Disaster coming to a coastline near you

24 02 2011

Many of you already know that against all better judgement, the spectacularly audacious Australian Commonwealth government has granted BP offshore drilling rights in our southern waters.

You’d think that with all the evidence that BP is a company that cannot be trusted with this particular form of resource exploitation, we’d be a little bit more discerning when granting exploration permits to them. Apparently not.

In protest and within my rights as an Australian citizen, I wrote to the Minister responsible for the decision, MP Martin Ferguson (Federal Minister for Resources and Energy) to register my protest:

Dear Minister Ferguson,

As an ecologist, academic and citizen, I find it rather astounding that Australia has permitted the deep-sea exploration of oil by BP in our own back garden. The unreasonable environmental risk aside, it simply equates to poor economics – the very real probability of a disaster on the same scale (or larger) than the Gulf of Mexico’s fiasco last year will effectively destroy the commercial fishing and aquaculture industry of our southern coastline overnight. The loss of tourism dollars could arguably exceed even that.

This is most definitely not in Australia’s best interest, and will represent yet another blight on our already poor environmental record (see http://wp.me/phhT4-1cf and http://wp.me/phhT4-Zt). I urge you to reconsider your permission and revoke the licence to drill in our waters. It is a mistake you and your government will regret for decades, and will make the recent flooding disaster in Queensland appear mild in comparison.

Sincerely,
Professor Corey J. A. Bradshaw

I certainly wasn’t expecting the Minister to say suddenly “Oh my. You are right, Prof. Bradshaw. It is a bad decision. I’ll revoke that permission forthwith”, but I was expecting a little bit more than the jumbled form letter I received in reply: Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : biodiversity, coasts, conservation, corruption, marine

What the hell is a banteng?

21 02 2011

A few years ago (ok, 6 years), ABC‘s Catalyst did a piece on our banteng research programme in Garig Gunak Barlu National Park in the Northern Territory. The show basically talks about the conservation and management conundrum of having a successful feral species in Australia that is also highly endangered in its native range (South East Asia). Do we shoot them all, or legislate them as an endangered species? It’s for Australians to decide.

I finally got around to uploading it on Youtube. I hope I haven’t contravened some copyright law, but I figure after such a lag, no one will care. I await the imminent contradiction from the ABC’s lawyers…

I hope you enjoy.

For the scientific papers arising from the work, see: Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Australia, bushmeat, conservation, extinction, harvest, invasive species, management, population dynamics, research, science, tropical

Evolution here and now

17 02 2011

Here’s a guest post from one of my PhD students, Salvador Herrando-Peréz. Salva is working on theoretical aspects of density feedback mechanisms among different species, and is especially eclectic with his interests in biology. Salva regularly contributes to lay natural history magazines, especially in his native tongue Castellano (Spanish), and he is an active member of the Spanish organisation Bioestudios Saganta, a non-profit national organisation fully devoted to scientific research and its popularisation with a focus on biodiversity conservation.

I’ve asked my students to start contributing to ConservationBytes.com, and Salva is leading the charge.

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Evolution evokes ideas such as fossils, geological eras and time scales of hundreds of thousands to millions of years. Only recently have we started to appreciate that such ‘macro-evolution’ is the result of accumulated changes in the morphology and genes of species from one generation to the next: days for HIV strands, months for a planktonic rotifer, or years for a poplar.

The Britons Peter and Rose Mary Grant published in 2002 a 30-year study on Darwin’s finches from Daphne Major (Galapagos, Ecuador) – a popular study organism since Charles Darwin’s Origin of species (Grant & Grant 2002). In such a short period of time, covering only six generations of these granivorous birds, several extreme droughts altered the type and abundance of seeds, and potentially triggered the evolution of body size, and beak shape and size, up to three times (Figure 1). The two biologists from Princeton reveal that:

  1. evolution is reversible – generations of finches experiencing overall increase in body and beak sizes can lead to future generations with smaller sizes (of course within limits; a finch will never develop the beak of a stork or a hummingbird), and
  2. phenological shifts across generations are unpredictable in so far as they respond to random climatic fluctuations – should droughts of contrasting intensity have occurred in different years over the study period, beaks and bodies might have evolved in other particular fashions. Read the rest of this entry »

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Categories : climate shift, conservation, extinction

Classics: Shifting baselines

14 02 2011

The Conservation Classics series will soon be collated and published in a special chapter for the book ‘Biodiversity’ to be published later this year by InTech. The chapter is co-authored by Barry Brook, Navjot Sodhi, Bill Laurance and me. This is a snippet of one ‘classic’ I haven’t yet really covered extensively on ConservationBytes.com.

