Today is World Toilet Day.

Yes, that's right, there's a special day for toilets. But while it may be fodder for scatalogical jokes, for the many millions of people who do not have access to toilets it's no laughing matter.

Imagine what it would be like if we weren't able to flush away the vast amounts of human waste we generate in our cities. Apart from the stench and vermin, disease would flourish, as it does in many of the world's informal settlements.

Poor sanitation kills 1.8 million people a year--mostly children and primarily through diarrheal diseases, reports colleague Tasha Eichenseher today on National Geographic's Green Guide blog.

Read more about this intolerable situation and learn what a privilege it is to have access to a toilet.

Slowing deforestation is the most promising new strategy to protect the planet from disruptive climate change--but if it is not done carefully and sensibly biodiversity could be risk, an international group of scientists warned today.

"While it is clear that the massive destruction of tropical rainforests poses a serious threat to the incredibly rich biodiversity found on Earth, others hazards are not so explicit," the group says in an essay published in the November 16 issue of the journal Current Biology.

The group made their statement in anticipation of an international agreement that global warming can be slowed by reducing carbon emissions caused by deforestation.

NGS stock photo by James P. Blair

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) consists of 192 countries that seek to develop intergovernmental policies that address challenges posed by climate change. The UNFCCC will meet in Copenhagen in December of 2009 to complete an agreement on incentives to reduce deforestation.

"Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) proposes to compensate tropical forest countries if they reduce their rate of deforestation, thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and includes strategies for conservation and enhancement of forest carbon stocks," the scientists say in a news statement.

"REDD should have multiple benefits. But, unfortunately, although the final rules might safeguard carbon stocks, they may fall short of their potential to protect biodiversity," says the author who organized the collaboration, Stuart L. Pimm from The Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. Pimm is a regular blogger for NatGeo News Watch and a former member of the National Geographic Committee for Research and Exploration.

Pimm and colleagues explain in their essay how REDD policies might have a less than advantageous impact on biodiversity and suggest how careful policies might reduce carbon emissions and benefit biodiversity.

NGS stock photo by James P. Blair

The researchers point out that if REDD emphasizes reducing deforestation rates, governments are likely to focus on areas that are cheapest to protect and that areas with high biodiversity might not be cost-competitive.

"Further, forests with the greatest density of carbon might not be the most essential locations for biodiversity conservation. There is also concern that deforestation processes will not be effectively abated by REDD, but simply displaced to other areas," the scientists say in their statement.

"Implementing REDD might accelerate the conversion and degradation of high biodiversity areas where REDD or other conservation funding is not available."

"Implementing REDD might accelerate the conversion and degradation of high biodiversity areas where REDD or other conservation funding is not available," Pimm explained.

The authors make several suggestions for maximizing the positive biodiversity impacts of REDD policies.

They propose that rules to conserve, assess and perhaps even financially support biodiversity should be included in the text of the Copenhagen agreement.

"Biodiversity, itself, is essential to ecosystem adaptation. Ensuring that REDD policies not only reduce carbon emissions but conserve biodiversity will ensure that humanity and the biosphere can be as resilient as possible to climate disruptions," Pimm said.

Countries that invest in the management and restoration of ecosystems are likely to see far higher rates of return and stronger economic growth in the 21st century, according to a study by 100 experts from science, economics and policy from across the globe.

"Some countries have already made the link to a limited extent and are glimpsing benefits in terms of jobs, livelihoods and economic returns that outstrip those wedded to older economic models of the previous century," says a statement accompanying the release today of a report prepared by The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB).

NGS stock photo by Michael Nichols

TEEB was launched by Germany and the European Commission in response to a proposal by the G8+5 Environment Ministers (Potsdam, Germany 2007) to develop a global study on the economics of biodiversity loss. It is an independent study, hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme with financial support from European countries.

In its report released today, TEEB gave these examples of countries already reaping benefits from ecosystem projects:

• In Venezuela, investment in the national protected area system is preventing sedimentation that otherwise could reduce farm earnings by around U.S.$3.5 million a year.
• Planting and protecting nearly 12,000 hectares of mangroves in Vietnam costs just over $1 million but saved annual expenditures on dyke maintenance of well over $7 million.
• One in 40 jobs in Europe is now linked with the environment and ecosystem services ranging from clean tech "eco-industries" to organic agriculture, sustainable forestry and eco-tourism.
• Investment in the protection of Guatemala's Maya Biosphere Reserve is generating an annual of income of close to $50 million a year, createed 7,000 jobs, and boosted local family incomes.

"Accelerate, scale-up and embed investments in the management and restoration of ecosystems."

The TEEB report, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, calls on policy-makers to "accelerate, scale-up and embed investments in the management and restoration of ecosystems."

It also calls for more sophisticated cost-benefit analysis before policy decisions are made.

The report cites a study on mangroves in south Thailand on the conversion of mangroves into shrimp farms, an example of cost-benefit analysis that was perhaps not very well thought-through.

"Subsidized commercial shrimp farms can generate returns of around $1,220 per hectare by clearing mangrove forests. But this does not take into account the losses to local communities totaling over $12,000 a hectare linked with wood and non-wood forest products, fisheries and coastal protection services," TEEB said.

"Nor does the profit to the commercial operators take into account the costs of rehabilitating the abandoned sites after five years of exploitation---estimated at over $9,000 a hectare." 

Ecosystem-savvy economy

TEEB's report outlines a plan to catalyze a transition to more ecosystem-savvy economies able to meet the multiple challenges and deliver the multiple opportunities on a planet of six billion people, rising to nine billion by 2050.

Said Pavan Sukhdev, TEEB's study leader, "Nature's multiple and complex values have direct economic impacts on human wellbeing and public and private spending. Recognizing and rewarding the value delivered to society by the natural environment must become a policy priority.

"The economic invisibility of ecosystems and biodiversity is increased by our dominant economic model, which is consumption-led, production-driven, and GDP-measured. This model is in need of significant reform. The multiple crises we are experiencing--fuel, food, finance, and the economy--serve as reminders of the need for change.

"It is now up to governments to provide fiscal or other incentives to move us from short-term opportunism to long-term stewardship. The right policies can help us move toward a resource efficient economy."

The report comes in advance of the United Nations climate convention meeting in Copenhagen where governments are expected to give the green light to funding developing countries to maintain forests, the statement says.

"Close to 20 per cent of current global greenhouse gas emissions are linked with deforestation. Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) aims to counter this while also generating financial flows from North to South.

"REDD and REDD-Plus, which includes not only maintaining forests but planting and recovering forest systems, secured the backing of close 15 presidents and prime ministers at a special meeting hosted last month by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon." (Read about this on Stuart Pimm's blog Better REDD than dead when it comes to climate change.) 

NGS stock photo by James P. Blair

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said: "Paying developing countries under REDD marks a fundamental step forward in terms of bringing the huge financial importance of ecosystems and biodiversity into the centre of economic activity."

"It could open the door to more creative and forward looking funds and mechanisms covering other nature-based infrastructure such as peatlands and wetlands en route to support for the services generated by coastal and marine ecosystems such as coral reefs to mangroves," he said.

Read on for the key recommendations of The Economics of Ecosystems and Biovidersity:

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a Resolution today that condemns the unchecked illegal logging and decimation of Madagascar's endemic species, Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon), author of the resolution, said in a statement published on his Web site.

"The House is sending a firm signal that the devastating and illegal destruction of Madagascar's natural resources will not be tolerated," Blumenauer said. "Illegal logging not only does irreparable harm to the environment, but it destroys livelihoods.

"In Oregon and across the United States, at a time when we are working to recover the economy, illegal timber imports undermine legitimate logging operations.

"While Madagascar's de facto government continues to use its endangered resources to boost its regime, Congress today joined the administration in calling for an immediate end to these practices."

The Resolution responds to growing anxiety in the international conservation community that the continued plundering of Madagascar's few protected forests, for valuable rosewood and other timber, and with it the destruction of habitat vital for the survival of lemurs and numerous other rare species, has inflicted irreparable damage on the African island country's environment.

Satellite image courtesy NASA

Much of the California-size island has been eroded because of deforestation for farming. Most of the country's twenty million people are poor. Conservation projects such as national parks that would showcase Madagascar's abundance of endemic species were supposed to provide drawcards for tourists and researchers, creating income and work to kick-start local economies. But much of that is at risk because of recent political instability and the destruction of the forests.

There is also concern that what's been happening in Madagascar exacerbates the problem of worldwide illegal logging, which costs countries U.S.$10 billion-15 billion each year in lost revenues for legitimate lumber industries.

"Madagascar is home to almost 150,000 species of flora and fauna. The illegal extraction of these resources threatens biodiversity as well as legitimate logging operations in the U.S.--up to $460 million lost in export opportunities every year," Blumenauer said.

"After a coup in March, the new and weakened government of Andry Rajoelina issued sweeping decrees allowing the harvest and export of wood from protected forests and World Heritage Sites. The Obama administration has condemned the de facto government, and the Wildlife Conservation Society, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and Conservation International have denounced the wholesale exploitation of some of the world's most diverse forests and decimation of the local population's resources and livelihoods. These groups have strongly endorsed Blumenauer's resolution," the Congressman's statement said.

NGS photo by Luis Marden

The House voted 409-5 to join the administration and environmental groups in speaking out against the devastation occurring in Madagascar. The Resolution was co-sponsored by 49 members, representing both Democrats and Republicans and including Congressman Donald Payne (D-New Jersey), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health on the Committee for Foreign Affairs, and Congressman Eni Faleomavaega (D-American Samoa), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Africa and the Global Environment.

Author of the Legal Timber Protection Act, Blumenauer is a global leader on the issue of illegal logging, his Web site states. The law, signed in May 2008, bans the import of illegally harvested timber and wood products and empowers regulators to keep illegally harvested timber out of the U.S.

NGS photo by Luis Marden

Commenting on today's House resolution, John Calvelli, Wildlife Conservation Society Executive Vice President of Public Affairs, said, "The situation in Madagascar is nothing short of tragic--not only for the people and wildlife of Madagascar, but for the entire planet. I applaud Congressman Blumenauer for his continued leadership in the United States Congress on the issue of illegal logging. This resolution will serve as a clear message to the current Malagasy government that the illegal harvesting of Madagascar's natural resources is unacceptable."

Said Lisa Steel, Deputy Director for Madagascar at WWF, "The loss of Madagascar's spectacular biodiversity would not only be a global tragedy, but it will further impoverish rural communities whose lives are inextricably tied to the health of their natural environments. While Madagascar is under the rule of a weakened government, it is essential that the international community work to stop the harvest and trade of illegal wood and other protected species, and we appreciate this important first step by Congressman Blumenauer."

"Congressman Blumenauer continues to play a leadership role in the global problem of illegal logging and the responsibility of consumer nations like the U.S. to support the fight against it, through policies like the Lacey Act and this resolution," said Alexander von Bismarck, executive director of the Environmental Investigation Agency, which conducted a mission to Madagascar in August 2009 to evaluate the illegal logging situation.

Full text of the Resolution passed by the U.S. House of Representatives today:

H. RES. 839
Mr. BLUMENAUER (for himself, Mr. PAYNE, and Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA) submitted
the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs

RESOLUTION
Condemning the illegal extraction of Madagascar's natural
resources.

