More than a fifth of the world's migrating species are at risk of going extinct as a result of climate change and human encroachment, according to this report by the United Nations. Migratory species globally are facing critical challenges, with nearly half in decline and over 20 per cent threatened …
ONE-third of the natural resources of the world has been destroyed in the last 25 years, a recent report of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) says. The findings, based on the Living Planet Index, reports a frightening 32 per cent drop in flora and fauna species in forests, …
THE evolutionary success of a particular group of organisms is judged by the number of different species in that group. But that is not the complete story, say palaeontologists in North Carolina, USA. Calculating the abundance of each species can reveal remarkably different trends. Most studies of ancient ecosystems involve …
SEA turtles help fertilise the dunes where they lay their eggs, says an ecologist from Florida, who believes their unhatched eggs make an important contribution to the health of the beach. Coastal dunes are notoriously fragile, providing barely enough nutrients to support the animals and plants living on them. According …
The Worldwide Fund for Nature (wwf) has identified Venezuela's Canaima National Park as part of its innovative Global 200 system. Global 200 initiative aims to encourage a more holistic view of environmental challenges. Canaima forms part of the Guyanan highlands forest and freshwater ecosystems, which spread into Brazil and Guyana …
India will get assistance from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for conservation and sustainable management of the coral reef ecosystem off the coast of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. In this regard, the department of economic affairs, the ministry of environment and forests and UNDP have recently entered into …
PERHAPS no other geographical location attracts researchers, non-governmental organisations and social workers like the Indian Himalaya does. Yet, despite all the effort and finances that have gone towards sustainable development of the Himalaya, gaps exist. The information available is skewed with rampant duplication on one hand and blissful ignorance on …
water means life, and wetlands, even those such as ponds and bogs, play a vital role in our lives. Found almost everywhere, wetlands can be described as ecosystems where water and land meet, such as marshes, shallow coastal estuaries, mangroves and lakes where the dominating factor is a regular or …
Scientific institutions from Mexico and the United States are conducting an environmental impact study to see if a proposed salt mine in Baja California would disrupt one of the last grey whale breeding habitats in the world. The Mexican government and Mitsubishi Corporation want to construct a salt mine in …
Shrimp farms in Latin America produce a quarter of the three million tonnes of shrimp consumed worldwide each year. Consequently, shrimp farmers are destroying the mangrove forests to make shrimp ponds. Mangroves nurture a very delicate ecosystem and serve as important nurseries for many species of fish. They also protect …
human activity is causing a decline in the populations of bees, birds, bats, butterflies, beetles, wasps, flies, moths and other creatures that function as pollinators, says a recently published study. Epidemics of a mite known as varrora in Europe and North America destroyed millions of honeybee colonies. Hundreds of commercial …
FIRST published in 1997, the book is a contribution to Chapter 13 of Agenda 21 of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (unced). The world's mountains finally received the attention they deserved at unced, commonly referred to as the Earth Summit, which was held at Rio de Janeiro …
the Galapagos archipelago off the coast of Peru supports a unique ecosystem with a large variety of plants and animals. The archipelago has witnessed abnormal weather conditions this season (summer in the Southern Hemisphere) that have been attributed to the phenomenon known as El Ni
Scientists have known for years that leaves falling from trees and flowing downstream are important to the ecosystem of the waterbody. Now, researchers at the University of Georgia and Virginia Polytech have come out with the results of a three-year study that further explain the functions of fallen leaves. The …
> this book is one of the eight books in the Worldwatch Insti-tute's Environment Alert series and raises some contem-porary issues concerning global security. The first part of the book deals with the stresses on society in the post cold war era and describes the newly emerging realities after the …
the Hawaiian volcano of Mauna Loa supports an extraordinary range of climates and ecosystems. Yet the slopes of the volcano are constantly being resurfaced by the red-hot lava that destroys everything in its path. After an eruption, the cooled lava quickly becomes a home for plants
rangelands are those areas which for reasons of physical limitations like low and erratic precipitation, rough topography, poor drainage and cold temperatures are unsuitable for cultivation. Consequently, these lands are used as pastures. About half ((6,700 million ha) (mha)) the Earth's land surface is covered by the scant vegetation associated …
AN EXPLOSION in the population of Antarctic fur seals has caused wide- spread changes to many coastal, terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems in the northern maritime Antarctic islands and on the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. Dominic A Hodgeson and Nadine M Johnston of the British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, conducted …
The third round of negotiations on a legally-binding treaty, which aims at restricting the use of hazardous chemicals and pesticides, was held in Nairobi in the last week of May. The meeting was jointly organised by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). The proposed …
THE effect of dams on surrounding ecosystems could be traced even to the seas which receive the waters of dammed rivers. According to researchers from the University of Hamburg and the Baltic Research Institute in Rostock, both in Germany, the Iron Gates dam on the Danube river has transformed the …
i do not like the word biodiversity, meant to express variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are a part. We all know that there are basically two life forms on the face of …
