possible from extinction. Michael Hoffmann, a biodiversity analyst with Conservation International and a contributing author to Hotspots Revisited, explained, "We need to have a guideline of where to go, and it helps us focus our attention on areas that are important and disappearing quickly”. He states that about 750 million U.S. dollars has gone into biodiversity hotspot conservation over the past 15 years. However, he noted many hotspots are experiencing low success. According to Conservation International some biodiversity hotspots are deteriorating rapidly and facing vigorous commercial logging and agriculture expansion. Failure to protect hotspots will result in the loss of nearly 50 percent of our Earth's plants and terrestrial vertebrates.

To read more about this article:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/02/0202_050202_hotspots.html

By Carol Staats

 Edward J. Otten wrote many articles on the Effect of Human Population on Biodiversity. He states that according to Erhlich’s theory, humans must voluntarily control their numbers or nature will definitely control them. (through methods that are unpleasant for humans). The rapid rise of growth in the human population is having a grave impact on biodiversity. The destruction of other species by humans will ultimately lead to the destruction of the human species through natural selection.

This global impact is taking place through five primary processes:         

Furthermore, Otten explains the nature of human beings is to control their environment as much as possible, this is what allows us to spread to new habitat and obtain new food sources. However, during the 18th century a combination of scientific, technical, and industrial innovations enabled humans to overharvest not just land animals, but fish, whales, birds and any other species humans could find use for. The technologies of these tools, like harpoons, gunpowder, and driftnets have allowed us to harvest species much faster than they could replace or reproduce themselves. (Otten)

Image from Hawaii http://www.opala.org/solid_waste/Illegal_Dumping_Laws.html

Humans have an advantage and are the most mobile of all species; able to live pretty much anywhere on earth. When traveling from place to place we have often transported other species with us introducing alien species into a new environment where there aren't any natural controls. Hawaii is an example of such devastation. Prior to the arrival of humans Hawaii had thousands of species of birds, invertebrates, and plants that could not be found anywhere else on earth. Since the introduction of rats, pigs, dogs, mongoose and many non-native species of plants, over half the bird species and snail species have gone extinct. (Otten)


As we delve further and further into the marketing tactic of greenwashing, I decided to check out Live Earth. For those who do not recall Live Earth is Al Gore's concert round the world that, in 2007, coordinated concerts in countries such as the U.S., England, Japan, Australia and more. The intent of the concerts were to raise awareness about the global climate shift, as well as encourage less wasteful policies in international business, relations, etc.,. Not surprisingly, an event requiring coordination from multinational for profit corporations such as GE (parent company to NBC Universal where many of the concerts were broadcast), produced an estimated 74,500 metric tons of waste according to a John Buckley of Carbon Footprint and cited in this article at England's Daily Mail.
By comparison, cites the same article, the average Briton, produces 10 metric tons of waste (approx. 22,000 pounds) annually. For us yanks, the 74,500 metric tons equals 163,900,000 pounds of waste. Americans, on average, produce 20 tons of waste equaling 40,000 pounds annually a statistic found here. These numbers are quite staggering considering the concert is meant to be an indicator of change, to help slow global warming. Instead, it would seem the situation will only be exacerbated by any future concerts. In fact there was another Live Earth concert scheduled to take place this December in India, but it was canceled after the terrorist attacks in Mumbai late last week for fear of security issues.
One of the harshest factors is the insistence on the part of many stars to fly in personal jets to their locations. In the research mentioned at the aforementioned Daily Mail article, it is revealed that five of the headlining acts of last year's Live Earth concerts had carbon footprints approaching 2000 metric tons annually. Many celebrities have purchased carbon credits to attempt to offset their carbon production, but these actions may be relatively empty as carbon credits can be purchased at a variety of locations and have differing value.
Ultimately, Live Earth is only reflective of the ideology that global greening and enviro-friendly movements don't have to stand in the way of corporate business and in fact, according to GE Executive Lorraine Bolsinger, quoted here, "what's good for the environment can be good for business, and what's good for business can be good for the environment." The operative word of course being "can."
OTHER RESOURCE(S): Alive Earth - A grassroots alternative to Live Earth.

posted by Jeff Hammond

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