Whereas Madagascar is the world's fourth largest island, and
home to up to 150,000 species of unique flora and fauna;

Whereas during the last 20 years, with the support of the
U.S. Government and others, Madagascar has made substantial
progress in stopping environmental degradation,
effectively managing natural resources and preserving its
unique biodiversity;

Whereas these natural resources provide essential benefits
and services for the basic needs of the majority of
Madagascar's people, three-quarters of whom live in rural
areas and two-thirds of whom live on less than $2 per
day;

Whereas these natural resources also provide economic development
in the tourism sector, drawing an estimated
$390,000,000 per year;

Whereas the Obama Administration has condemned Marc
Ravalomanana's forced resignation as President of the
Republic of Madagascar, and Andry Rajoelina's installation
as de facto head of state, as tantamount to a coup
d'etat, undemocratic, and contrary to the rule of law;

Whereas in March 2009, the Obama Administration announced
a suspension of non-humanitarian assistance to
the de facto Andry Rajoelina government;

Whereas, given that 2⁄3 of people live off the natural resources,
decreased assistance for conservation efforts is
having dire humanitarian consequences;

Whereas the African Union and the Southern African Development
Community have suspended Madagascar's participation
until constitutional order is restored;

Whereas in October 2009, the World Wide Fund (WWF),
Conservation International, and the Wildlife Conservation
Society condemned an interministerial order issued by the
current administration granting sweeping authorization
to export raw and semi-processed hard wood as
''legaliz[ing] the sale of illegally cut and collected wood
onto the market; allow[ing] for the potential embezzlement
of funds in the name of environmental protection
and constitut[ing] a legal incentive for further corruption
in the forestry sector'';

Whereas the following natural resource degradation is occurring
under the de facto government's watch--

(1) open and organized plundering of precious wood
from natural forests, including World Heritage Sites such
as Marojejy and Masoala National Parks;

(2) intimidation and menace of legitimate local community
management structures, and expropriation of revenue
and benefits from them, causing suffering and impoverishment;

(3) intensified smuggling of endemic and protected
species and species parts and/or products to the national
and international markets;

(4) proliferation of destructive practices such as illegal
mining and slash-and-burn agriculture within protected
areas and environmentally sensitive areas;

(5) degradation of forests, pushing some rosewood
and ebony species to the brink of extinction; and

(6) the degradation of the resource base upon which
rural communities depend representing an immediate and
future threat to local governance, local incomes, and food
security; and

Whereas the vast majority of this precious wood is destined
for global export markets: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives--

(1) calls on people of Madagascar to immediately
undertake a democratic, consensual process
to restore constitutional governance, culminating in
free, fair and peaceful elections;

(2) strongly condemns the illegal extraction of
Madagascar's natural resources and its impact on
biodiversity and livelihoods of rural communities,
including illegal logging, smuggling of wild species,
and illegal mining;

(3) supports action by competent authorities
and the people of Madagascar to stop this illegal
devastation and bring those perpetrating these
crimes to justice;

(4) calls upon importing countries to intensify
their inspection and monitoring processes to ensure
that they do not contribute to the demand for ille10
gally sourced precious woods from Madagascar; and

(5) calls upon consumers of rosewood and
ebony products to check their origin, and boycott
those made of Malagasy wood, until constitutional
order is restored.

 

You might also be interested in:

The call to boycott Madagascar's rosewood and ebony explained
Conservation biologist Stuart Pimm writes about his observations of the diversity in Madagascar and how the current pillaging of the country's natural heritage threatens not only to destroy decades of conservation work, but also ruin the one chance that communities adjacent to national parks have to escape poverty.

Conservationists Call on Malagasy People to Stop Forest Plunder
Eleven groups that fund and help manage conservation of Madagascar's remaining wilderness heritage issued a joint statement deploring the invasion by armed looters of national parks and forests, illegal timber extraction, illegal mining, and intensified smuggling of endangered species.

Act Aggressively to Curb Illegal Logging, Madagascar Urged
Madagascar's efforts to curtail illegal logging in the World Heritage Sites of Masoala and Marojejy National Parks and their peripheral zones have not reduced the impact of logging in the immediate term, say governments, international agencies, and conservation groups that support conservation of the country's natural heritage.

Lemurs, Rare Forests Threatened by Madagascar Strife
Looters are invading Madagascar's protected wildlife sanctuaries, harvesting trees and threatening critically endangered lemurs and other species. (March 2009)

 

Khaliah Ali, daughter of legendary boxing icon Muhammad Ali, is honoring the 35th anniversary of the historic "Rumble in the Jungle" bout between Ali and George Foreman by making a humanitarian visit this week to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

This marks the first time that an Ali family member has returned to Kinshasa, the city where one of sports most historic events occured, said a news statement about Ali's visit.

Photo by Jowan Gauthier

Khaliah Ali's visit to the Congo culminates tomorrow, October 30, at the Mai 20 Stadium, site of "Rumble in the Jungle," when world heavyweight champion George Foreman faced off against former world champion and challenger Muhammad Ali.

In what has since been regarded as one of the classic fights of history, Ali regained the title, defying the predictions of most pundits. "Rumble in the Jungle" continues to be re-aired several times a year on cable television.

"My father and the Congolese people share a remarkable bond born from an event that empowered a country and supported him as he reclaimed his heavyweight crown," Ali said in the statement. "I know that the spirit of the 60,000 people who witnessed the fight lives inside his heart to this day.

"It has been my dream to show my deep affection and gratitude to the Congolese people for the integral role they played in my own family's history."

"It has been my dream to show my deep affection and gratitude to the Congolese people for the integral role they played in my own family's history.

"Additionally, this trip offers an opportunity for me to become further involved in ongoing relief programs and to gain a fuller understanding of the progress underway in the western and southern regions and the tragedies that still exist in the east."

Photo by Jowan Gauthier

Social activist, author, and fashion designer, Khaliah Ali is engaged with numerous philanthropic activities, including serving as board member of Big Brothers Big Sisters International; on-air spokesperson for Youth at Risk; Advisory board member and spokesperson for Help USA; chairwoman for the Friends of The Statue of Liberty Foundation; director of development for the Urban Retrievers Program; youth entertainment consultant to the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation; and senior staff member with the Job Core Program.

She is using her visit to the Congo to raise awareness fpr the efforts of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and otner humanitarian agencies serving the country.

Prior to her departure for the Congo, Ali prepared this statement about why she identifies with the people of the Congo and wants to help the country overcome its current challenges:

By Khaliah Ali

October 30 will mark 35 years since my father, Muhammad Ali, fought his first boxing match outside the U.S.--the "Rumble in the Jungle," which took place in the Congo.

The Congo was struggling--a young, impoverished country seeking identity on the world stage. My father was struggling too--his opponent was twice his size and younger than he was. A lot was riding on this fight.

But the iconic moment of that trip for him was not his win. It occurred perhaps the next morning, when after a thorough search, no one could find him to engage him in victory celebrations. Finally, he was located in a dusty village doing magic tricks for children.

He had intuitively grasped the bond. Here was a country that had just come out of unimaginable oppression in its successful bid for independence but had far to go.

Khaliah Ali (left) with Noella Coursaris Musunka, a Congolese fashion model who founded the Georges Malaika Foundation. Together they placed the first stone for a new girls' school in Katanga.

Photo by Jowan Gauthier

My father, a black man who had grown up in Louisville, Kentucky, was the embodiment of overcoming every obstacle imaginable, of the notion that you can get "here" from "there." His bringing attention to the Congo, and the plight of the Congolese, was their iconic moment--their own version of George Washington crossing the Delaware.

But the Congo is still crossing. The country is plagued by a horrific civil war in the east where tens of thousands of women are being raped. Rape is being used as a weapon of war, in fact, to damage the population in that region to the point that they won't reproduce.

Photo by Jowan Gauthier

I am too young to remember my father's trip. The day I was born, Father's Day 1974, he gave a press conference to talk about the fact that he would be going abroad in a few months.

But I am not too young to know that my father, who came of age during the Civil Rights era, knows the importance of never allowing anyone else to be devalued, of never accepting the status quo. That is why, with a mixture of pride and determination, I leave for the Congo to continue to help build the humanitarian bridge for which he laid the cornerstone so many years ago.

With Noella Coursaris Musunka, a Congolese fashion model who founded the Georges Malaika Foundation, I will lay the first stone for a new girls' school in Katanga. It's been proven that when girls go to school, a nation's GDP increases, and the rates of HIV infection dramatically decrease. Educated girls are not so easily forced into marriages with men who take many partners at once.

We will also visit a women's entrepreneurship college, where women are taught skills that will allow them to succeed in business, choose their own destinies, and help build a vibrant country. Without women, half of a nation's population, a country has no backbone.

Photo by Jowan Gauthier

We will be visiting programs benefited by UNICEF, The United Nations World Food Programme and other helping organizations.

I will also have the opportunity to speak to the students of The University of Lubumbashi and The University of Kinshasa and learn about the diverse needs of the Congolese people.

My father is no longer in the position to make such a trip easily. But I will be accompanied on this journey "back" by my 10-year-old son. To this young boy's grandfather, that's how it should be. Humanitarian efforts are supposed to stretch seamlessly not only from nation to nation but also from generation to generation.

The global warming movement finally went global yesterday, said 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben, in reaction to the International Day of Climate Action, marked yesterday by more than 5,000 demonstrations in 181 countries.

A 350 is mowed into a meadow 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Copenhagen, where the United Nations Climate Change Conference will be held this December. This picture was taken as part of the 350.org International Day of Climate Action on October 24, 2009.

Photo courtesy of Henrik Jørgensen, Chairman of The Strøgårdsvang Mowers Association

Founded by McKibben, an American environmentalist and author, 350.org is an international campaign dedicated to building a movement to unite the world around solutions to the climate crisis. Its mission is "to inspire the world to rise to the challenge of the climate crisis--to create a new sense of urgency and of possibility for our planet."

Students in Cebu City, Philippines gather in a giant 350.

Photo by Vito Selma/courtesy of 350.org

350 parts per million is what many scientists, climate experts, and progressive national governments think is the safe upper limit for CO2 in the atmosphere, 350.0rg explained in a press release about yesterday's global demonstration.

"Scientists have concluded that we are already above the safe zone at our current 390ppm, and that unless we are able to rapidly return to 350 ppm this century, we risk reaching tipping points and irreversible impacts such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet and major methane releases from increased permafrost melt."

More than 1,200 people took part in an event at the Sydney Opera House to call for climate action as part of the 350.org Global Day of Climate Action on October 24. Hundreds took part in spelling out 350 on the steps of Sydney's iconic Opera House.

Photo courtesy of 350.org

For yesterday's International Day of Climate Action, 350.org combining the Web and SMS networks, distributing Flip video cameras, and training young people in "climate workshops" on multiple continents.

"Event organizers filmed and photographed their actions and uploaded them immediately to the group's website and Flickr account, and organizers will displayed hundreds of them on the giant advertising screens of Times Square [in New York City] before hand-delivering shots to United Nations delegations on Monday," 350.org said.

Joseph Rotella and Aravinda Ananada hold a 350 sign at the melting glaciers of Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania.

Photo courtesy of 350.0rg

Thousands of photos from 5,248 rallies and protests spread across 181 countries flooded into the Web servers of 350.org over the last 36 hours--marking, 350.org said, "the most widespread day of political action in the planet's history."

"And there wasn't a rock star or movie actor in sight," McKibben said. "It was ordinary people rallying around a scientific data point to send the message that our leaders actually need to lead."

Fisheries Minister of the Maldives Ibrahim Didi signing the 350 declaration during the underwater cabinet meeting on October 17.

Photo courtesy of 350.org

"Parts per million CO2 sounds too obscure an idea to attract crowds on six continents, but there were thousands of people in the streets from Togo and Ethiopia and Paraguay to Seattle and London and Sydney," McKibben said.

The Wilderness Society made this statement in a logged portion of the forests of the Central Highlands of Victoria, Australia (Just outside of Melbourne).

Photo by Andrew North, Cloud 9 (Aerial Photography)/courtesy of 350.0rg

Highlights of the day, 350.org said, included a "planet-scale game of Scrabble," with citizens in Wellington, New Zealand, and Sydney, Australia, forming giant human 3s, London, UK, and New Delhi, India, enormous human 5s, and Quito, Ecuador, and Copenhagen, Denmark, massive 0s.

"The point was you had to put them together across global borders if you wanted to solve the puzzle," said 350.org media coordinator Jamie Henn. "Just like the climate negotiations set for Copenhagen in December."

Women in Bangladesh

Photo courtesy of 350.org

Around the shore of the Dead Sea Israeli activists made a giant 3, Palestinians a huge 5, and Jordanians a 0. In South Africa, climbers with banners dangled beneath the cable cars on Table Mountain. In Canada, thousands thronged Parliament Hill in Ottawa, 350.org reported.