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Daniel Pauly’s (1995) concept describes the way that changes to a system are measured against baselines which themselves are often degraded versions of the original state of the system. Pauly (1995) originally meant it in a fisheries context, where “… fisheries scientists sometimes fail to identify the correct ‘baseline’ population size (e.g., how abundant a fish species population was before human exploitation) and thus work with a shifted baseline”. It is now considered a mantra in fisheries and marine science (Jackson et al., 2001), but it has been extended to many other conservation issues. Yet, quantifying shifting baselines in conservation is difficult, with little empirical evidence (but see Jackson et al., 2001), despite the logic and general acceptance of its ubiquity by conservation scientists. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : conservation, decline, fish, fisheries, marine

More to bees than queens and honey

11 02 2011

Another great guest post, this time from Tobias Smith, a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland’s School of Biological Sciences. Tobias is investigating bee community shifts across a fragmented tropical landscape in far north Queensland, aiming to identify landscape variation in community composition of two important rainforest pollinator groups, bees and flies. I met Tobias a few years ago as part of the Thiaki rainforest reforestation project for which he is doing baseline surveys of bees and flies.

I asked him a while ago to write a ‘primer’ on bees for ConservationBytes.com since so many people really don’t much about the taxon (I include myself in that group). He’s done a brilliant job – everything you wanted to know about bees but were afraid to ask (in 1000 words).

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The frequently reported, gloomy news about bee declines is hard not to notice. Bees are in dire trouble around the world, and this trend has worrying implications for both ecosystems and human food production. As a result, popular media often reports on the plight of bees, regularly reciting the figure of one in three mouthfuls of food being dependent on the work of bees. While bees certainly are in major trouble, it can be easy to misinterpret statements often made in these kind of articles without a little general bee knowledge. So here are a few bee facts that, at the very least, we ecological representatives should be familiar with. This information should help give some perspective when interpreting bee news, and when engaging in exciting bee conversations at the shops.

There are approximately 20,000 bees species globally. Yet when most people think of bees they think of a single species, Apis mellifera, the western honey bee (introduced in most of its range, and also referred to as the European honeybee). This bee is certainly an important bee. It is managed as the usual pollinator of crops requiring biotic pollination, and it makes the honey we usually eat here in the developed world. Some say our domestication of this bee has been an important contributing factor in achieving the level of development that we humans have. There are however, about 19,999 other bee species out there, and most of them are very different to the western honeybee. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Asia, Australia, biodiversity, conservation, disease, ecosystem services, food, pollination, reforestation

Colour-blind sharks

3 02 2011

A few weeks ago I was interviewed on Channel 10 (Adelaide) about some new research coming out of the University of Western Australia regarding shark colour vision.

I’ve received permission from Channel 1o to reproduce the news snippet here. The first bloke interviewed is Associate Professor Nathan Hart, the study‘s lead author. I’m the bald one appearing in the middle at at the end.

It certainly was an interesting story, although two claims were made that probably needed better contextualisation.

First, the authors claim that because of this taxon’s colour blindness, they probably notice pigment transitions more when using visual cues to identify potential prey. What this means is that bright colours set against duller backgrounds might provide that contrast enough to attract sharks. The upshot from the interview is that brightly coloured and patterned togs (bathers) might make sharks think you are potentially a tasty treat. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : biodiversity, conservation, exploitation, fish, fisheries, marine, southern Australia

When weeds are wanted

31 01 2011

And in keeping with the topic of bees…

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© Flowergardengirl

I’ve just read a very, very cool paper in Ecology Letters about something I’ve wanted to do myself for some time. It’s a fairly specific piece of work, so it could easily be reproduced elsewhere with different species. My point though is that a hell of a lot more of these types of studies are required.

The study by Carvalheiro and colleagues entitled Natural and within-farmland biodiversity enhances crop productivity examined the role of weedy (ruderal) vegetation in supporting pollinator communities. Using sunflowers as a model crop, they showed rather convincingly how native vegetation patches interspersed amongst crop species can enhance a host of crop production measures, even when larger areas of natural habitats were far away from the crops themselves.

Based on a series of plot experiments, they tested four main hypotheses:

  1. The distance to natural habitat affects pollination visitor abundance and diversity.
  2. Plots surrounding or interspersed with ruderal vegetation affect pollinator abundance and diversity.
  3. The diversity of pollinators visiting sunflowers affects honeybee (the principal pollinators) behaviour.
  4. The diversity of pollinators affects sunflower production.

Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : conservation, ecology, ecosystem services, food, pollination

A wee ditty about the bee

29 01 2011

I liked this. Another quick and entertaining look at why bees are important, why they’re crashing, and what people can do about it (at least, on a very fine scale). And it’s all done in Scottish.


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Categories : conservation, ecosystem function, ecosystem services, environmental policy, pollination

Condoms instead of nature reserves

24 01 2011

Rob Dietz over at the Centre for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy thought ConservationBytes.com readers would be interested in the following post by Tim Murray (the original post was entitled What if we stopped fighting for preservation and fought economic growth instead?). There are some interesting ideas here, and I concur that because we have failed to curtail extinctions, and there’s really no evidence that conservation biology alone will be enough to save what remains (despite 50 + years of development), big ideas like these are needed. I’d be interested to read your comments.

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Each time environmentalists rally to defend an endangered habitat, and finally win the battle to designate it as a park “forever,” as Nature Conservancy puts it, the economic growth machine turns to surrounding lands and exploits them ever more intensively, causing more species loss than ever before, putting even more lands under threat. For each acre of land that comes under protection, two acres are developed, and 40% of all species lie outside of parks. Nature Conservancy Canada may indeed have “saved” – at least for now – two million acres [my addendum: that’s 809371 hectares], but many more millions have been ruined. And the ruin continues, until, once more, on a dozen other fronts, development comes knocking at the door of a forest, or a marsh or a valley that many hold sacred. Once again, environmentalists, fresh from an earlier conflict, drop everything to rally its defence, and once again, if they are lucky, yet another section of land is declared off-limits to logging, mining and exploration. They are like a fire brigade that never rests, running about, exhausted, trying to extinguish one brush fire after another, year after year, decade after decade, winning battles but losing the war.

Despite occasional setbacks, the growth machine continues more furiously, and finally, even lands which had been set aside “forever” come under pressure. As development gets closer, the protected land becomes more valuable, and more costly to protect. Then government, under the duress of energy and resource shortages and the dire need for royalties and revenue, caves in to allow industry a foothold, then a chunk, then another. Yosemite Park, Hamber Provincial Park, Steve Irwin Park [my addendum – even the mention of this man is an insult to biodiversity conservation]… the list goes on. There is no durable sanctuary from economic growth. Any park that is made by legislation can be unmade by legislation. Governments change and so do circumstances. But growth continues and natural capital [my addendum: see my post on this term and others] shrinks. And things are not even desperate yet. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : biodiversity, conservation, conservation biology, environmental policy, human overpopulation, marine protected area, MPA, preservationist, protected area, reserve, Steve Irwin

Biodiversity begins at home

20 01 2011

A few months ago I was involved in a panel discussion entitled ‘Biodiversity begins at home’ held at the Royal Institution of Australia in Adelaide and sponsored by the Don Dunstan Foundation.

The main thrust of the evening was to have both academic (me & Andy Lowe) and on-the-ground, local conservationists (Sarah Lance, Craig Gillespie and Matt Turner) talk about what people can do to stem the tide of biodiversity loss. The video is now available, so I thought I’d reproduce it here. We talked about a lot of issues (from global to local scale), so if you have a spare hour, you might get something out of this. I did, but it certainly wasn’t long enough to discuss such big issues.

Warning – this was supposed to be more of a discussion and less of a talkfest; unfortunately, many of the panel members seemed to forget this and instead dominated the session. We really needed 4 hours to do this properly (but then, who would have watched the video?).

Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : biodiversity, climate change, conservation, conservation biology, ecological literacy, ecosystem services, education, environmental economics, environmental policy, environmental science, extinction, habitat loss, human overpopulation, management, planning, prioritisation, protected area, restoration, science communication, South Australia, The University of Adelaide

Deforestation partly to blame for Queensland floods

17 01 2011

© recoverling

Last week I sent a fairly random Tweet about deforestation in south-eastern Queensland being partially responsible for the record floods there. It went more or less unnoticed, but I thought the comment deserved a proper explanation.

As many of you might know, my colleagues and I wrote an article a few years ago about the global-scale evidence for deforestation leading to a higher incidence and severity of floods in the developing world. This was fairly controversial, but it was nonetheless the first broad-scale evidence for the fabled deforestation-flood link yet published (in my not-so-humble opinion). Subsequent comment reiterated the point with new data.

