From the category archives:
Today at the Growing America’s Outdoor Heritage and Economy Conference, U.S.D.A. secretary Tom Vilsack is set to announce a new Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) investment that will preserve 1 million acres of grassland and wetlands. The CRP, administered through the Farm Service Agency, has been around for 25 years, preserving land through voluntary participation. This [...]
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Rhino poaching in South Africa has been increasing since 2007, with a dramatic 34% increase between 2010 and last year. To date, South Africa has been addressing the poaching problem with traditional patrols and approaches, but yesterday a high-tech approach was unveiled that includes radar technology, perimeter detection sensors, communication monitoring, visual and thermal cameras, [...]
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A detailed map of block-by-block energy use has been created by the Columbia University Engineering School with data from the Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability. The interactive map demonstrates the energy used to heat and cool buildings, which accounts for two-thirds of the energy used in the city. The research built a statistical [...]
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Will McLintock marine scientist at the University of Santa Barbara spoke today at the GeoDesign Summit about marine conservation. The traditional approach for conservation is specialized scientists applying research and knowledge and telling government who draw policy, but stakeholders aren’t included and the approach leads to greater conflict. McClintock discussed the process of the creation [...]
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The anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd has deployed a drone aircraft to track the Japanese whaling fleet in Antarctic waters. The use of the drone gives the conservation group the advantage of persistent surveillance of the location and activities of the ships. Despite a worldwide ban on whaling in an international treaty in 1987, Japan has [...]
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The Wildlife Conservation Society has just released a report that raises alarm bells regarding threats to great American wildlife migrations. The society credits new GPS collars and geolocators for providing a much greater understanding of animal movements, as well as the impediments to their migration. Under threat are five terrestrial animal migrations and three flight-based [...]
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The UN Environmental Programme’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP WCMC), with the mission of sourcing, collating and verifying information on biodiversity and ecosystems, have released 16 of their global environmental legacy datasets. These datasets have all been inputs to there many world atlases, including the World Atlas of Biodiversity, The World’s Protected Areas, The Conservation Atlas [...]
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The U.S. Forest Service is investing $257,000 on an application that uses Google satellite imagery to help homeowners view their land and see the benefits of planting trees on their property. The iTreetools application has tools for users to look up their house, draw their building footprint, and assess the value of each tree on [...]
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The Quebec Minister of Sustainable Development, Environment and Parks, Pierre Arcand, announced plans to conserve 600,000 square kilometers of Northern Quebec yesterday when discussing the conservation side of the Plan Nord project plan. Plan Nord was originally announced in May, with an economic development focus that will see the government investing $80 billion over 25 [...]
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Last week, I spent a dream vacation in Alaska’s Inside Passage fishing for salmon and halibut. Recent changes to the fishing laws in Alaska provided a good deal of the dialogue with our fishing guides, who are always torn between client demands, regulations, and sustaining their living in balance with the commercial fishing industry. With [...]
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