"People in almost all the nations of the earth are involved ," said 350.org honorary spokesman Desmond Tutu, the South African Anglican archbishop and Nobel Laureate. "It's the same kind of coalition that helped make the word apartheid known around the world."

Buena Vista, Colorado

Photo courtesy of 350.org

The International Day of Climate Action is the second key moment in the Tck Tck Tck campaign on the road to the next UN climate change meeting in Copenhagen this December, 350.0rg said. "Tck Tck Tck is an unprecedented global alliance of civil society organizations, trade unions, faith groups, and millions of individuals all calling for a fair, ambitious, and binding climate change agreement.

"The Day of Action is a part of an effort to build the world's biggest mandate for bold climate action."

Photo courtesy of 350.org

Photo courtesy of 350.org

Photo by R. Arul/courtesy of 350.org

Photo by Peter Solness/courtesy of 350.org

Six hundred experts from seventy countries concluding a biodiversity conference today in Cape Town, South Africa, described preliminary research revealing "jaw-dropping" dollar values of the ecosystem services of forests and coral reefs, including food, pollution treatment, and climate regulation.

"Undertaken to help societies make better-informed choices, the economic research shows a single hectare [2.47 acres] of coral reef, for example, provides annual services to humans valued at U.S.$130,000 on average, rising to as much as $1.2 million," said a statement released by Diversitas, a Paris-based international partnership of inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations formed to promote and facilitate scientific research on biodiversity. Diversitas convened the conference.

NGS photo by Bates Littlehales

The research described in Cape Town today provides insights into the worth of ecosystems in human economic terms, says economist Pavan Sukhdev of the United Nations Environment Programme, head of a Cambridge, England-based project called The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB).

Based on analysis of more than 80 coral reef valuation studies, TEEB calculated the worth of services per hectare of coral reef breaks down as follows: 

• Food, raw materials, ornamental resources: average $1,100 (up to $6,000);
• Climate regulation, moderation of extreme events, waste treatment / water purification, biological control: average $26,000 (up to $35,000);
• Cultural services (eg. recreation / tourism): average $88,700 (up to $1.1 million)
• Maintenance of genetic diversity: average $13,500 (up to $57,000)

Taken together, coral reef services worldwide have an average annual value estimated at $172 billion, Sukhdev said.

NGS photo by Paul Zahl

Sukhdev noted growing scientific agreement that coral reefs are unlikely to survive if atmospheric carbon dioxide levels exceed 350 parts per million. Negotiators of a new climate change deal in Copenhagen in December, however, "would be proud" to achieve an agreement that limits atmospheric carbon to 450 parts per million, he said, calling that "a death sentence on the world's coral reefs."

Halving deforestation worth trillions

"Halving the destruction of tropical forests, meanwhile, would allow them to continue absorbing roughly 4.8 gigatonnes of carbon per year, slow the rise of atmospheric carbon levels and forestall anticipated climate change damage, Diversitas said in its statement. "Halving deforestation has a net present value estimated at U.S.$3.7 trillion, according to research."

The economic choice of turning such forests into timber or clearing them to make way for agriculture is "not very clever," Sukhdev said.

"Stopping deforestation offers an excellent cost-benefit ratio. "Investment in protected areas holds exceptional high returns," he said.

"Investing $45 billion could secure nature-based services worth some $4.5 to 5.2 trillion annually."

Previous studies have shown that investing $45 billion "could secure nature-based services worth some $4.5 to 5.2 trillion annually," Diversitas added. "Among the specific examples cited: planting mangroves along a coastline in Vietnam cost $1.1 million but saved $7.3 million annually in dyke maintenance."

Diversitas released these examples of a rate of return on investments in ecosystem restoration:

• Coral reefs: 7%, (with a cost-benefit ratio of 2.8);
• Rivers: 27%, (cost-benefit ratio 15.5);
• Tropical forests: 50% (cost-benefit ratio 37.3);
• Mangroves: 40%, (cost-benefit ratio 26.4);
• Grasslands: 79%, (cost-benefit ratio 75.1).

Cape Town "Declaration" 

Scientists attending the conference issued a concluding statement confirming stating that "as we approach the 2010 Year of Biodiversity ... the fabric out of which the Earth system is woven is unravelling at an accelerating rate."

"At the same time, we are discovering ever more about biodiversity and the benefits it provides to people. It is clear that biodiversity loss erodes the integrity of ecosystems and their capacity to adapt in a changing world. It represents a serious risk to human wellbeing and a squandering of current assets and future opportunities.

"The biodiversity scientists gathered here commit themselves to finding practical solutions to this problem. They will do so by: increasing shared knowledge of biodiversity and its functions; helping to develop systems for monitoring the biodiversity of the planet; and being responsive to the knowledge needs of society with clear communication of findings.

"The proposed mechanism for the ongoing evaluation and communication of scientific evidence on these issues is an Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). We call on governments and non-governmental organisations to join us in establishing IPBES as soon as possible. We urge policy-makers to act swiftly and effectively on the already-established and future findings relating to ways of limiting further biodiversity loss and restoring ecosystem services."

"Meeting current and future human needs must make adequate provision for the complex web of life of which people are an integral part. People everywhere must give effect to their shared desire for a biologically-rich and productive planet through their individual decisions and political voices."

Cheetahs are a step closer to being reintroduced to India, where they were exterminated at least a half century ago, following a decision by the Indian government to allow surveys to identify suitable habitat for the big cat.

If all goes according to plan, the world's fastest land mammal will be reintroduced to India from Africa. The surviving remnant of Asia's cheetahs, genetically close relatives of their African kin, now found only in Iran, are deemed by experts to be too few in number to risk fragmenting its breeding population.

NGS photo by Chris Johns

If cheetahs are reintroduced to India it could have significant positive consequences for entire ecosystems.

Being top predators, cheetahs require sustainable populations of prey (mostly small antelope and other animals), which in turn require healthy habitat for their own feeding and breeding. Healthy habitat for cheetahs and their prey benefits a host of plants, insects, birds, and many other species.

NGS photo by Chris Johns

"The Ministry of Environment and Forests has given a go-ahead to draft a detailed roadmap for the Cheetah Reintroduction Project, proposed by the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), and endorsed by wildlife experts during the consultative meeting held in Gajner, Rajasthan, last month," WTI posted on its Web site last week.

"Jairam Ramesh, Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests, conveyed the Ministry's decision [on October 6] in a letter addressed to Dr MK Ranjitsinh, Chairman, WTI, who heads the project," WTI said.

"The Minister approved the recommendation for a detailed survey of potential reintroduction sites in four states, shortlisted during the Gajner consultative meeting. The survey will ascertain which of these sites are most suitable for this endeavour as well as what needs to be done in each of them in preparation for the return of the cheetah."

NGS photo by Chris Johns

The survey, that will form the basis for the roadmap, will be carried out by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun, in collaboration with the WTI, the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and the state governments concerned, WTI added.

"We have been given a mandate to prepare this roadmap in four months. The return of the cheetah would make India the only country in the world to host six of the world's eight large cats and the only one to have all the large cats of Asia. The effort would also ensure conservation action in cheetah habitats in India, which so far, has been severely lacking," Ranjitsinh said.

NGS photo by Chris Johns

The meeting in Rajasthan last month debated several issues impacted by cheetah reintroduction, including habitat and prey availability, man-animal conflict, professional project management and source of the reintroduction stock, according to Wildlife Extra, an online wildlife magazine.

NGS photo by Chris Johns

Ranjitsinh, the WTI chairman, stressed the benefits of cheetah reintroduction to the endangered grassland-woodland habitats of India, Wildlife Extra added. "If the project succeeds, we will not only be returning the species to India, but will also be securing grasslands, which despite being the most productive, are also among the least studied and excessively neglected of Indian habitats, and a number of endangered species that survive within these habitats will also benefit," he said.

NGS photo by Chris Johns

Ranjitsinh told BBC News that the plan is to import African cheetahs and release them in the wild in designated open areas, which have been examined and checked thoroughly. "The plan is to bring cheetahs from the wild in Africa and release them in the wild in India. The cat will help in conserving the ecosystem," he said.

NGS photo by Chris Johns 

Lions, cheetahs, leopards, jaguars, and other top felines are quickly disappearing, all victims of habitat loss and degradation as well as conflicts with humans.

To address this critical situation, the National Geographic Society has launched the Big Cats Initiative, an emergency intervention to halt the alarming decline of big cats combined with longer-term strategies to restore populations. For more information and to learn how you can help, visit the Big Cats Initative Web site.

Not much has been known about the distribution and range of some of Africa's most secretive predators, including leopards and other big cats that hunt at night and sleep during the day. Where do they prowl after dark? Do they steal across farms when everyone is asleep?

By using a network of more than 400 camera traps, researchers have been able to monitor a number of carnivores as they move around in darkness across the northern part of the East African country Tanzania.

NGS camera trap shot of a leopard by Michael Nichols

The result of the investigation, according to the study by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), and the Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute (TAWIRI), is that the meat-eaters tend to stay within specific habitat, avoiding other areas.

"Surprisingly, all the species surveyed tended to avoid croplands, suggesting that habitat conversion to agricultural land could have serious implications for carnivore distribution," said Wiley-Blackwell in a statement about the research. The study was published in the current issue of the Wiley-Blackwell research journal Animal Conservation.

NGS portrait of a leopard (Panthera pardus) in Africa by Chris Johns

The cameras recorded 23 out of 35 carnivore species known to occur in Tanzania.

Unsurprisingly, the cameras demonstrated that carnivore biodiversity tended to be higher in national parks than in game reserves and forest reserves.

Photo of serval caught in camera trap courtesy of Zoological Society of London

"We explored habitat use for seven species for which we had sufficient information. All species tended to be found near rivers and southern Acacia commiphora woodlands (except one mongoose species), and avoided deciduous shrubland, favouring deciduous woodland and/or open grassland," the researchers said in their paper.

"Camera traps provide a fantastic opportunity to gain knowledge on habitat use and spatial distribution of otherwise elusive and poorly known species," said Sarah Durant from ZSL. "This methodology represents a powerful tool that can inform national and site-based wildlife managers and policy makers as well as international agreements on conservation."

Nocturnal species under-reported

Until now, many of the species had been under reported because of their nocturnal habits, or because they live in heavily forested areas.

Photo of caracal caught in camera trap courtesy of Zoological Society of London

"The strength of the technique to document habitat preference of elusive species is highlighted by camera trap observations of bushy tailed mongooses--including the first ever records of this species from one of the most visited areas in the country," the researchers said.

Previously thought to be rare, the bushy-tailed mongoose (Bdeogale crassicauda) is in fact much more widely distributed in northern Tanzania than had been known, the scientists found by studying the camera trap images.

"These data can also be used to understand how Tanzania's carnivores may respond to habitat changes caused as a result of environmental change," the researchers noted.

Carnivores are sensitive to development

"Carnivores are generally thought to be relatively tolerant to land conversion, yet our study suggests that they may be more sensitive to development than previously thought, and that protected areas need to be sufficiently large to ensure that these charismatic animals will roam in Tanzania for the decades to come,' said Nathalie Pettorelli from ZSL.

All species were also foiund the be affected by rivers and habitat, and the analysis provides important information relevant to the examination of future impacts of climate change, the scientists said.

Photo of leopard caught in camera trap courtesy of Zoological Society of London

The project continues to map carnivore distribution across the country, working closely with the wildlife authorities to support local conservationists and to generate information that is used to inform conservation planning.

"Our study provides a first example where camera-trap data are combined with niche analyses to reveal patterns in habitat use and spatial distribution of otherwise elusive and poorly known species and to inform reserve design and land-use planning," the scientists said.

"Our methodology represents a potentially powerful tool that can inform national and site-based wildlife managers and policy makers as well as international agreements on conservation."

Photo of wild dog and warthog caught in camera trap courtesy of Zoological Society of London

Lions, cheetahs, leopards, jaguars, and other top felines are quickly disappearing, all victims of habitat loss and degradation as well as conflicts with humans.

