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…
Why are we still in a drought during floods?
It has been the wettest April on record for England and Wales, yet in the past few weeks, I have often heard people asking the question: how can we be told we’re in a drought in the UK, when at the same time we’re being told many areas of the country are experiencing floods? Since…
Is there a role for law(yers) in public health?
ITS not often that speakers forgo the chance to present in favour of opening up debate, but this is exactly what happened here at the World Congress Public Health 2012 (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia,Tuesday April 24), in the session “Law: a public health tool”. Moderator, Michele Forzley, chose not to talk on access to medicines in…
Mobilize the Earth – Earth Day 22 April 2012
More than 1 billion people now participate in Earth Day activities each year, making it the largest civic observance in the world.