Now, I will begin by saying I have no data yet to back up my Queensland-specific hypothesis, but I am contemplating a time-series paper on floods in Australia, especially after the events of the last month. This post is therefore merely a reasoned hypothesis.

The hypothesis itself is rather simple. Testing is not. I submit that the recent flooding in Australia has been exacerbated (not caused) by the rapid loss of forest cover over the last 40 years. We know that this is a particularly intense La Niña in Australia and our unusually high rainfall arises from this meteorological phenomenon, but I hypothesise that it wouldn’t have been as bad if this part of Australia hadn’t been so careless with its forest cover since the 1970s. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Australia, climate change, conservation, deforestation, ecosystem services, flood, habitat loss

S.A.F.E. = Species Ability to Forestall Extinction

8 01 2011

Note: I’ve just rehashed this post (30/03/2011) because the paper is now available online (see comment stream). Stay tuned for the media release next week. – CJAB

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I’ve been more or less underground for the last 3 weeks. It has been a wonderful break (mostly) from the normally hectic pace of academic life. Thanks for all those who remain despite the recent silence.

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© Ezprezzo.com

But I’m back now with a post about a paper we’ve just had accepted in Frontiers in Ecology and Environment. In my opinion it’s a leap forward in how we measure relative threat risk among species, despite some criticism.

I’ve written in past posts about the ‘magic’ minimum number of individuals that should be in a population to reduce the chance of extinction from random events. The so-called ‘minimum viable population (MVP) size’ is basically the abundance of a (connected) population below which random events take over from factors causing sustained declines (Caughley’s distinction between the ‘declining’ and ‘small’ population paradigms).

Up until the last few years, the MVP size was considered to be a population- or species-specific value, and it required very detailed demographic, genetic and biogeographical data to estimate – not something that biologists tend to have at their fingertips for most high-risk species. However, several papers published by our group (Minimum viable population size and global extinction risk are unrelated, Minimum viable population size: a meta-analysis of 30 years of published estimates and Pragmatic population viability targets in a rapidly changing world) have shown that there is in fact little variation in this number among the best-studied species; both demographic and genetic data support a number of around 5000 to avoid crossing the deadly threshold.

Now the fourth paper in this series has just been accepted (sorry, no link yet, but I’ll let you all know as soon as it is available), and it was organised and led by Reuben Clements, and co-written by me, Barry Brook and Bill Laurance.

The idea is fairly simple and it somewhat amazes me that it hasn’t been implemented before. The SAFE (Species Ability to Forestall Extinction) index is simply the distance a population is (in terms of abundance) from its MVP. In the absence of a species-specific value, we used the 5000-individual threshold. Thus, Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : connectivity, conservation, demography, extinction debt, IUCN, mammal, metapopulation, minimum viable population, mvp, population dynamics, population viability analysis, PVA, Red List, threatened species

Leaving Conservation Letters

21 12 2010

It is with both sighs of relief and some sentimentality that I announce my departure from the Senior Editor’s position at Conservation Letters.

After 3 volumes and 17 issues, and a very good prospect for an ISI Impact Factor > 3.0 coming out in June 2011, I feel that I’ve contributed sufficiently for the journal to persist in the conservation publication space for the coming decades.

Now I need a beer. ;-)

The road to Senior Editor certainly involved a steep learning curve for me, and I sincerely thank the four Editors-in-Chief (Hugh Possingham, Bill Sutherland, Richard Cowling & Mike Mascia) for their faith in my abilities and the flexibility to allow me to make important decisions. But most importantly, I thank our highly professional and rigorous editorial board who really did all the hard work (voluntarily, I might add). The full list of editors can be found here, but I want to pass on some extra gratitude to a few specific people here:

In a word, you lot were brilliant. Thank you for going well beyond expectations and handling some very difficult manuscripts. Your expertise, professionalism and generosity will not go unnoticed, I can guarantee that.

I also thank Jennifer Mahar for keeping me (mostly) on the ball and for making the whole thing come together. Marjorie Spencer, whose brainchild this journal was, was a breath of fresh air and enthusiasm. Thanks for stepping up for me (oh, and thanks too for the many drinks courtesy of Uncle Wiley).

Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : conservation, conservation biology, science communication, scientific publishing, scientific writing

Biowealth – a lexical leap forward for biodiversity appreciation

17 12 2010

Here’s a little idea I’ve been kicking around in my head that I’d like to invite you to debate. Call it an ‘Open Thread’ in the spirit of BraveNewClimate.com’s successful series.

