forest loss Articles
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Economy-wide sources of agricultural expansion in developing countries
Due to the past parochialism of environmental economists and development specialists alike, environmental problems in developing countries were long neglected. There is substantial agreement on the causes of one such problem - forest loss - in countries caught in a low-level poverty trap. Less well understood are the reasons why agricultural encroachment on natural habitats does not often abate ...
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New high-resolution forest maps reveal world Loses 50 Soccer Fields of Trees Per Minute
A new publication in Science reveals the world is losing 50 soccer fields’ worth of forest every minute of every day! While this information is distressing, the publication of this new research is a decidedly positive development in the availability of data to support better forest management and policy. The Science paper provides the first high-resolution, global picture of annual forest ...
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FORMA: A Near-Real Time Alert System for Tropical Forest Loss
If you were the administrator of a protected forest, you would ideally have a staff of rangers on patrol, backed up by law enforcement and high-resolution satellite images to keep you up-to-date on the forest’s condition. In this ideal world, illegal activity would quickly be halted. Yet the reality is that many protected areas lack these resources. Updated maps of forest damage can take ...
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Seven decades of Calcium depletion in organic horizons of Adirondack forest soils
We used repeated sampling of the forest floor to determine if there was a net loss of Ca from organic horizons of Adirondack forest soils between 1930 and 2004. In 1984, we established 48 permanent plots in spruce–fir, northern hardwood, and pine stands located in areas sampled by Carl C. Heimburger in the early 1930s. Following Heimburger's protocols and analytical methods, we measured pH and ...
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African grey parrots and their discovered decline
Amongst parrots, the African Grey ranks pretty high in popularity. From its obvious-colored coat to its intellectual capacity, these beautiful birds generate large demand around the world. Throughout the lands of West and Central Africa (especially in Ghana), the African Greys had once appeared by hundreds. That can no longer be said today as the parrots have almost completely disappeared from ...
By Bird-X Inc.
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Old growth logging: does it matter if environmental protection costs jobs?
This paper examines the assertion that "environmental protection costs jobs", a point that is thematic in the Australian state of Tasmania where banning clear felling of old-growth forests is vigorously resisted because of associated job losses. The debate between "jobs" and "environment" protagonists often originates in disagreements about political power, economic growth, distributional ...
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First attempt to measure rainfall canopy interception loss, throughfall, and stemflow in Juglans regia Linn and Cup. Sempervirens L. Var. fastigiata in the north of Iran
Each individual tree significantly alters the growth of surrounding vegetation by partitioning of rainfall and nutrients to the rooting zone. The Iranian Hyrcanian forests are among one of the most fragile ecosystems of the country owing to large industrial activities for logging and extensive urbanisation. These may accelerate disturbing of this unique type of forest. Of concern currently is an ...
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Emerging REDD+ programs need additional emphasis on Land Tenure
Since 2009, more than 30 countries have submitted proposals for REDD+ readiness grants to start addressing the social, economic, and institutional factors that contribute to forest loss. Many countries have made encouraging strides in defining their plans to become “ready” for REDD+. Yet, in a new WRI analysis of 32 country proposals, we identify the need for stronger commitments and ...
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Mangroves for Coastal Resilience
Coastal wetlands such as mangrove forests strongly contribute to the safety, food security and income of tens of millions of people throughout the tropics. Wetlands International has helped to restore and conserve thousands of hectares of mangrove forests, closely working with coastal communities. We aim to increase coastal resilience and reduce disaster risk by championing and enabling ...
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Project - FP200 - Scaling up the implementation of the Lao PDR Emission Reductions Programme through improved governance and sustainable forest landscape management (Project 2)
Lao PDR's vulnerability to climate change impacts is exacerbated by its limited resources and capacity to invest in adaptive climate measures to protect its economy and rural population. Since 16 per cent of the country's GDP stems from agriculture, forestry, and fisheries, the government has identified these sectors as priority areas in its climate strategies including the National Adaptation ...
