Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions are the main driving force of climate change, and all economic sectors need to internalize their costs. Food systems (including land use, production, refrigeration, food processing) account for a quarter of global GHG emissions. Agricultural exports in Asia-Pacific account for 18% of total exports, twice as …
Honey bees are complex eusocial insects that provide a critical contribution to human agricultural food production. Their natural migration has selected for traits that increase fitness within geographical areas, but in parallel their domestication has selected for traits that enhance productivity and survival under local conditions. Elucidating the biochemical mechanisms …
ROTURUA (New Zealand): It's economical, ecological and good exercise: a new human-powered monorail is attracting the crowds in New Zealand, and may become a new mode of transport within cities. Geoffery Barnett combined a laid-back, recumbent bicycle with monorail technology to create the "Schweeb", whose name is derived from the …
This report is a global survey of schemes designed to preserve biodiversity by making it possible for real estate developers to offset their damage to nature by paying for the creation or preservation of habitat. It documents 39 government-mandated
A New Zealand tour operator is in trouble. Instead of employing Maori, the tour company Discovery Heritage Group based in the northern New Zealand city of Tauranga, paid backpackers visiting from France and Israel to dress up in feathered robes, draw tattoos in pen on their faces and go aboard …
The New Zealand Government is relying on wildly inaccurate rankings of its 2020 emissions reduction target in order to answer critics at the Copenhagen negotiations. When corrected, the rankings reveal New Zealand is far from being even a mid-range performer
This report provides background information that is relevant to assessing the ambition levels of the major countries involved in the current international climate negotiations. The EU
A cluster of Antarctic icebergs were heading towards New Zealand after being spotted around 400 kilometres south of the country, scientists said on Friday. Icebergs are a rare sight in the sub-Antarctic waters south of New Zealand but in 2006 a number floated to within 25 kilometres of the coastline, …
Unsatisfied with merely halting environmental destruction, some conservationists are trying to reconstruct ecosystems of the past. Emma Marris travels back in time with the rewilders.
A powerful 7.9 magnitude earthquake in the Pacific off American Samoa generated a tsunami, US government agencies said on Tuesday. Sea level readings indicated a tsunami was generated in the Pacific, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre, a branch of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said. The agency earlier …
WHILE we are yet to ascertain whether aerosols are warming or cooling our planet, a scientific team has traced a new source: deciduous trees. These are plants that shed their leaves seasonally. So far aerosols were described as particles of pollutants like sulphur dioxide, black carbon (soot) and sea salt …
New Zealand brought its revised scheme to cut carbon emissions before parliament on Thursday, confident of enacting it before about 190 nations meet in December to hammer out a new global climate pact. In contrast to neighboring Australia, where legislation for a similar scheme is stuck in political deadlock, the …
New Zealand needs a sweeping emissions trading scheme to cover all sectors and greenhouse gases besides balancing economic and environmental concerns, Climate Change Minister Nick Smith said on Thursday. The minority National-led government is looking to broker a deal for an emissions trading scheme, or ETS, that will play a …
Farmers worldwide managed 32.2 million hectares of agricultural land organically in 2007, nearly 5 percent more than in the previous year and a 118-percent increase since 2000. Organic farming is now reported in 141 countries; about two thirds of this land area is in industrial countries, and nearly half of …
Uncertainty over Australian and New Zealand plans to cut carbon emissions is hurting businesses in both countries, undermining stock market valuations and raising financing risks, big Australasian firms said on Tuesday. Industry leaders from power generation to farming appeared at a carbon-trading conference in Melbourne to make urgent appeals to …
New Zealand set itself a goal on Monday to cut carbon emissions by between 10 and 20 percent by 2020, holding off setting a hard target until a broader global climate pact now under negotiation takes shape. Business groups said it was a sensible range -- broadly in line with …
New Zealand said on Monday it will aim to cut its carbon emissions between 10 and 20 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels. The exact size of reductions will depend on the target adopted by developed countries during negotiations on a broader global climate pact due to be finalized in …
Species invasions impose key biotic thresholds limiting the success of ecological restoration projects. These thresholds may be difficult to reverse and will have long-term consequences for restoration because of invasion legacies such as extinctions; because most invasive species cannot be eliminated given current technology and resources; and because even when …
The world's commercial fisheries, pressured by overfishing and threatened with possible collapse by mid-century, could be rebuilt with careful management, researchers reported on Thursday. In fact, a fisheries expert who in 2006 predicted total global collapse of fish and seafood populations by 2048 is more optimistic of recovery, based on …
Amid worsening climate change-related problems for small island states, Tuvalu has established a national goal of being powered entirely by renewable energy sources by 2020. Government officials and the donors of Tuvalu's first large-scale solar energy system alike hope the moves help inspire much larger nations later this year in …