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© The Economist

Let’s face it, ‘biodiversity’ is a slippery and abstract concept for most people. Hell, even most ecologists have a hard time describing what biodiversity means. To the uninitiated, it seems simple enough. It’s just the number of species, isn’t it?

Well, no. It isn’t.

Unfortunately, it’s far, far more complicated. First, the somewhat arbitrary pigeon-holing of organisms into Linnaean taxonomic boxes doesn’t really do justice to the genetic gradients within species, among populations and even between individuals. We use the pigeon-hole taxonomy because it’s convenient, that’s all. Sure, molecular genetics has revolutionised the concept, but to most people, a kangaroo is a kangaroo, a robin is a robin and an earthworm is an earthworm. Hierarchical Linnaean taxonomy prevails.

Then there’s the more prickly issue of α, β and γ diversity. α diversity essentially quantifies species richness within a particular area, whereas β diversity is the difference in α diversity between ecosystems. γ diversity is used to measure overall diversity for the different constituent ecosystems of a region. Scale is very, very important (see our recent book chapter for more on this). Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : climate change, conservation, conservation biology, ecological literacy, ecosystem services, environmental policy, function, science communication

Want a cool conservation job in beautiful southern Australia?

14 12 2010

I was asked to post this cool-sounding job on ConservationBytes.com – relevant punters welcome to respond.

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http://goo.gl/9YjGn

Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) is a non‐profit organisation dedicated to the conservation of Australia’s threatened wildlife and their habitats. AWC now owns and manages more land than any other private conservation organisation in Australia ‐  21 properties, covering more than 2.6 million hectares ‐ protecting more than 1,200 fauna species through active land management informed by strategic scientific research.

AWC is seeking an experienced and committed ecologist who will be pivotal in the development and implementation of the conservation and science program throughout south‐eastern Australia. The position will be based at Scotia Wildlife Sanctuary (where on‐site accommodation will be provided), but will include work at other AWC sanctuaries, especially Kalamurina (Lake Eyre), Buckaringa (Flinders Ranges), Yookamurra (Riverlands), Dakalanta (Eyre Peninsula), Bowra (Mulga Lands) and North Head (Sydney) sanctuaries.

Scotia is a large property (65,000 ha) that lies on the NSW‐SA border between Wentworth and Broken Hill, and includes Australia’s largest area free of foxes, cats and rabbits (8,000 ha) and where seven regionally extinct species have been reintroduced (bilby, boodie, woylie, bridled nailtail wallaby, numbat, greater stick‐nest rat, mala and black‐eared miner). In addition, the property has outstanding conservation values because it protects habitats, in good condition, that have been extensively cleared in western NSW.

Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Australia, conservation, ecology, jobs, protected area, South Australia, southern Australia, temperate, threatened species

History and future (of Australian ecology and society)

11 12 2010

I’ve just returned from a week-long conference in Canberra where the Ecological Society of Australia (of which I am a relatively new member) has just completed its impressive 50th anniversary conference. It was a long, but good week.

It’s almost a bit embarrassing that I’ve never attended an ESA1 conference before, but I think I waited for the right one. However, the main reason I attended was that I was fortunate to have received the ESA’s 3rd Australian Ecology Research Award (AERA), and the kick-back was a fully funded trip. My only reciprocation was to give a 40-minute plenary lecture – a small price to pay.

I entitled my talk ‘Heads in the desert sand: why Australians should wake up to the biodiversity crisis’, and I received a lot of good feedback. I talked about the global and Australian trends of biodiversity loss and associated ecosystem services, focussing the middle section on some of our work on feral animal ecology (see example). I then gave my views on the seriousness of our current situation and why some of the fastest losses of sensitive ecosystem services are happening right here, right now. I finished off with a section on how I think Australian ecologists could get more relevant and active in terms of research uptake by policy makers. I hope that the talk will be podcastable soon, so stay tuned.

But that was just ‘my’ bit. This post is more about a quick summary of the highlights and my overall impressions.

Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Australia, biodiversity, climate change, conference, conservation, conservation biology, conservation scholars, ecology, ecosystem, ecosystem function, ecosystem services, environmental policy, extinction, famine, food, human overpopulation

Conservation is all about prioritisation

4 12 2010

Another great guest post from a previous contributor, Piero Visconti.

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Biodiversity conservation is about prioritisation – making difficult choices.