To address this critical situation, the National Geographic Society has launched the Big Cats Initiative, an emergency intervention to halt the alarming decline of big cats combined with longer-term strategies to restore populations. For more information and to learn how you can help, visit the Big Cats Initative Web site.

Representatives of Malagasy civil society, conservation and development organizations and the international community issued a statement today lamenting the ongoing destruction of Madagascar's last fragments of forest for the illegal harvest and export of precious woods. Consumers of rosewood and ebony products are asked to check their origin, and boycott those made of Malagasy wood. The full statement is at the bottom of this page.

Conservation biologist Stuart Pimm writes about his observations of the diversity in Madagascar and how the current pillaging of the country's natural heritage threatens not only to destroy decades of conservation work, but also ruin the one chance that communities adjacent to national parks have to escape poverty.

By Stuart L. Pimm
Special Contributor to NatGeo News Watch

Madagascar has long been the worst country to be a tree. In the last year, things have got even nastier.

"To how many continents have you traveled with National Geographic," people ask me. "Eight," I reply with complete confidence. "But there are only seven continents!" I will not win the National Geographic Bee. I am unmoved, nonetheless.

Madagascar is the eighth "continent," and no one who loves the great diversity of life on Earth would disagree.

Almost everything a naturalist sees in Madagascar is unique to the place.

There are the lemurs, of course. But even to a birdwatcher, broadly familiar kinds of birds are so special to the island that they must have "Madagascar" in front of their names: Madagascar partridge, Madagascar pochard, Madagascar buttonquail--and on down a long list. It turns out that most of these birds are not all that familiar--they are peculiarly from Madagascar.

Simply, Madagascar is an entirely isolated world. It has landscapes that could be the sets for science fiction movies, and one odd lemur, the aye-aye, that is too incredible to belong in one.

Photo of silky sifakas courtesy Jeff Gibbs

Most of Madagascar's trees--and other plants--are also unique.

Sadly, Madagascar is a wretchedly bad place to be a tree, even in the best of times. Most of the country has been deforested. A coup earlier this year ejected a democratically elected president. In the lawlessness that has followed since, the remaining trees are getting an even worse deal than they have in the past.

Along with other members of National Geographic's Committee for Research and Exploration (CRE) a few years ago, we flew from the capital city, Antananarivo, towards the northeast end of the island--the Masoala peninsula, a place of exceptional diversity.

But almost as soon as we took off there was smoke in the air--and on the ground beneath us we could see fires, small and large. I know from looking at satellite images that many are large enough to be seen from space.

Fires detected by satellite--red squares--dot the landscape of east-central Madagascar, while the wispy plumes of smoke often obscure the land beneath.  The image is approximately 300 kilometers (200 miles) from north to south.  Several of the smoke plumes are 30 kilometers (20 miles) long. There are scattered clouds along the eastern edge of the image and more extensive clouds in its southwest corner.

Image courtesy NASA

I first traveled to Madagascar with my then graduate student, Luke Dollar--now a National Geographic emerging explorer. On the ground, the problem was obvious. To clear their fields or to give a short flush of nutrients for the grasses on which their cattle feed, villagers set fire to the land.

The remnant patches of forest--often in national parks--would go up in flames too as the fire spread into them. Wherever we traveled, we saw forest edges that had been recently burned.

"Why should they care," Luke asked. "They get no benefit from parks." Rural areas of Madagascar contain some of the poorest people on Earth.

Photo by Stuart L. Pimm

Luke, and my fellow CRE member, Professor Patricia Wright, spend their energies ensuring that poor people near Madagascar's parks do benefit from the sanctuaries.

Luke founded a small restaurant near one park, for example. The committee ate there during our visit. (Rice and beans, French fries and eggs--a definite improvement on the food we ate during our field work in earlier years.)

With an income stream from the restaurant, the children in the village were all in school. Literacy is the first step on the ladder out of poverty.

Photo of rosewood logging in Madagascar courtesy Stuart Pimm

Reports from the field make it clear that in the last year there has been a surge in logging inside protected forests. The trees involved are mostly "rosewood" and "ebony," Peter Raven told me.

Peter is the chairman of National Geographic's Committee for Research and Exploration and has overseen many National Geographic grants to local and international researchers in Madagascar.

In his other capacity as president of Missouri Botanical Garden, Peter is responsible for a large staff in Madagascar. Missouri Botanical Garden runs a multitiered botanical training program in the country, with a network of local collectors working in parks and reserves.

Peter Raven is truly in the middle of the country's research and conservation.

Rosewood and Ebony

I asked Peter for more information about the rosewood and ebony trees, for these common names are misleading.

"Rosewood is Dalbergia, a legume, and it has some 47 endemic species in Madagascar, and Diospyros, ebony, which is also being logged, we now believe has nearly 200 species--a remarkable array of endemics in each case," he told me. ("Endemics" are those species found only in the country.)

Photo of rosewood logging courtesy Stuart Pimm

I've not seen the illegal logging firsthand in Madagascar. But I know the way it works in other countries. The essential ingredients are a good river and bad policing. You select a tree near a river, fell it with a chain saw, float it downriver. There will always be someone to pay for the chain saw, so long as he doesn't get caught.

So who buys these trees? Try typing "Madagascar rosewood" into Google. The first couple of hundred entries are almost all about guitars. And I gave up checking after that.

There's a lot of money to be made in poaching trees that provide beautiful wood that we desire. Do you know where your guitar came from?

There's a lot of money to be made in poaching trees that provide beautiful wood that we desire. Do you know where your guitar came from?

There was a time when people thought that leopards looked best as skins draped over expensive women. Then we learned that they never look more beautiful than when they're in their natural habitat.

I hope there will be a time when we'll agree that there is nothing so lovely as a tree. (I borrowed that.) Except, perhaps for the lemur sitting in it.

But more than anything, there is nothing more precious to behold than the children in the schools that tourist dollars build.

Professor Stuart L. Pimm is a conservation biologist at Duke University, North Carolina. A former member of the National Geographic Committee for Research and Exploration, Pimm is the author of dozens of books and research papers, including the book "The World According to Pimm: A Scientist Audits the Earth."

Read earlier blog posts by Stuart Pimm>>

Text of statement released today by conservation groups regarding forests and export of wood from Madagascar:

Dragonflies and damselflies are ancient insects that have been around since the age of the dinosaurs. But now the aerial predators may be in trouble as climate change and human development are drying up the freshwater habitat they need to survive.

One in five Mediterranean dragonflies and damselflies is threatened with extinction because of Increasing scarcity of freshwater in the region, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said today.

Climate change and habitat degradation, due to the way land is managed, are also affecting the insects, says a report by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Photo of Large White-faced Darter (Leucorrhinia pectoralis) by Fabio Pupin/IUCN

Dragonflies and damselflies belong to the order of insects called Odonata. They have been around in one form or another since the Jurassic era, well more than a hundred million years ago. Giant specimens with wingspans of more than two feet have been found in the fossil record. About 6,500 species survive today.

Aerial predators that hunt by sight, dragonflies and damselflies generally are found at or near fresh water. The larvae are predatory, aquatic and occur in all manner of inland waters, according to the Web of Life.

Common Pond Damsel  (Ceriagrion glabrum) photo by Elisa Riservato/IUCN

The Red List assessment of 163 Mediterranean dragonflies and damselflies shows five are Critically Endangered, 13 are Endangered, another 13 are Vulnerable, 27 are Near Threatened, 96 are Least Concern and six are Data Deficient, meaning there is not enough information to classify them, but they might also be threatened.

"It is likely things will only get worse for these unique species as climate change and increased water demand take their toll," says Jean Pierre Boudot, member of the IUCN Dragonfly Specialist Group and co-author of the report. "Lower levels of precipitation and drought will lead to degradation of the habitats where the majority of dragonflies and damselflies live."

Photo of Glittering Demoiselle (Calopteryx exul) by Jean-Pierre Boudot/IUCN

Four species are already listed as Extinct in the Mediterranean, including the Little Whisp (Agriocnemis exilis), the Common Pond Damsel (Ceriagrion glabrum), the Phantom Flutterer (Rhyothemis semihyalina) and the Darting Cruiser (Phyllomacromia africana).

"Dragonflies are generally known for being good indicators of water quality," IUCN says in a statement about the report. "Major threats for 67 percent of these Mediterranean species are habitat degradation and pollution. The Spotted Darter (Sympetrum depressiusculum), which used to be common in the Mediterranean, is now listed as Vulnerable and is declining due to the intensification of agricultural practices in rice fields."

Banded Darter (Sympetrum pedemontanum) photo by Fabio Pupin/IUCN

Fourteen percent of these insect species can be found only in Mediterranean freshwater ecosystems, some of the richest and most threatened habitats, among which nine have been assessed as Endangered or Vulnerable. According to the report, the highest numbers of endemic dragonflies are present in the South and West of the Mediterranean, with the Maghreb and the Levant areas being regional hotspots of endemism.

"The Glittering Demoiselle (Calopteryx exul), for example, is listed as Endangered and is in decline. It inhabits the aquatic habitats of the Maghreb, whose ecosystems are under pressure due to water-harnessing for human use, water pollution, irrigation and drought," IUCN says.

"Long-term coordinated actions are needed at regional, national and international level, and the results of this report highlight the responsibility that Mediterranean countries have to protect the global populations.

"Though some species are already receiving some conservation attention thanks to international laws, such as the Ornate Bluet (Coenagrion ornatum) which is included in the European Habitat Directive, others are not protected at all, despite their high risk of extinction."

Banded Demoiselle (Calopteryx splendens) photo by Jean-Pierre Boudot/IUCN

"The selection and protection of key sites are essential to ensure the survival of these species," says IUCN's Annabelle Cuttelod, co-author of the report. "Their ecological requirements need to be taken into account in the planning and management of water use, especially for agriculture purposes or infrastructure development. IUCN Red List data can inform both processes."

In addition to the Mediterranean odonata assessment, 1,912 species of amphibians, birds, cartilaginous fishes, endemic freshwater fishes, crabs and crayfish, mammals, and reptiles have been assessed to date in the Mediterranean region. About 19 percent of these species are threatened with extinction: 5 percent Critically Endangered, 7 percent Endangered and 7 percent Vulnerable, IUCN says.

Spotted Darter (Sympetrum depressiusculum) photo by Jean-Pierre Boudot/IUCN.

The assessment was carried out with the support of relevant scientists from the countries bordering the Mediterranean Basin in collaboration with the IUCN Dragonfly Specialist Group, to which they contributed with their expertise to gather the data, and to assess the conservation status that would be the basis for future conservation action.

Beautiful Demoiselle (Calopteryx virgo meridionalis) photo by Jean Pierre Boudot/IUCN

This project was funded by the European Commission, the Mava Foundation and the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Development (AECID).

Ornate Bluet (Coenagrion ornatum) photo by Jean-Pierre Boudot/IUCN

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Dragonfly Mating Game (National Geographic Magazine)
From a distance, dragonfly rituals of courtship and sex look harmless, even romantic. But a close look at their mating game reveals a harsher tale of sexual harassment and conflict.

A spectacular and extremely rare textile, woven from naturally golden-colored silk thread produced by more than one million spiders in Madagascar, went on display today in the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

"This magnificent contemporary textile, measuring 11 feet by 4 feet, took four years to make using a painstaking technique developed more than 100 years ago," AMNH said in a statement.

"This unique textile was created drawing on the legacy of a French missionary, Jacob Paul Camboué, who worked with spiders in Madagascar in the 1880s and 1890s.

"Camboué worked to collect and weave spider silk but with limited success, and no surviving textile is now known to exist.

"Previously, the only known spider-silk textile of note was exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900, and it was subsequently lost."

Webs on telephone wires

Producing the spider silk---the only example of its kind displayed anywhere in the world---involved the efforts of 70 people who collected spiders daily from webs on telephone wires, using long poles, AMNH said.

"These spiders were all collected during the rainy season (the only time when they produce silk) from Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar, and the surrounding countryside.

"These giant spider webs are a well-known feature of the capital, and frequently surprise international visitors."

