New hope for vultures?
The vulture population in South Asia has declined catastrophically in the last 2 decades, with population decreases since 1992 reported to be over 97% (Senacha et al., 2008). With populations of three of the Asian vulture species decreasing from the 'tens of millions' to less than 60,000 for all species combined, the decline has been…
Darwin’s finches threatened by invasive nest maggots in the Galapagos Islands
Contents of a Darwin’s finch nest: dead nestlings with larval feeding wounds surrounded by parasitic larvae of the introduced fly Philornis downsi. As mentioned in another entry on this blog a few weeks ago, 2010 has been declared International Year of Biodiversity by the United Nations. Continuing this theme, here is a guest entry by…
Luxury insect hotels
Today is the last day of National Insect Week in the UK. Now that England are out of the World Cup we might all be spending a bit more time in our gardens! So I thought I’d finish the week by letting you know how you can get involved in helping conserve our creepy crawlies…
Bad times for bees and the budget!
The first UK government budget is out today and, just as importantly, this week is National Insect Week. Continue reading to find out why, just as the UK budget, bees and other pollinators are going through tough times.
Time to become greener and cleaner
Photo credit: Katherine Bourg That is what US President Barack Obama suggested, during his first national address from the Oval Office since he took office, and it comes the evening before his crucial meeting with BP's chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg, and its chief executive, Tony Hayward, at the White House today. The meeting was arranged to…
Many species, one planet, one future
'Many species, one planet, one future’ was the theme for this year’s UN World Environment Day (WED), which was celebrated last Saturday 5th June and it echoed the urgent call to conserve the diversity of life on our planet. Read on to see what went on to mark the day.
The greenest government ever?
Image from govtech.com The new UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, announced recently, during his first visit to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) in London, that the UK central government is aiming at cutting their emissions of CO2 by 10% in the next 12 months and he wants the government departments…
Biodiversity, Development and Poverty Alleviation
As Vera pointed out in her blog yesterday, this Saturday (22 May) is the International Day for Biodiversity. The theme for this year is ‘Biodiversity, Development and Poverty Alleviation: Recognizing the Role of Biodiversity for Human Well-Being’. Poverty alleviation is something we feel strongly about here at CABI where our mission is to “improve people’s…
Highlighting International Day of Biodiversity – 22 May 2010
Saturday 22nd May 2010 is International Day of Biodiversity. In fact, the UN designated this whole year of 2010 as ‘International Year of Biodiversity’ and I’ve been writing news articles for the CABI Environmental Impact database (EI) throughout the year on the subject to highlight the European Environment Agency (EEA) ’10 messages on biodiversity for…
Climate change: individuals who are making a difference
There are probably many environmentally conscious people out there who, like me, feel that the measures taken by governments worldwide to tackle CO2 emissions are moving too slowly to halt the inexorable rise in global temperatures. In a week when the recently announced US Climate Bill is predicted to face a long and rocky road…