Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Overall, our research suggests that with appropriate policy and regulatory controls, we can continue to pursue the crucial climate intervention of transitioning our ailing energy systems while also protecting areas that are rich in biodiversity.
In highlighting how Britain lost half its hedgerow network in only 75 years following the post-WWII move to modernise farming, a recent report from the Council for the Protection of Rural England points out how hedgerows can reduce climate warming by naturally helping to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere.
My biggest challenge is our biggest challenge, and that is to engage people to appreciate the importance of plant life. I mean, it’s not just plants, of course. It’s all life and ecosystems. But plant life specifically, because it doesn’t have as much traction as animals.
This is a story about the critical role of public gardens and the pandemic-induced recession’s impact on them—as seen through the experiences of the Green Ark Botanical Garden Foundation (Foundation or Ark) in Costa Rica.
Where ponds are cleared, wildlife and biodiversity return rapidly to farmland. Plants recolonise within just 6 months, creating rustic oases amidst bland fields of monocrop.
It came as a bit of a shock to open a government news release that reads more like an editorial in the Ecologist, but I think it’s an indication of the speed at which the landscape is changing here.
Whether connecting schools to farms in France, daylighting rivers in Mexico, or rewilding grasslands in Patagonia, we’re learning how to ‘do’ biodiversity well.
Every student of biology—which naturally includes doctors and health care workers—ought to be aware of the advantages of biodiversity in natural systems.
All species are embedded in complex networks of interactions where they are directly and indirectly dependent on each other. A food web is a good example of such networks. The simultaneous loss of such large numbers of plants and animals could have cascading impacts on the ways species interact – and hence the ability of ecosystems to bounce back and properly function following high-severity wildfires.
Located in the Bocas del Toro region of Panama, the Naso have held steadfast to their goal. Like the nearby Ngäbe-Buglé kingdom, they want to create a comarca indígena or demarcated territory that would cover 160,000 hectares of their ancestral homeland. Unfortunately, they have encountered some resistance; because their vision of a secured territory conflicts with the government’s interests in the land the Naso call home.
If you’re already toting a canvas bag or your home is running on renewables, you need to do more. And if you’re brand new to the world of conservation, welcome to the fight.
Hedgerows offer fields a needed balance, a wild river through human land that can soak up our excesses and give us a reservoir of food and fuel for lean times. They give your garden a third dimension, a vertical salad bar that middle-aged and elderly can reach with a minimum of back pain.
