The Business Times

August 29, 2020
When we hear the names "Rio", "Cartagena", "Nagoya" or "Aichi" we think about cities but not about biodiversity. When we hear the word "coronavirus" all of us have many associations - but few of us would think immediately about biodiversity either. This is a missed opportunity.

Coronavirus will not be a one-off event. The number and diversity of epidemic events has been increasing over the past 30 years and the WHO reckons that over 60 per cent of infectious diseases reported globally have been "zoonotic" in nature, meaning that they were spread from animals to humans - as appears to have been the case with the current coronavirus. Not surprising, powerful global changes, such as growth in connectivity, growth of urbanisation with high-density living, increased deforestation as well as growing displacement of people and climate change, reinforce this development.

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Mongabay

August 28, 2020
Despite surging forest fires and deforestation in Earth’s largest rainforest, Brazil’s Ministry of the Environment announced it will suspend all operations to combat illegal deforestation and fire in the Amazon and Pantanal on Monday, August 31.

In a statement published on its official web site, the ministry said it would demobilize staff and resources across two agencies: the environmental protection agency IBAMA and the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio). The suspension affects 1,805 firefighters, 401 inspectors, six helicopters, 144 vehicles, and ten aircraft.

The ministry said the decision is a product of a federal budget cut of 60.6 million Brazilian reais ($11.26 million).

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Business Green

August 28, 2020
Investors and businesses seeking guidance on how to harness nature based solutions to boost profits and meet sustainability objectives can draw on a new report, titled Nature based solutions to the climate crisis, published yesterday by the Manchester-based Ignition project.

The report analyses a range of nature-based solutions to construction and urban planning challenges: street trees, green roofs and walls, urban parks and green spaces, and sustainable drainage systems.

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Santa Barbara Independent

August 27, 2020
In the 1960s, Costa Rica had one of the highest population growth rates in the world at almost 4 percent. This caused major concern among demographers. Through changes in policy and education, the rate has steadily dropped until today it is slightly below 1 percent, less than replacement level.

On another front, Costa Rica has similarly achieved a remarkable turnaround. In the 1940s, 75 percent of the country was covered in rainforest, cloud forest, and mangrove. Over the next 40 years, more than half of all trees were logged; the country had the highest deforestation rate in the American hemisphere in the ’70s and ‘’80s. Starting in the 1990s, a forest conservation and restoration program was initiated based on the strategy of valuing forests by paying for their services, known as Payment for Environmental Services (PES).

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New Straits Times

August 20, 2020
In a few weeks, the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity will release a final report card on the world's 20 biodiversity targets, set back in 2010 for achievement by this year. According to all predictions, we have made progress, but largely missed those pledges, as we did the decade before, when the world agreed to stem the rate of biodiversity loss.

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Independent.ie

August 19, 2020
The Earth is running a high fever, not only from the Covid-19 pandemic but from climate change. This summer, Svalbard experienced its highest-ever recorded temperatures, causing the Arctic archipelago's glaciers to shrink away into growing turquoise meltwaters. And night sweats from the heavy monsoons that pummelled the foothills of the Himalayas resulted in floods and the displacement of millions.

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Protected Planet

August 12, 2020
Liveability, sustainability, resilience and equity; goals that frame countless discussions in city halls across the world. Yet how often are these goals considered in the context of protected areas for nature within and around the city?

We know protected areas generate flows of goods and services that benefit all of us: medicine, food, clean air and fresh water. They buffer the effects of climate change: heat stress, flash flooding and storm surges. They give meaning to proud cultures and create a sense of place and belonging for communities. They are learning places, exciting places, places for adventure where real beauty can be experienced away from screens and technology. Yet rapid urbanisation and sub-urbanisation in many parts of the world is placing them under mounting pressure.

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Our Daily Planet

August 9, 2020
Yesterday was the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples.  In recognition of that, and the key role Indigenous peoples are playing in the conservation movement today in the U.S. and globally, we sat down with Raina Thiele, who is Dena’ina Athabascan, and Yup’ik, and has worked at the highest levels of government on Tribal outreach and issues. She now runs her own business and serves as an advisor on Indigenous issues to the Campaign for Nature.