"These giant spider webs are a well-known feature of the capital, and frequently surprise international visitors."

A dozen more people were needed to draw the silk from the spiders with hand-powered machines, with each spider producing about 80 feet of silk filament, the museum explained.

"This intricately-patterned spider silk features stylized birds and flowers and is based on a weaving tradition known as lamba Akotifahana from the highlands of Madagascar, an art reserved for the royal and upper classes of the Merina people (who are concentrated in the Central highlands).

"Silkworm silk has been used for a long period in Madagascar, however, there is no tradition of weaving spider silk in Madagascar."

In this unique lamba cloth, the individual threads used for weaving are made by twisting 96 to 960 individual spider silk filaments together.

Photo of spider silk textile by R. Mickens/courtesy American Museum of Natural History 

By the American Museum of Natural History

• The silk fiber was gathered from the female golden orb spider (Nephila madagascariensis), which is renowned for the lustrous golden hue of its silk fiber. The male spider does not produce silk.
• The golden orb spider of Madagascar is one of about 36 members of the Nephila genus. These spiders are found throughout the tropics and are known as golden orb weavers for their big, gold-colored webs. The webs can often be seen between telephone and electrical wires---and are sometimes large enough to span a one-lane road.
• Almost all silk fabric is made from silkworm moth cocoons, but people have occasionally tried to make cloth from spider silk. One of the biggest challenges is the cannibalistic nature of spiders, which makes it very difficult to raise them in captivity, unlike silkworms. Spiders can be collected in the wild and then placed in a device to keep them still so the silk can be drawn. Afterward, the spiders are released back into the wild.
• For its weight, spider silk is stronger than steel, but---unlike steel---it can stretch up to 40 percent of its normal length. Scientists are trying to produce this intriguing material artificially on a large scale for possible uses on the battlefield, in surgery, for space exploration, and elsewhere.
• Since raising spiders has proven difficult, researchers are investigating ways to replicate spider silk to avoid harvesting. However, spider silk is difficult to mimic in a lab because the silk begins as a liquid in the spider's gland, becoming a remarkably strong, water-resistant solid after following a complicated course through the spider's interior.

Golden-silk spider (Nephila clavipes) photo courtesy USGS

Yale University anthropologist Gary P. Aronsen was studying primate behavior in Uganda last year when an infrared camera trap he set captured nighttime images of a cat so rare few researchers working in African forests have seen it.

Photo courtesy G. P. Aronsen, Department of Anthropology, Yale University

The three images made by the camera trap of the African golden cat (Profelis aurata), a cougar-like feline about twice the size of a domestic cat, were released by Yale this week.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature lists the African golden cat as Near Threatened, "as it seems reasonable to believe that the species could have declined on the order of 20 percent over the course of the last 15 years across its range, due mainly to the impact of habitat loss, hunting and loss of prey base."

Photo courtesy G. P. Aronsen, Department of Anthropology, Yale University

Although seldom seen or photographed, skins of the golden cat are more frequently encountered in museums, and among hunters and bushmeat markets, according to IUCN. The golden cat preys occasionally on tree-living primates, but its diet consists mainly of rodents and squirrels, according to analysis of its scat, which is about the only research that has been done about the feline.

Cryptic Animal

"It is a very cryptic animal. Almost nothing is known about it," said Aronsen, research associate in the Department of Anthropology, who described the photographs in the online edition of the African Journal of Ecology.

"The camera traps often capture images of elephants, chimpanzees, and small antelopes, so seeing this cat was a very welcome surprise," Aronsen added.

Aronsen showed the images to three experts, who confirmed the identification as the golden cat, Yale said in a statement.

A colleague of Aronsen's has worked for years in Kibale National Park, Uganda where the photos were taken, and has seen the animal only once, Aronsen said.

The researcher knows of only one other published photograph of the cat in the wild, taken in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Photo courtesy G. P. Aronsen, Department of Anthropology, Yale University

The cat looks much like a mountain lion of the American West and is much smaller than the lions and leopards that once roamed the park, Aronsen said. "While these larger cats have been eradicated by human encroachment in the park, the golden cat's smaller size may have helped it survive in Uganda's shrinking forests.

"Hopefully, the presence of this predator is a good sign of the forest's health--even though it's a smaller cat, the forest has to have enough resources to sustain it."

"Hopefully, the presence of this predator is a good sign of the forest's health--even though it's a smaller cat, the forest has to have enough resources to sustain it."

Aronsen is a member of a Yale research team working at Mainaro, in Uganda's Kibale National Park, including David P. Watts, professor of anthropology, and Simone Teelen, research affiliate. Support for this work is provided by the Great Ape Trust of Iowa and the L.S.B. Leakey Foundation.

A silverback gorilla associated closely with researcher Dian Fossey, that went on to be the star of last year's television documentary "Titus: The Gorilla King," died of old age in the Volcanoes National Park this week, the Rwanda Development Board-Tourism and Conservation announced on its Web site.

Photo courtesy Rwanda Tourism

"Not only was he one of the most powerful silverbacks in the Volcanoes National Park, he is possibly the most remarkable gorilla ever known," the statement said.

"He was born on August 24, 1974 and has been observed closely by researchers, including Dian Fossey, throughout his entire life. Tragically, he succumbed to old age on September 14, 2009 at the age of 35 years."

Dian Fossey wrote an account of her mountain gorilla research for National Geographic Magazine. Read her article from the January, 1970 issue: Making Friends With Mountain Gorillas. 

Titus fathered more offspring than any other gorilla known, the Rwanda Development Board said.

The silverback's life and reign was recorded in the 2008 Nature documentary entitled "Titus: The Gorilla King." Watch this video excerpt, posted on YouTube:

Video courtesy Nature

"Every gorilla death recorded is not only a great loss but a major setback to conservation efforts of removing the mountain gorillas off the endangered species list," the Rwanda board said. There are only 750 mountain gorillas left in the world.

"How ironic that Titus died at a time when United Nations declared 2009 as the 'Year of the Gorilla.' He will always be regarded with great respect and be remembered for his charisma and affection for the group he led."

Chimpanzees in the wild use specialized "tool kits" to forage food, it is known.

Scientists reported earlier this year that chimps raiding beehives used several tools in a single tool-using episode and could also use a single tool for many different purposes.

Now the same researchers report that not only do chimps use specialized tool kits to forage for army ants, but they are selecting tools and techniques that will not overly disturb and cause the ants to abandon the area--a sustainable method of harvesting that secures a renewable source of food.

Photo courtesy Sanz/Morgan, Goualougo Triangle Ape Project, Republic of Congo

Behaviors like these are fascinating because they hint at tool choices and strategies that might have been used by common ancestors of chimps and humans.

The latest chimp tool study was published earlier this month in the American Journal of Primatology. The research was funded in part by the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration.

A team from the Goualougo Triangle Ape Project, led by Crickette Sanz, a biological anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis, studied several communities of chimpanzee throughout the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park in the Republic of Congo.

"After spending a collective 111 months in the Goualougo Triangle, the team recovered 1,060 tools and collected 25 video recordings of chimpanzees using them to forage for army ants," said a statement about the research by Washington University.

"It is already known that chimpanzees use tools when foraging for honey or collecting termites. However, the variation in techniques and the relationship between the ants and the chimpanzees has perplexed scientists for decades," the university added.

Photo courtesy Sanz/Morgan, Goualougo Triangle Ape Project, Republic of Congo

"The use of tool sets is rare and has most often been observed in great apes," Sanz said . "Until now there have been no reports of regular use of more than one type of tool to prey upon army ants.

"In other studies, based across Africa, chimpanzees have been seen to prey on army ants both with and without tools, and it was inexplicable why some chimpanzees used different techniques to gather the same prey."

The average number of tools recovered by the team at each site was 3.37, while 36 percent of recovered tools sets contained two types of tools, nest-perforating tools like (woody saplings) and ant-dipping probes (such as herb stems).

Ant-dipping probes are the most commonly observed method of catching army ants, the scientists found. "The chimpanzee inserts a probe into a nest or column of ants and gathers the individuals who stream up the tool."

Perforating tools are used to open nests so the chimpanzee can gather the ants within.

Adult male chimpanzee uses a tool set when visiting an army ant nest. He first uses a sapling with leafy branches intact on the unused end to perforate the nest, and then follows with an herbaceous dipping wand.

Video Credit: Goualougo Triangle Ape Project, Nouabale-Ndoki National Park, Republic of Congo.

"While the tools sets observed during this study were similar to other recorded tools, this research suggests that chimpanzees are selecting tools depending on the characteristics of the ant species they are foraging," Washington University said.

"There are several varying species of ants found throughout the triangle, but their characteristics can be divided into two categories, epigaeic or intermediate.

"Epigaeic ants have longer legs so can run faster and can inflict a more painful bite. They forage on the ground and in the vegetation and when attacked the workers counter-attack in large swarms.

"Intermediate species forage only in the leaf litter and withdraw into underground tunnels or into the leaf litter when attacked."

Preventing an ant counter-attack

Chimpanzees that harvest ants simply by raking a nest open with their hands cause a massive counter-attack from the ants, Washington University said. "This results not only in bites but the attack may provoke the ants to migrate and build a new nest at a different location.

"However, by using the perforation tools the chimps can entice the ants out and can allow the insertion of the second tool for dipping.

"This not only reduces the ant's aggressive behaviour but may also be a 'sustainable harvesting' technique as the ants will stay in that location allowing the chimpanzees to revisit this renewable source of food."

Tool set used by chimpanzees to prey upon army ants in the Goualougo Triangle, Republic of Congo. The top two tools are herbaceous dipping probes. The bottom tool is a perforating tool with the leafy branches intact at one end. Above the perforating tool is a measuring tape totaling about 8 inches in length.

Photo courtesy Sanz/Morgan, Goualougo Triangle Ape Project, Nouabale-Ndoki National Park, Republic of Congo.

The chimpanzees practise recycling by recognising tool forms and re-using tools which have been discarded by other individuals during previous visits, Washington University added..

"It has only recently been discovered that these particular chimpanzees use several different types of tool sets which could be their cultural signature of sorts," concluded co-author David Morgan, research fellow at Lincoln Park Zoo. "There is an urgency to learn about these behaviours as the existence of the apes in the Congo Basin is threatened by commercial logging, bushmeat hunting, and emerging diseases."

The research was funded by the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,  Columbus Zoological Park, Brevard Zoological Park, and Lowry Zoological Park.

The future of the Earth could rest on potentially dangerous and unproven geoengineering technologies unless emissions of carbon dioxide can be greatly reduced, the Royal Society, the UK's national academy of science, said today.

Photo courtesy NASA

"Unless future efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are much more successful than they have been so far, additional action in the form of geoengineering will be necessary if we are to cool the planet," the Royal Society says in a report, "Geoengineering the Climate: Science, Governance and Uncertainty."

"Geoengineering and its consequences are the price we may have to pay for failure to act on climate change."

"It is an unpalatable truth that unless we can succeed in greatly reducing CO2 emissions we are headed for a very uncomfortable and challenging climate future, and geoengineering will be the only option left to limit further temperature increases," says Professor John Shepherd, who chaired the geoengineering study.

"Our research found that some geoengineering techniques could have serious unintended and detrimental effects on many people and ecosystems--yet we are still failing to take the only action that will prevent us from having to rely on them.

"Geoengineering and its consequences are the price we may have to pay for failure to act on climate change."

Carbon Dioxide Removal vs. Solar Radiation Management

The report assesses the two main kinds of geoengineering techniques--Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) and Solar Radiation Management (SRM).

"CDR techniques address the root of the problem--rising CO2--and so have fewer uncertainties and risks, as they work to return the Earth to a more normal state," the Royal Society says in a news release about the report. "They are therefore considered preferable to SRM techniques, but none has yet been demonstrated to be effective at an affordable cost, with acceptable environmental impacts, and they only work to reduce temperatures over very long timescales.

"SRM techniques act by reflecting the sun's energy away from Earth, meaning they lower temperatures rapidly, but do not affect CO2 levels.

