Reforestation programmes should consider the parasitic relationship between mistletoes and their hosts and their ecological benefits for bird diversity.
Litter after recent looting in Durban, South Africa. The city recently introduced a scheme that looks to protect biodiversity and associated ecosystems.
Shutterstock
Introduced species that become invasive are clearly destructive, but many exotic species are not detrimental to the existing ecosystem – some become complementary or take on lost ecological roles.
Humanity’s biggest challenges are not technical, but social, economic, political and behavioural. Effective actions are still possible to stabilise the climate and the planet, but must be taken now.
The growing frequency of climate extremes affected human health and caused wide-scale damages to the ecosystems that people depend upon, including agriculture, fisheries and freshwater.
A drilling pad for oil and gas in Robinson Township, Penn.
Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images
Abandoned US oil and gas wells and their associated land cover more than 2 million acres, a recent study estimates – an area larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined.
Sunrise over Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota.
NPS/Flickr
When something is free, people use a lot of it. Economists are urging governments to compute values for natural resources – wildlife, plants, air, water – to create motives for protecting them.
Coastal areas in West Africa are under intense pressure from demographic growth, economic expansion and ongoing climate change.
IRD
Olusegun Dada, Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD); Frédéric Ménard, Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD); Pierre Morand, Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD), and Rafael Almar, Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD)
Around the world, fragile coastal ecosystems are under intense pressure, and understanding and managing their complex interactions requires an integrated and interdisciplinary approach.
Working landscapes, including farms, forest and rangelands, will be key to meeting conservation goals.
(Jerry Meaden/flickr)
Biosphere reserves are the living labs in which people and nature learn how to live and thrive together. Four pilot sites in Africa show the programme’s promise.
We think of mountains as remote and little affected by human activity. Unfortunately, the negative impacts of what we do has important implications for nature, wildlife and human society.
Eelgrasses covered with small snails, which keep the leaves clean by feeding on algae that live on them.
Jonathan Lefcheck
Healthy seagrasses form underwater meadows teeming with fish and shellfish. A successful large-scale restoration project in Virginia could become a model for reseeding damaged seagrass beds worldwide.
A mixed-conifer forest in the central Sierra Nevada after restoration, with unthinned forest in the background.
Roger Bales
Restoring western forests – thinning out small trees and dead wood – is an important strategy for reducing the risk of massive wildfires. But these projects aren’t fast, easy or cheap.
Michael Obersteiner, University of Oxford; David Leclère, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), and Piero Visconti, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Wildlife populations have plummeted by 68% since 1970. But we have a plan to turn things around.
CEO and Exec Director, Stable Planet Alliance; Affiliate Full Professor, University of Washington; Research Associate, African Climate and Development Initiative and FitzPatrick Institute, University of Cape Town
Chief Executive Officer, Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research; Professorial Fellow, Fenner School for the Environment and Society, Australian National University