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Back to basics on REDD+ safeguards and finance
This briefing paper by the REDD+ Safeguards Working Group (R-SWG)1 draws on: Critical analyses by the R-SWG of the UNFCCC’s recommendations on REDD+ Safeguards and on Safeguards Information Systems (SIS), which are elaborated in detail in previous briefing papers; and Best practice case studies from the ground that R-SWG has gathered from shared learning, discussions with REDD+ ...
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Global Forest Watch: dynamic new platform to protect forests worldwide
On Wed. Feb. 19, 2014, the World Resources Institute (WRI), Google, and a group of more than 40 partners launched Global Forest Watch (GFW), a dynamic online forest monitoring and alert system that empowers people everywhere to better manage forests. For the first time, Global Forest Watch unites the latest satellite technology, open data, and crowdsourcing to guarantee access to timely and ...
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2 Things You Need to Know about Indonesia`s Forest Moratorium
Indonesia’s forest moratorium, a policy aiming to protect an area the size of Japan from development, represents one of the most ambitious conservation schemes ever established in the country. But is it actually making progress in improving the forest sector? WRI’s new working paper, Indonesia’s Forest Moratorium: Impacts and Next Steps, aims to answer that question and more. ...
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Water, soil and nutrient losses caused by Wenchuan Earthquake: a case study in Pengzhou
Wenchuan Earthquake triggered a large number of geological hazards, dramatically stimulating soil erosion. This study was carried out in Pengzhou County, Sichuan Province. By comparison of sediment, runoff and nutrient losses in earthquake-damaged forests (EF) and unaffected forests (UF), the actual status of soil erosion after the Wenchuan Earthquake was investigated by runoff plots. Results ...
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Global Forest watch - join the movement
We know remarkably little about what is happening to forests. Businesses currently have no way of determining whether or how much the soy, palm oil, or pulp and paper they use contribute to deforestation. So companies like Unilever and Nestlé, which have committed to halting deforestation in their supply chains, are unable to measure progress toward this important goal. Concerned ...
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Shrinking forests: The many costs
In early December 2004, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo 'ordered the military and police to crack down on illegal logging, after flash floods and landslides, triggered by rampant deforestation, killed nearly 340 people,' according to news reports. Fifteen years earlier, in 1989, the government of Thailand announced a nationwide ban on tree cutting following severe flooding and the ...
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3 Signs of progress in curbing the illegal wood trade
The global market for wood and other forest products is changing quickly. The industry has long struggled to address the problem of illegal logging, which damages diverse and valuable forests and creates economic losses of up to $10 billion a year. In some wood-producing countries, illegal logging accounts for 50-90 percent of total production. But recent developments indicate that we may be ...
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The wealth of forests
The day I first set foot in a tropical rainforest, in Malaysia in the early 1980s, I experienced something profound. From the echoes of gibbons calling from the canopy in the early morning mist to the iridescent flash of a bird in a beam of sunlight, rainforests are a sensory delight as well as a marvel to anyone’s scientific curiosity. As I subsequently watched these forests dwindle and, ...
By SciDev.Net
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European forests - ecosystem conditions and sustainable use
Despite political commitment, Europe is struggling to halt the loss of biodiversity by 2010. Forests, as the hosts of much of the biological diversity in Europe, are vital to this debate. Any initiative designed to halt the biodiversity loss in Europe must take forests into account. Forests and biodiversity: are we doing better? Forests today cover 33 % of the land area of the countries of the ...
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Safeguarding forests and People: A framework for designing a national system to implement REDD+ safeguards
Background Around the world, members of governments, civil society, and the private sector are grappling with how to design and implement initiatives that reduce greenhouse gas emissions by slowing, halting, and reversing forest loss. These efforts have been spurred at least in part by the agreements onlong-term cooperative action (LCA) that Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on ...
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