"They therefore fail to address the wider effects of rising CO2, such as ocean acidification, and would need to be deployed for a very long time.

"Although they are relatively cheap to deploy, there are considerable uncertainties about their regional consequences, and they only reduce some, but not all, of the effects of climate change, while possibly creating other problems."

The report concludes that SRM techniques could be useful if a threshold is reached where action to reduce temperatures must be taken rapidly, but that they are not an alternative to emissions reductions or CDR techniques.

Plan B: No Magic Bullet

"None of the geoengineering technologies so far suggested is a magic bullet, and all have risks and uncertainties associated with them," Professor Shepherd said,

"It is essential that we strive to cut emissions now, but we must also face the very real possibility that we will fail. If Plan B is to be an option in the future, considerable research and development of the different methods, their environmental impacts and governance issues must be undertaken now.

"Used irresponsibly or without regard for possible side effects, geoengineering could have catastrophic consequences similar to those of climate change itself."

"Used irresponsibly or without regard for possible side effects, geoengineering could have catastrophic consequences similar to those of climate change itself. We must ensure that a governance framework is in place to prevent this."

Of the CDR techniques assessed, the Royal Society said, the following were considered to have most useful potential:

• CO2 capture from ambient air: This would be the preferred method of geoengineering, as it effectively reverses the cause of climate change. At this stage no cost-effective methods have yet been demonstrated and much more research and development is needed.
• Enhanced weathering: This technique, which utilizes naturally occurring reactions of CO2 from the air with rocks and minerals, was identified as a prospective longer-term option. "However more research is needed to find cost-effective methods and to understand the wider environmental implications."
• Land use and afforestation: The report found that land use management could and should play a small but significant role in reducing the growth of atmospheric CO2 concentrations. However the scope for applying this technique would be limited by land use conflicts, and all the competing demands for land must be considered when assessing the potential for afforestation and reforestation.

Should temperatures rise to such a level where more rapid action needs to be taken, the Royal Society report says, the following SRM techniques are considered to have most potential:

• Stratospheric aerosols: These were found to be feasible, and previous volcanic eruptions have effectively provided short-term preliminary case studies of the potential effectiveness of this method. "The cost was assessed as likely to be relatively low and the timescale of action short. However, there are some serious questions over adverse effects, particularly depletion of stratospheric ozone."
• Space-based methods: These were considered to be a potential SRM technique for long-term use, if the major problems of implementation and maintenance could be solved. At present the techniques remain prohibitively expensive, complex and would be slow to implement.
• Cloud albedo approaches (eg. cloud ships): The effects would be localised and the impacts on regional weather patterns and ocean currents are of considerable concern but are not well understood. The feasibility and effectiveness of the technique is uncertain. A great deal more research would be needed before this technique could be seriously considered.

The following techniques were considered to have lower potential:

• Biochar (CDR technique): The report identified significant doubts relating to the potential scope, effectiveness and safety of this technique and recommended that substantial research would be required before it could be considered for eligibility for UN carbon credits.
• Ocean fertiliization (CDR technique): The report found that this technique had not been proved to be effective and had high potential for unintended and undesirable ecological side effects.
• Surface albedo approaches (SRM technique, including white roof methods, reflective crops and desert reflectors): These were found to be ineffective, expensive and, in some cases, likely to have serious impacts on local and regional weather patterns.

The drought in East Africa has reached such apocalyptic proportions that desperate cattle herders are invading wildlife parks to find grazing for their animals, according to WildlifeDirect, the conservation blog network.

"Kenya has always had droughts, but rarely this serious," WildlifeDirect noted today.

Photo of dead cow in Nairobi Park courtesy WildlifeDirect

Herders are brazenly and openly leading their cattle into Nairobi Park, on the outskirts of the capital city of Kenya, according to a posting on the WildlifeDirect blog Baraza. The blog said reports had been received of similar invasions in parks elsewhere in the country.

"The cattle have devastated the land outside the park and are dying on the road side. A few have even been slaughted for sale to local residents before succumbing to natural death," a post on Baraza said.

Giant Cattle Herd Flees to Ethiopia

Meanwhile, the BBC reported today that a giant herd of 200,000 cattle has fled into Ethiopia to escape the drought in Kenya.

The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization told the BBC that it was one of the largest movements of cattle in the region in 10 years. "This large influx may potentially result in the spread of livestock diseases, adversely impacting the cattle export market in Ethiopia," according to a UN statement.

Elephants Die in Amboseli

The drought is killing elephants and other wildlife in Kenya's Amboseli National Park and surrounding ecosystem, exacerbating a situation already critical because of a surge in ivory poaching, Amboseli Trust for Elephants Program Director and noted elephant researcher Cynthia Moss posted on her blog last week. Elephants she has known for decades are succumbing to the lack of water and food.

The hyena's cackle can curdle the blood when it is heard in the African wilderness. It is the sound of one of the continent's most efficient hunters. Even lions have been observed to flee in terror when faced by a pack of determined hyenas.

Now the hyena's "laugh" may be heard in New York--at least in the neighborhood of the Bronx Zoo.

Photo by Julie Larsen Maher © WCS

"More than 30 years have passed since hyenas have been part of the Bronx Zoo," said Jim Breheny, director of the Bronx Zoo and Senior Vice President of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Living Institutions. (WCS operates the Bronx Zoo.) "We are pleased to have hyena back at the zoo so that our visitors can get a glimpse of these amazing creatures and learn more about their importance to the ecosystem."

Two spotted hyenas recently joined the lions, gazelles, zebras and other wildlife in the zoo's African Plains exhibit.
The hyenas are male and female siblings born in March 2008, at the Denver Zoo. The female's name is Kubwa (Swahili for "big" because her head is bigger than the male's) and the male is Kidogo (Swahili for "small," since he has the smaller head). Kubwa weighs approximately 91 lbs. and Kidogo is 75 lbs.

"Most people associate the hyena with its raucous vocalizations that earned it the nickname 'laughing hyena,' WCS said in a statement. "However, it is no laughing matter for the hyena's prey in the wild, as spotted hyenas are serious hunters. These predators are the largest members of the hyena family and live in sub-Saharan Africa on savannahs and open woodlands."

While spotted hyena are not considered endangered, their habitat is under increased pressure from human incursion, WCS added. "There has been a great decrease in the hyena population of western Africa. The Wildlife Conservation Society has a strong presence in Africa, including Southern Sudan where hyenas roam in the wild."

One of the worst droughts in living memory is killing elephants and other wildlife in Kenya's Amboseli National Park and surrounding ecosystem, exacerbating a situation already critical because of a surge in ivory poaching.

Amboseli Trust for Elephants Program Director and noted elephant researcher Cynthia Moss posted an anguished account on her blog about this yesterday. Elephants she has known for decades are succumbing to the lack of water and food.

Funds are needed urgently to step up measures against poachers.

We are losing old friends in Amboseli.

Amboseli is experiencing the worst drought in decades.

The Maasai elders say it is the most severe drought since 1961 when they lost almost all their cattle.

I have been through two previous bad years: 1976 and 1984. By the end of 1976, 68 elephants had died, many from the drought, others from the competition and conflict caused by the drought, and still others from poaching. During 1984, 70 elephants died, most from the same three causes.

Ulla

There is a pattern in the deaths due to drought. Young calves under three months old die, probably because their mothers do not have enough milk or rich enough milk.

Then older calves 8-12 months old die towards the end of the dry season in September and October when they should be supplementing milk with vegetation.

There is simply nothing for them to eat and their mother's milk is not enough.

Calves 4-5 years old also die. These have been weaned and also cannot find enough vegetation to sustain them.

Once an elephant is over five it seemed to be able to get through the droughts.

Unless elephants are speared or poached they tend not to die as adults until they are in their 50s or 60s.

The adults that suffer particularly during droughts are the old females. Their teeth are worn down and they cannot find enough food that they can process.

Losing these old matriarchs and other big females is by far the hardest thing I have had to deal with over my 37 years in Amboseli.

Grace, Odile and Ebenezer

Now at the end of July 2009 after three years of low rainfall and an almost total failure of the rains this year, there is very little vegetation for the animals to eat. There is still water in Amboseli. The springs fed from Kilimanjaro continue to flow into the swamps, but the vegetation in the swamps has been eaten down to almost nothing and in any case what there is is not very nutritious.

Animals are dying everywhere: zebras, wildebeests, buffaloes, hippos and elephants. It is very depressing and frustrating standing by and watching this tragedy unfold.

There is nothing we can do and we feel so helpless.

Even if it was a policy to feed wild animals during droughts, there is not enough hay in all of Kenya to feed the wildlife for even a week. We try to tell ourselves it is a natural phenomenon, but it doesn't stop the pain of watching the animals suffer.

During 2008, 137 calves were born which broke all previous records for annual births. So far in 2009, another 53 calves have been born.

We fear that most of these calves will die. A minimum of 30 young calves have died.

This is just the beginning of August; it won't rain until late October or early November so there is three more months to go and we have to face the fact that many of the remaining calves will also die. It won't be until it rains again and the families come back into the Park that we will know the total loss.

"I am losing some of my old friends whom I've known for 36-37 years."

In the meantime, I am losing some of my old friends whom I've known for 36-37 years.

So far the matriarchs who have died over the last year are: Echo, Grace, Isis, Leticia, Lucia, Odile, Ulla and Xenia.

Echo, Freda, Isis, Leticia and Ulla had been the matriarchs of their families since the 1970s and some from even earlier. Their families must be very distraught and confused. Personally I will miss them terribly. They have been a part of my life for so long.

Older males are also dying but not from the drought. They are being poached for their tusks.

Just in the last 10 days three more big males have been killed.

One, Ebenezer, had his tusks cut out with a power saw.

The poachers are definitely getting more serious. We are doing everything we can by working closely with the Kenya Wildlife Service and providing support to the Amboseli-Tsavo Game Scouts Association.

On Thursday, at a special ceremony, Soila and Harvey, representing ATE, presented a motorbike, tents, rations, and money for vehicle repairs and running to the Scouts. We were able to give this support thanks to a generous donation from the Elephant Sanctuary.

We need more help.

The day of the presentation the scouts set up two anti-poaching camps, but there is need for another.

It is our estimate that it will cost about $10,000 to set up and run one of these camps. If any of you can help it will be greatly appreciated and I believe it will save elephant lives.

Cynthia Moss

For more information and to learn how you can help, visit the ATE Web site >>>

South Africa's Karoo region is a sprawling heartland that separates the grasslands and industrial northern and eastern parts of the country from the vineyards and craggy coastal belt of the Cape.

Travelers speeding by road or rail between Cape Town and Johannesburg see little more than scrubland broken by flattop hills South Africans call koppies. Small towns flash by, seemingly assembled from a standard construction catalog of churches, general trading stores, and hotel-saloons to provide services to outlying sheep ranches every fifty miles or so.

It's not unlike the arid interiors of Australia and North America, you might imagine.

But traversing the Karoo via the main transportation corridor reveals nothing about the region's distant past, when it was lush and swampy and the stomping ground of dinosaurs.

There is also little to indicate that the modern greater Karoo is a special and fascinating place.

The Karoo's thousands of species of succulents make the region a paradise for botanists.

Photo courtesy Chris Marais

Few people know, for example, that the international environmental organization WWF has called the Karoo the world's most extraordinary desert, a designation that has earned it a place as the world's only biodiversity "hotspot" that is entirely arid. One-third of the world's 10,000 species of succulent plants grows in the Karoo. Among them thrives a host of insects, reptiles, birds, and small mammals.

Migrating springbok herds once stretched from horizon to horizon in the Karoo.

The Karoo is where the earliest European explorers reported seeing single herds of tens of thousands of springbok, the small, hardy, fleet-footed gazelle that is South Africa's national animal.

On its coastal side, on the fringes of the desert created by the cold Benguela current that courses up the western side of southern Africa, one of the greatest spectacles of nature can be experienced. For a few weeks of the year vast parts of the Succulent Karoo are carpeted with wild flowers, a profusion of color that paints entire landscapes purple, green, red, and orange.

The aloe is a common site in the Karoo. The plant has a variety of medicinal uses.