With limited money and so many habitats and species in need of protection, deciding where not to expend resources is as important as deciding where to act. Saying ‘no’ will be crucial for ensuring the persistence of biodiversity and ecosystem services, simply because as individuals who value conservation, we will always be tempted to try and save everything.

In the words of Frederick the Great: “He who defends everything, defends nothing.”

As a result, much recent conservation planning research has focused on offering managers general and flexible tools for deciding which conservation features should be the highest priority. Intuitively, we should direct our resources towards areas that have high biodiversity values, and that are likely to be lost if the forces of conservation do not intervene (the most ‘vulnerable’ land parcels). This approach is known as the ‘minimize loss’ approach. Imagine we are worried about the loss of rare native vegetation in the face of ongoing urban expansion (e.g., Melbourne’s western grasslands). To minimize loss, managers would pre-emptively protect sites that are most likely to be developed. But is this decision to race the bulldozers always the best idea? How much does this choice depend on our assumptions about how land is protected, how land developers behave, and the accuracy of our future predictions? Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : conservation, conservation biology, ecological triage, ecosystem function, ecosystem services, environmental policy, management, prioritisation, protected area, reserve

The Joke’s On Us

30 11 2010

 

© decostudio.pl

Here’s an idea to garner some appreciation for the dire straits in which humanity finds itself mounting from the global biodiversity crisis. More importantly, I hope that ‘appreciation’ would translate into ‘action’ as a result.

The idea came, as good ideas often tend to, around a table with some mates1,2 and several bottles of wine. The idea got more outlandish as the bottles were emptied, and I have to say I can’t remember many of the finer details (probably a good thing).

But the nugget of that idea is, I think, a very good one. I’d like to hear your opinions about it, and some suggestions about how to make it happen.

(get to the point, Bradshaw)

Right.

The idea would be to create an international (televised) comedy festival called ‘The Joke’s On Us‘ where very high-profile comedians would be individually matched to high-profile scientists of various areas of expertise. Let’s say we had a climate change scientist like James Hansen sit down with, oh, maybe Eddie Izzard, the famous and highly regarded Gaia creator, James Lovelock, locked in a room for a few days with Michael McIntyre, tropical deforestation specialist, Bill Laurance, matched with Chris Rock, and that population bomb, Paul Ehrlich, with Robin Williams or Jerry Seinfeld. The possible combinations are endless. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : anthropocene, celebrity, climate change, conservation, conservation biology, conservation scholars, ecological literacy, human overpopulation

Putting environmental testing to the test

25 11 2010

A few months ago I made a general call for submissions to ConservationBytes.com. I’m happy to say that the first person answering that call has come through with the goods. Please welcome Julie Pollock of Environment Canada and her post on environmental testing. Thanks, Julie.

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Environment Canada is often called upon to assess damage or the risk of damage to natural systems. Scientific and legal staff depend on the reliability of test methods and, in some cases, may require entirely new methods. Challenges federal government researchers face supporting these assessments include ensuring ecological relevance in subject selection, keeping up with industry to capture new substances, and understanding the cumulative nature of damaging pollutants.

The Biological Assessment and Standardization Section, led by Rick Scroggins, develops, validates and standardizes test methods for assessing contaminants in natural soil systems. Part of the Science & Technology Branch, they are located in the National Capital Region (Ottawa) where they work closely with the Enforcement Branch.

Their test methods support assessments of new and existing chemical substances and programs to clean up contaminated sites under federal jurisdiction. The group provides test method research to Natural Resources Canada’s Program of Energy Research and Development, which funds government R&D for sustainable energy. Another collaborator is Alberta, one of Canada’s largest provinces, which requires expertise in soil sampling and assessments associated with oil and gas extraction in the northern boreal and taiga ecozones. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : boreal, Canada, conservation, toxicology, water

The other, other global crisis

22 11 2010

Another quick and informative introduction to the problems of over-population and agricultural intensification. Like the nice little video introduction to the importance of biodiversity, if you want to teach someone quickly about why we need to think about over-population, show them this quick video about the other, other global crisis – agriculture.

Highlights:

  • 40 % of the world’s land surface has been cleared for agriculture
  • globally, croplands cover 16 million km2 (area the size of South America
  • humans use 2800 km3 of water to irrigate crops each year
  • fertilizers have more than doubled the P and N in the environment
  • agriculture contributes 30 % of greenhouse gases


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Categories : agriculture, climate change, conservation, deforestation, habitat loss, livestock, oil palm, water

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