Barking mad! can humans make more sense of barking dogs?
Dog barking can be a nuisance, but why do they do it? Elsa Flint of Massey University argues that we need a better understanding of why dogs bark if we are to find ways of managing and controlling this behaviour. In an article in CAB Reviews, Flint points out that domestic dogs bark in a…
Is the world better or worse than it was 20 years ago?
Focussing on the UN Sustainable Development Conference – Rio+20, which starts tomorrow in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, I came across an interesting interactive way to quickly assess if the world is doing better or worse than it did 20 years ago.
Rio+20 – Platform now open for voting on solutions to achieve ‘the future we want’
Banner from http://vote.riodialogues.org/?l=en It is only 8 days to the start of the Rio+20 UN Conference, where world leaders, along with thousands of participants from governments, the private sector, NGOs and other groups, will come together to shape how we can reduce poverty, advance social equility and ensure environmental protection to get to the future…
The Future of Our Forests
I recently attended ‘Future Forestry’, the Institute of Chartered Foresters’ Annual Conference. The speakers were excellent and covered a wide range of topics – from the changing world in forest management through to forest research in a changing climate. The presentations are all now freely available to view on the ICF website if you’d like…
REDD and forest carbon – finding a path through the trees
Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) is a key concept in trying to tackle climate change. The core idea is that a way can be found to fund the avoidance of deforestation and forest degradation, thus reducing carbon emissions. But will it work? Rainforest, Santa Elena, Costa Rica Dirk van der Mad Frances Seymour,…
Mystery disease in Ethiopia solved: linked to weed toxin
Imagine this… A mysterious disease terrorising your community, not infectious but spreading nonetheless, and killing your relatives and neighbours. All you want to do is pack your bags and flee. Worse, when your plight comes to the attention of the health authorities, they are stumped and its not going to be easy or quick to…
“Precipitationsheds” – a new concept for water science!
It is well known that precipitation derives in part from evaporation from oceans and in part from recycled moisture from terrestrial surfaces. In fact, a new model by van der Ent et al. (2010), which was highlighted in an International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF) presentation demonstrates that up to 50% of rainfall in many areas…
Jumping the red light – Do consumers pay attention to nutritional labels?
There have been many labelling schemes to make clearer to consumers the healthiness of foods, such as traffic light codes with green for healthy and red for less healthy. But do consumers actually make use of the labels and choose healthier foods?In a paper in CAB Reviews, Sophie Hieke and Jo Wills of the European…
Where’s my ball? How practical is it to give farm animals a better environment?
There is a lot of evidence to suggest that giving animals a better environment makes them less stressed, less likely to behave abnormally, and sometimes more productive. However, most of that evidence comes from small-scale trials, and scaling improvements up to the practicalities of large farms could prove costly and burdensome. Is it environmental enrichment…
Towards an ecology of belief: The limits of science for preserving public parks
The following guest article was written by Will La Page, author of the new book "Rethinking Park Protection: Treading the Uncommon Ground of Environmental Beliefs", which has just been published by CABI. It describes the inspiration for the book and for the thinking behind it. A small group of park scientists friends were sitting around…