Part of the Karoo is also the home of the San, the people who have been found to be the most closely related, genetically, to human ancestors. Recent research suggests that modern humans probably originated in the general area of the Karoo, perhaps somewhere along the Orange River, which today forms the border between South Africa and Namibia. The real Garden of Eden.

It's in this strange and magnificent land that husband-and-wife travel journalists Chris Marais and Julienne du Toit settled a few years ago. From their home in the Karoo town of Cradock, they set out to discover, explore, and document the South African heartland.

Windmills like these are a common site throughout the Karoo. These have been collected in a "windmill museum."

In their new book "Karoo Keepsakes" (MLM Publishers, 2009), Marais and Du Toit showcase the awesome scenery, magnificent wildlife, and eccentric characters of the Karoo. It's a book that reveals and celebrates South Africa's best-kept travel secret.

"Rush hour traffic, strange faces that drive past without smiling, ten-day downpours, crime waves, and vast swathes of boxlike developments--we don't have them here in the Dry Country," they write in the book.

Itinerant laborers travel with all their possessions from farm to farm in search of work. Many of these nomads are descendants of the San.

What is on offer in the Karoo can be seen in 270 pages filled with hundreds of images and wry vignettes--a tapestry of experiences that range from one of the last clear night skies left on Earth (a great place to see the diamond arc of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, stretching away from our sun) to unconventional art festivals.

"Karoo Keepsakes" reminds me of old postcards that sell for exhorbitant prices on eBay. The postcards recall days and sites long forgotten. But in "Karoo Keepsakes" the photos document what can still be seen today, one of the last travel destinations that retains its authentic local character. 

From the global significance of the unique geology, plants and wildlife, to the flavor of the smallest villages, to a cast of unforgettable characters, "Karoo Keepsakes" has captured the essence and spirit of a genuinely unique part of the world.

Sarah and Kous Joseph with their goats at a grazing outpost. Nomadic goat herding has been a family tradition for generations.

Photo courtesy Chris Marais

For more about the Karoo and "Karoo Keepsakes," visit Karoo Space >>

                                                                              Julienne du Toit and Chris Marais in the Karoo.

Photo courtesy Chris Marais

Elephants, giraffe, impala and other animals in Kenya are declining at the same rates within the country's national parks as outside of these protected areas over the long term, according to a study released this week.

NGS photo of elephants in Kenya's Amboseli National Park by Frank and Helen Schreider

"This is the first time we've taken a good look at a national park system in one country, relative to all of the wildlife populations across the whole country," said David Western, an adjunct professor of biology at University of California San Diego and the founding executive director of the African Conservation Center in Nairobi, who headed the study published in the July 8 issue of the journal PLoS One.

"And we found that wildlife populations inside and outside of the parks are declining at much the same rate," he said in a UC San Diego statement about the research.

"What we're now beginning to understand is that the pressures around the parks are also affecting the wildlife in the parks," said Western, a former director of the Kenya Wildlife Service, which commissioned the study two years ago. His research team--which included Samantha Russell, a research scientist at the African Conservation Center, and Innes Cuthill, a biologist at Britain's Bristol University--compiled data from more than 270 counts of wildlife in Kenya over a period of 25 years.

NGS photo of giraffe in Amboseli NP by Volkmar K. Wentzel

"Many of the population changes that occur are drought-driven, occurring over a five to ten-year period," Western said. "These data cover a long period of time and overcome that seasonal periodic drought-driven effect on wildlife."

The scientists noted in their paper that many of Kenya's 23 national park and 26 national reserve boundaries do not take into account the seasonal migrations of animals, UC San Diego said. "So when land surrounding the parks is allowed to be developed for agriculture and other uses, migratory routes and important sources of food for wildlife are destroyed."

Parks Ignored Seasonal Migrations

"Parks in Kenya were set aside in areas where people saw large aggregations of animals and typically these were the areas where animals congregated during the dry seasons," Western said. "They ignored seasonal migrations because people didn't know where these animals migrated to, in many cases."

"Elephants need a lot of space," Western said. "They move around. But now that they have been limited to smaller areas, they're taking out the woody vegetation and reducing the overall biodiversity in the national parks. We're seeing throughout our parks in Kenya a change from woody habitats to grassland habitats. As a result, we're losing the species that thrive in woody areas, such as giraffe, lesser kudu and impala."

The researchers said in their paper that wildlife populations throughout Kenya--inside as well as outside the national parks--declined by 40 percent from 1977 to 1997. But the populations underwent ups and downs during those years.

NGS photo of elephant in Samburu National Reserve by Michael Nichols

"The combined wildlife populations show considerable fluctuation in parks and adjoining areas, with numbers rising in the late 1970s, falling through to the mid-1980s, rising again more slowly in the late 1980s and falling steeply in the 1990s," the researchers wrote in their paper.

Tribes View Parks as a Threat

Western said a third contributing reason for declines in some species, such as elephants, has been the antagonism created by the parks within surrounding communities. Forced to settle in land outside the parks, some local tribes view the parks as threats to their survival.

"What happens is that wildlife now becomes a threat to their agriculture and their pastoral way of life," Western said. "So they willingly invite poachers to get rid of the wildlife."

"The most disturbing finding from our study is that the biggest parks do not provide insulation from wildlife losses," he added. "In fact, the biggest losses are occurring in the big parks, rather than the smaller ones. A very big park is much more difficult to protect from poachers.

"Furthermore, in the biggest parks there isn't an intimate connection between the park and the surrounding community, so there are no benefits going back.

"The small parks, such Nairobi National Park, Amboseli, and Nakuru, are surrounded by people who are more educated and better off financially, so they don't see the parks with the same antagonism as the others and they're more amenable to conservation."

NGS photo of impala in Samburu National Reserve by Michael Nichols

Western said that to protect Kenyan wildlife from further declines, the Kenyan government needs to set policies to share the profits of ecotourism with local communities so that they can reap the economic benefits of protecting the wildlife and ecosystems within and surrounding the national parks.

"We now have streams of visitors into the parks and at the moment the revenues are going to the tour operators, hoteliers and the government and nothing to the customary users of that land. We need to create 'parks beyond parks' in which we encourage communities to become closely aligned with their own wildlife sanctuaries, their own lodges, their own scouts and their own conservation efforts."

"Where we have community-based conservation linked to a national park, the losses of wildlife are much, much less."

Western added that he and his colleagues found in a separate study, soon to be published, that "where we have community-based conservation linked to a national park, the losses of wildlife are much, much less."

He said those lessons apply not only to national parks in Kenya, but to those in other countries, including the United States.

"We're not likely to increase the number of national parks or increase parkland," he added. "But we can create parks beyond parks in local communities that double as grazing land for livestock during droughts and become drought refuges for wildlife. This obviates the need to create new parkland."

"The combination of local involvement with national parks makes a very good fit," he said.

The most complete map of the Earth's terrain, showing highly detailed elevations for more than nine tenths of the planet's surface, has been released for free public use.

NASA and Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and industry (METI) released the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) Global Digital Elevation Model (GDEM) to the worldwide public yesterday.

1,300,000 Images

The GDEM was created by processing and stereo-correlating 1,300,000 optical images, covering Earth's land surface between 83 degrees North and 83 degrees South latitudes, according to a news statement about the map.

The GDEM is produced with 30-meter (98-feet) postings, and is formatted as 23,000 one-by-one-degree tiles. It is available for download from NASA's Earth Observing System data archive and Japan's Ground Data System.

Los Angeles Basin Image: The Los Angeles Basin is bordered on the north by the San Gabriel Mountains. Other smaller basins are separated by smaller mountain ranges, like the Verdugo Hills, and the Santa Monica Mountains.

Death Valley Image: Death Valley, California, has the lowest point in North America, Badwater at 85.5 meters (282 feet) below sea level. It is also the driest and hottest location in North America.

Located in eastern California and western Nevada, Death Valley forms part of Death Valley National Park. The region is characterized by deep valleys and high mountain ranges, located in the large Basin and Range province of the western United States. This view looks towards the northwest.

Furnace Creek ranch in the right foreground is the only place on the valley floor where vegetation grows year-round due to water channeled through Furnace Creek.

Himalayan Glaciers in Bhutan Image: In the Bhutan Himalayas, Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer data have revealed significant spatial variability in glacier flow, such that the glacier velocities in the end zones on the south side exhibit significantly lower velocities (9 to 18 meters, or 30 to 60 feet per year), versus much higher flow velocities on the north side (18 to 183 meters, or 60 to 600 feet per year).

The higher velocity for the northern glaciers suggests that the southern glaciers have substantially stagnated ice. This view looks towards the northwest.

All images and captions courtesy NASA/METI

The largest illegal ivory market in Asia--much of it poached from elephants in Africa--continues to thrive in Thailand, according to the latest market surveys by the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC. 
 

Photo of ivory Buddhas by Daniel Stiles/TRAFFIC

The organization also raises concerns that legal provisions in Thailand governing trade in domesticated elephants are providing cover for illegal trade in wild-caught, highly-endangered Asian elephants from both Thailand and neighboring Myanmar.

TRAFFIC, a partnership of WWF and IUCN, oversees a global monitoring program, the Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS), for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

CITES is an international agreement between governments that aims to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival.

Thailand Signed Treaty Regulating Willdife Trade

Thailand is one of 175 countries that is party to the agreement.

But surveys documented more than 26,000 worked ivory products for sale in local Thailand markets, "with many more retail outlets dealing in ivory products than were observed during market surveys carried out in 2001," the network TRAFFIC in a statement.

"Market surveys found 50 more retail outlets offering ivory items in Bangkok and Chiang Mai in 2008 than the previous year. However, overall there was less worked ivory openly on sale than in 2001," the report noted.

"Thailand has consistently been identified as one of the world's top five countries most heavily implicated in the illicit ivory trade, but shows little sign of addressing outstanding issues," said Tom Milliken, of TRAFFIC.

"Thailand needs to reassess its policy for controlling its local ivory markets as currently it is not implementing international requirements to the ongoing detriment of both African and Asian Elephant populations," Milliken said.

"Since 2004, the Thai government has only reported two ivory seizure cases totaling 1.2 tonnes of raw ivory."

Bangkok is the Hub

Thailand's capital, Bangkok, a major tourist destination, has emerged as the main hub for illegal ivory activities, accounting for over 70 percent of the retail outlets in Thailand offering ivory items for sale, TRAFFIC said.

The report includes new information on ivory workshops--eight in Uthai Thani, one each in Chai Nat and Payuha Kiri, and three in Bangkok--"between them employing dozens of carvers in the production of ivory jewelry, belt buckles and knife-handles."

Photo of ivory factory in Uthai Thani by Danile Stiles/TRAFFIC

Much of the ivory being worked is illegally imported from Africa, TRAFFIC said.

"Some workshop owners boasted close ties with European knife makers, while others reported sending ivory, steel and silver items to the U.S. for sale in gun shops."

"The Thai Government needs to crack down on this serious illegal activity and stop allowing people to abuse the law," said Colman O'Criodain, WWF International's analyst on wildlife trade issues.

"A good first step would be to put in place a comprehensive registration system for all ivory in trade and for live elephants."

"Traders [are] buying wild-caught elephant calves for use in Bangkok as 'beggars.'"

The study also uncovered reports of traders buying wild-caught elephant calves for use in Bangkok as "beggars" on the streets in major tourist centres, or selling them to elephant camps and entertainment parks, TRAFFIC said.

"Hundreds of live elephants are known to have been illegally imported from Myanmar in recent years, to be sold to elephant trekking companies catering to adventure tourism in Thailand.

"The capture of wild elephants has been banned in Thailand since the 1970s, but such trade usually goes undetected because domesticated elephants do not have to be registered legally until they are eight years of age." 

The study also found that over a quarter of all live elephant exports from Thailand between 1980 and 2005 could have been illegal due to incomplete and inaccurate declarations made on the documentation required under CITES.

"There must be greater scrutiny of the live elephant trade if enforcement efforts are to have any impact at all," said Chris R. Shepherd, TRAFFIC Southeast Asia's Acting Director.

