International Conservation & Development

As a college student in the mid-1980s, Maria Fernandez-Gimenez worked as a seasonal interpreter for the National Park Service. That’s when she was first exposed to the great Western debate over public-lands ranching. She soon became familiar with environmentalists’ gripes about grazing impacts, but realized she knew nothing about the ranchers’ point of view. So she went to work on a distant cousin’s ranch in northwestern Colorado, where she spent the summer sleeping in a hayloft.

What will cost $7 billion; will snake across the country from Alberta to the Gulf Coast, carrying 700,000 barrels a day of Canadian crude oil; and seems (at least from the animated assertions of Congressional Republicans and the American Petroleum Institute) a perfect solution for the flagging U.S. economy? Answer: TransCanada’s Keystone oil sands pipeline expansion project. Imagine a river of dirty oil running right through the country’s mid-section. Read the entire piece

Linda Kramme, manager of the forest program at World Wildlife Fund, said her organization and others applaud Kroger for making a responsible business decision. “WWF and other groups that are asking consumers not to buy Mercury’s products...aren’t trying to put Mercury or APP out of business, but simply asking them to adhere to the same forestry practices that responsible pulp and paper companies the world over adhere to,’’ she said.

When you talk to climate scientists about winners and losers, a few words come up over and over again: could, might, maybe. According to University of Arizona environmental economist Derek Lemoine, local climate-change patterns are difficult to predict because uncertainties in the global model “are compounded when considering smaller scales.” Read the full story

The plastics on Mahahual's picturesque beaches are more than an eyesore. They may threaten the fragile coral reef and mangrove ecosystems of the Yucatan Peninsula, said H. Bruce Rinker, an ecologist at the Maine-based Biodiversity Research Institute and science advisor to Sustenta.com. "If we turn our backs, we risk harming the integrity of those systems," Rinker said. Read full story

Read his blog post outlining his recent and upcoming projects

“Consumers shouldn’t have to choose between tigers and toilet paper,” said Linda Kramme, Forest Program Manager of WWF. “Paseo is currently the fastest growing brand of toilet paper in the US, but as long as it costs the lives of tigers and other endangered species, consumers should look for other options, such as paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).” Read the WWF press release

One of the major issues being considered here at COP17 is adaptation.

Stabinsky said: "African governments see money; and the picture that the World Bank is painting is a very worthy one. The more land you have, the more soil carbon you can sell. And there is so much land tenure based on customary tenure in Africa; lots of people don't have private title of their land. "So if you really can create the need for a verifiable commodity [in carbon], there may be a reason for governments to go in and claim that land. And the government can do it if they want," she said.