The Scary New Math of Warming

Posted in Library, News & Publications Toronto Star, The Scary New Math of Warming; published 21 November 2009 by Peter Gorrie A recent environmental summit set ambitious new targets for reducing greenhouse gasses. If new environmental campaigns take hold, you’ll hear a lot about two numbers during the next few months. If they succeed, you could find yourself living, and thinking, differently. The numbers are 350 and 50. The...
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Conservation Beyond Crisis Management

Posted in Library, News & Publications Conservation Beyond Crisis Management: A Conservation-Matrix Model A Discussion Paper for the Canadian BEACONs Project In many regions of the world, failure to plan effectively for conservation of biological diversity has led to irretrievable losses of ecosystem structure and function or, at least, a need for expensive and risky restoration efforts. In relatively intact systems, planning...
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Conservation Targets: Do They Help?

Posted in Library, News & Publications Conservation Targets: Do They Help? By Michael E. Soulé & M. A. Sanjayan; Science, New Series, Vol. 279, No. 5359. (Mar. 27, 1998), pp. 2060-2061. The most irreversible environmental problem of this era is the projected rapid loss of biodiversity, including the disappearance of up to half the world’s species. In response, many international commissions and nature conservation...
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How Much is Enough?

Posted in Library, News & Publications Center for Large Landscape Conservation; Literature Review on Select Topics in Landscape Conservation; May 27, 2010 How much is enough? What is the minimum area required to ensure the maintenance of biodiversity in an area? A 10 percent (or 12%) conservation target of land area in each nation (Myers 1979, Miller 1984, Soule and Sanjayan 1998) is frequently cited and has been recurrently used in...
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As Roads Spread in Rainforests, The Environmental Toll Grows

Posted in Library, News & Publications Article by: William Laurance From Brazil to Borneo, new roads are being built into tropical forests at a dizzying pace, putting previously intact wilderness at risk. If we hope to preserve rainforests, a leading researcher says, new strategies must be adopted to limit the number of roads and reduce their impacts. >>Read the full article from Yale Environment 360...
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The A-Z of Areas of Biodiversity Importance

Posted in Blog, Library, News & Publications The terminology of conservation can be confusing.  Endless acronyms and very specific terms that only the ‘specialists’ can decode.  For Nature Needs Half, we use the protected area categories as defined by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).  The IUCN categories define protected areas according to the management objectives, but don’t always mesh...
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Why “interconnected” is important

Posted in Blog, Library, News & Publications Sarah Kuck recently wrote a great article for YES! Magazine about why wildlife needs room to roam and why connecting protected areas is important.  She highlights issues such as global climate shifts, loss of natural predators and the need for conservation to include economic opportunities for local communities.  Her dialog very clearly and concisely summarizes the need for large, protected...
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Nature News: Marine protection goes large

Posted in Library, News & Publications As the creation of giant reserves gains momentum, some fear such areas don’t always conserve the habitats most in need. The past five years has seen a spurt in the creation of giant marine protection areas, including a 320,000 sq km marine reserve announced earlier this month in Australia. “Now we have a competition for politicians to see who can have the biggest one,” said...
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