"Thailand and Myanmar should work together, and with urgency, to address cross-border trade problems," he added.

More about the ivory wars >>

NGS photo by Jodi Cobb

Photo by Brian Perry, courtesy California Academy of Sciences

The mushroom is two inches long, grows on wood, and is shaped like a phallus, says a statement by the California Academy of Sciences that accompanies this picture.

The new species of stinkhorn mushroom, Phallus drewesii, will be featured on the upcoming cover of Mycologia, a scientific journal on all aspects of the fungi, published by the Mycological Society of America .

The mushroom is named after Drewes, Curator of Herpetology at the California Academy of Sciences, (seen in the photo below, holding the new mushroom), and is described in the July/August issue of Mycologia by Dennis Desjardin and Brian Perry of San Francisco State University.

Photo by Wes Eckerman, courtesy California Academy of Sciences

"Phallus drewesii belongs to a group of mushrooms known as stinkhorns which give off a foul, rotting meat odor," CAS said. "There are 28 other species of Phallus fungi worldwide, but this particular species is notable for its small size, white netlike stem, and brown spore-covered head. It is also the only Phallus species to curve downward instead of upward."

"The mushroom emerges from an egg and elongates over four hours," says Desjardin, who is also a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences. "Its odor attracts flies who consume the spores and disperse them throughout the forest."

Desjardin and Perry named the new species after Drewes as an acknowledgment of his "inspiration and fortitude to initiate, coordinate and lead multiorganism biotic surveys on Sao Tome and Principe," according to the Mycologia paper.

     "It's a wonderful honor and great fun"

"It's a wonderful honor and great fun to have this phallus-shaped fungus named after me," Drewes said. "I have been immortalized in the scientific record."

Phallus drewesii is not the first species to bear Drewes' name, CAS points out. A small moss frog native to South Africa (Arthroleptella drewesii, in the picture below) and a blind worm snake from Kenya (Leptotyphlops drewesi, in the picture farther down) were described in 1994 and 1996, respectively.

Photo by Robert Drewes, courtesy California Academy of Sciences

Photo by Dong Lin, courtesy California Academy of Sciences

Over a span of forty years, Drewes has embarked on 36 expeditions to 19 African countries, where he has focused on the evolutionary relationships, natural history, and biogeography of amphibians and reptiles, CAS said.

"Recently, he has turned his attention to Sao Tome and Principe, located in the Gulf of Guinea off Africa's west coast. Although it is a tiny nation--at 370 square miles, only about eight times the size of San Francisco--it hosts a number of plants, fungi, mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians found nowhere else on Earth."

Since 2001, Drewes has organized four multidisciplinary expeditions to the islands in an effort to document their biodiversity and gather data for conservation plans.

Phallus drewesii was one of 225 fungus species that Desjardin and Perry collected during the 2006 and 2008 expeditions.

Good news about gorillas:

The world's least known gorilla--the eastern lowland gorilla or Grauer's gorilla (Gorilla beringei graueri)--survives in previously unexplored forests of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, scientists from the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) announced.

An eastern lowland gorilla from Kahuzi-Biega National Park, to the north of Itombwe.

Wildlife Conservation Society photo by Deo Kujirakwinja

"Specifically, researchers from WCS working in the forests of DR Congo's Itombwe region found signs (nests) of eastern lowland gorillas in areas where they previously were not known to occur," the New York-based conservation charity said in a statement.

The announcement was made yesterday at the Gorilla Symposium, an event convened by the United Nations Convention on Migratory Species of Wild Animals, the German Ministry for the Environment, the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the Frankfurt Zoological Society at the Frankfurt Zoo in Germany.

"Today's announcement that Grauer's gorillas inhabit forests in Itombwe more than 50 kilometers (more than 30 miles) south of their previously known range gives hope for the survival of the subspecies and a renewed impetus for protecting this extraordinary biodiversity area in the Albertine Rift of Africa," said James Deutsch, director of WCS's Africa Programs.

Map courtesy WCS

Researchers also found indications of a wider range for chimpanzees in Itombwe than previously known, WCS added.

"The forests of Itombwe are poorly documented because of the frequent presence of rebel groups, which makes them dangerous places in which to work. A period of relative calm enabled the survey team to reach these formerly inaccessible areas to determine if gorillas, chimpanzees, elephants, and other wildlife had persisted through the area's conflicts.

"The new gorilla areas were identified between June 2008 and January 2009 by a survey team that included four mammal experts, two ornithologists, two botanists, and one herpetologist. These forests had been sporadically surveyed for wildlife in 1996 and between 2003 and 2007."

Eastern lowland gorillas are listed as "Endangered" on the IUCN's Red List and may number as few as 8,000 individuals.

The forests of Itombwe are recognized by conservationists as an important center of biodiversity, covering some 14,000 square kilometers (more than 5,400 square miles), WCS said. Along with the findings that indicate a larger range for eastern lowland gorillas, researchers have also discovered frog and toad species that are new to science and in the process of being named.

The area also contains minerals and as a result of its remoteness, rebel groups and others have sought to exploit the natural resources there.

"The findings of our survey will be important to conservation efforts for eastern lowland gorillas and their habitat, primarily because so little is known about this subspecies." said Andrew Plumptre, director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Albertine Rift Program. "In particular it will help us in the development of plans for the demarcation of boundaries for the Itombwe Reserve, which is in the process of being created."

The new findings will factor into discussions with local communities, the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and all interested parties about how best to protect the region's natural resources for the benefit of both wildlife and people, WCS said.

A fence made out of beehives wired together has been shown to significantly reduce crop raids by elephants, Oxford University scientists reported today.

"Our previous research has shown that elephants are scared away by recordings of the buzzing of angry bees," said Lucy King of Oxford University's Department of Zoology, who led the project in collaboration with the charity Save the Elephants. "We designed the beehive fence as an affordable and practical way of applying this knowledge to create a barrier that the elephants would be afraid to cross."

Member of the construction team with the beehive fence built for the pilot study.
Photo courtesy OU/Lucy King

The fence is constructed of log beehives suspended on poles beneath tiny thatched roofs (to keep off the sun). The hives are connected by 26-foot (8-meter) lengths of fencing wire. "Elephants avoid the hives and will attempt to push through the wire, but this causes the hives to swing violently causing the elephants to fear an attack of angry bees," says a statement issued by Oxford University.

The results of a pilot study in Kenya, published in the African Journal of Ecology, show that a farm protected by the beehive fence had 86 per cent fewer successful crop raids by elephants and significantly fewer raiding elephants than a control farm without the fence, Oxford said.

Local farmers with the beehive fence.
Photo courtesy OU/Lucy King

"The reduction occurred despite the fact that none of the hives were occupied at the time, suggesting that elephants remember painful past encounters with African honeybees and avoid the sights and smells associated with them."

   "Despite their thick hides, adult   elephants can be stung around their eyes or up their trunks."

Despite their thick hides adult elephants can be stung around their eyes or up their trunks, whilst calves could potentially be killed by a swarm of stinging bees as they have yet to develop this thick protective skin, Oxford said.

Earlier work by Iain Douglas-Hamilton and Fritz Vollrath--who also cotributed to Lucy King's study--had suggested that elephants prefer to steer clear of beehives.

In a 2007 study Lucy King tested the response of known elephants to the buzz of disturbed local African bees recorded digitally. Sixteen of the 17 family groups that were tested during their noon time nap left their resting places under trees within 80 seconds of hearing the bee sound coming from a speaker ten yards away.

"Significantly, eight of the groups fled within just ten seconds of hearing the bees whilst not one of the groups that heard the control sound of natural white noise moved that fast," Oxford University said.

Crop-raiding bull elephant "Genghis Khan" (right) with GPS tracking collar visible at the back of his head.
Photo courtesy OU/Lucy King

During the six-week pilot study of the efficacy of a beehive fence, the team used GPS to track one particularly notorious elephant raider dubbed "Genghis Khan." The bull elephant was spotted raiding by several farmers and was observed among a herd of 18 bulls returning from crop raids, and his GPS movements were shown to closely match the routes of the raiding groups, Oxford said.

The reaction from the farmers involved in the pilot study has been very positive," King said. "Our beehive fence design has been shown to be robust enough to survive elephant raids and cheap enough for farmers to construct themselves--especially as it also gives protection against cattle rustlers and, when occupied by colonies of African honeybees, will give the farmers two or three honey harvests a year that they can sell to offset the cost of building the fence."

Said Lucy King, "We hope that these results will encourage farmers in other areas losing crops to elephant raiders to build their own beehive fences and help to reduce the conflict between humans and elephants that can lead to the tragedy of animals being shot, as well as farmers suffering devastating losses to the crops that are their livelihood.'"

The Geography of Peace

The world has become slightly less peaceful in the past year--a consequence perhaps of intensified violent conflict in some countries, the effects of rapidly rising food and fuel prices in 2008, and the global economic meltdown.

"Rapidly rising unemployment, pay freezes and falls in the value of house prices, savings and pensions is causing popular resentment in many countries, with political repercussions that have been registered by the Global Peace Index (GPI) through various indicators measuring safety and security in society," says the Institute for Economics and Peace, a global think tank dedicated to the research and education of the relationship between economic development, business and peace.

The 144 countries encompass almost 99 percent of the world's population and over 87 percent of the planet's land mass.

Indicators combined internal and external factors ranging from a nation's level of military expenditure to its relations with neighboring countries and the level of respect for human rights. Indicators include how easy it is to obtain guns, levels of organized crime, proportion of people in prison, the likelihood of violent protests and how stable government institutions are.

The GPI was founded by Steve Killelea, an Australian international technology entrepreneur and philanthropist. Endorsed by a number of Nobel Peace Prize laureates, the GPI creates a snapshot of relative peacefulness among nations while continuing to contribute to an understanding of what factors help create or sustain more peaceful societies.

New Zealand Is the Most at Peace

Small, stable and democratic countries are consistently ranked highest; 14 of the top 20 countries are Western or Central European countries, according to the GPI 2009 executive summary.

"This is, however, a reduction from 16 last year, with Hungary and Slovakia both slipping out of the top 20, while Qatar and Australia moved up to 16th and 19th place respectively," the GPI summary says.

All five Scandinavian countries are in the top ten of the GPI. Island nations generally fare well, although Madagascar fell by 30 places amid mounting political instability and violent demonstrations.

Iraq Is the Least at Peace

The average score for the nations surveyed in the 2009 GPI is 1.964 (based on a 1-5 scale). There is little variance between the overall scores of the top 20 countries (1.202 for New Zealand and 1.481 for Chile), although the 20 lowest ranked countries exhibit a far greater spread, varying between 2.485 (Sri Lanka) and 3.341 (Iraq).

Working with the Economist Intelligence Unit, the Institute for Economics and Peace, the think tank that houses the GPI, looked at 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators that affect a country's GPI ranking.

U.S. Is Not Changed Much

The U.S. ranking did change, however, with the country jumping six spots higher from 89 last year to 83 in 2009. The jump was partially due to a drop in the GPI indicator measuring the likelihood for terrorist attacks. It was also the result of other countries seeing a decrease in their GPI ranking.

GPI indicators that prevented the U.S. from being ranked higher were:

• High number of jailed population per 100,000 people.
• Ease of access to firearms.
• Number of deaths from organized external conflicts

Top Ten Countries
(Most Peaceful)

1 New Zealand
2 Denmark
2 Norway
4 Iceland
5 Austria
6 Sweden
7 Japan
8 Canada
9 Finland
9 Slovenia

Bottom Five Countries
(Least Peaceful)

140 Sudan
141 Israel
142 Somalia
143 Afghanistan
144 Iraq

Countries With Biggest Index Changes
(Change in rank, 2008-2009)

Top Five Risers
 50 Bosnia and Herzegovina +23
100 Angola +16
106 Congo, Republic of the +15
 54 Egypt +13
 87 Trinidad and Tobago +11

Top Five Fallers
 72 Madagascar -30
108 Mexico -16
 54 Latvia -16
123 South Africa -15
119 Yemen -13