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The Guardian

August 5, 2020
The human destruction of natural ecosystems increases the numbers of rats, bats and other animals that harbour diseases that can lead to pandemics such as Covid-19, a comprehensive analysis has found.

The research assessed nearly 7,000 animal communities on six continents and found that the conversion of wild places into farmland or settlements often wipes out larger species. It found that the damage benefits smaller, more adaptable creatures that also carry the most pathogens that can pass to humans.

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BBC Future

August 3, 2020
After defaulting on its substantial national debt, the Seychelles was offered an unusual deal.

Located around 1,600 kilometres (994 miles) off the coast of East Africa, the Seychelles is an ecological paradise. The archipelago of 115 lush and rocky islands sits amongst vast swathes of ocean, covering some 1.35 million square kilometres (521,000 square miles). They’re home to some of the world’s last pristine coral reefs and are teeming with endangered species, including the southern fin whale and the Indian Ocean’s only dugongs – large marine mammals also known as “sea cows”.

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Project Syndicate

July 31, 2020
Natural systems like the massive Sundarbans mangrove forest in India and Bangladesh are not just home to millions of plant and animal species that deserve protection from human encroachment. They are also crucial sources of economic output and resilience, demanding far more protection than they currently receive.

When Cyclone Amphan came barreling up the Bay of Bengal this past May, South Asia’s first named storm of the year appeared to pose a massive threat to the people who live on the coastal floodplains and to the animals and plants – including many endangered species – that rely on these sensitive ecosystems. But nature came to the region’s rescue.

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edie

July 27, 2020
Scientists have mapped the entirety of the planet's terrestrial habitat, creating a resource that will help businesses and investors measure and minimize their impacts on natural resources and biodiversity.

The map, which claims to be the first of its kind, was published in the journal Biological Conservation late last week following extensive research from scientists at the UN’s Environment Programme arm (UNEP). Before its publication, such in-depth data was only available for areas classed as ‘protected’ and ‘key for biodiversity, which are accountable for just 15.1% and 8.8% of land respectively.

It maps whether each square kilometre of land is classified as ‘natural’ or ‘modified’ – natural habitats being those which have not been created by humans or significantly altered by development activity. As such, users can identify where existing projects can be expanded, or new ones began, with the smallest impact on habitats possible.

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Mongabay

July 23, 2020
As COVID-19 wreaks havoc on the world’s people and the global economy, a group of international researchers is looking to the future. Their ground-breaking work underscores the immense economic benefits of expanding global protected areas to include 30% of the world’s land and oceans in order to accelerate recovery from the pandemic.

The report, authored by more than 100 economists and environmentalists for the advocacy group Campaign for Nature and published earlier this month, claims to be the first analysis ever to measure the economic benefits and costs of protecting 30% of the planet’s land and seas. The U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity included this 30% protected area goal as part of its ten-year conservation strategy which is expected to be ratified by 196 countries at an international summit in Kunming, China, next year.

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African Arguments

July 22, 2020
When it comes to biodiversity, South Africa offers some cautionary tales. The country is the world’s third most biodiverse – containing, fully or partially, three of the earth’s 36 biodiversity hotspots – yet it has lost more than 18% of its natural habit and nearly half its terrestrial ecosystems are threatened.

However, South Africa also offers some invaluable lessons in how biodiversity can be protected. For that tale, we should look to the Gumbi, a small clan of Zulu-speaking people in northern KwaZulu-Natal. Their story underscores the wisdom of conserving large areas of biodiversity and, in the words of the Gumbi leadership, finding ways to “share life with nature”. Here’s what they did.

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National Geographic - OpEd

July 20, 2020
Since my childhood by the Mediterranean Sea, I’ve been enchanted by the diversity of life on our planet and eager to learn all I could about it. I’ve spent much of my career studying the ocean food web, where in the course of natural events the smallest of the small are consumed by larger and larger predators, often ending in us. But scientists know there is more to the story, and I’ve been humbled to see life on our planet brought to a standstill by a tiny virus.

From a Wuhan, China, “wet market” where freshly butchered meat and live wild animals are sold for food and medicine, the virus likely was transmitted in late 2019 via wildlife to humans. And in a matter of months, COVID-19 has felled hundreds of thousands of Homo sapiens, Earth’s preeminent predator.

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