Berkeley biology professor David Wake published a paper in August announcing four new salamander species living in heavily populated areas in California. Instead of simply looking for visual clues, Wake and his colleagues sample salamanders' protein diversity and DNA. By doing so, they can differentiate between species that look almost identical but are in fact as genetically distinct as cows and horses. Such hidden differences are known as "cryptic cryp·tic (krptk)
n.
1. Hidden or concealed.
2. biodiversitybiodiversity: see biological diversity.
..... Click the link for more information.."
Due to these new techniques, the number of known salamander species is increasing by about 2 percent per year. "In 1954 a thorough doctoral dissertation at Berkeley concluded that there was one species of Slender Salamander, genus Bat rachoseps, in the state," says Wake. "There are now 15." Meanwhile, salamander populations worldwide are in decline, for reasons that are hotly debated by the distressed biologists who study them.
Cryptic biodiversity isn't limited to amphibians. By examining DNA, scientists have discovered new species of birds, reptiles, whales, and plants. Says Wake, "What all this means is that we must worry a great deal more about endangered species issues."
But with new species seemingly ready to turn up in every back yard in America, popular support may be harder to sustain.
"This could put more and more pressure on the Endangered Species Act," says Richard Stroup, a senior associate at the Montana-based Political Economy Research Center, a free-market environmentalist think tank. "At some point the public is going to get some dim realization that species don't matter much by themselves. What really matters is ... what kind of change will be wrought if a particular population or species disappears. What we should care about is filling niches."
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Western Africa and biodiversity
Introduction Table 1: The biodiversity features of Western Africa
(Source: Groombridge and Jenkins 2002, Hoekstra and others 2005, Mayaux and others 2004 and WRI 2005)The wide range of ecosystems – forests, savannahs, deserts, rivers, mountains, mangroves and seas – makes the sub-region rich in biodiversity. The Sahelian zone has several wetlands, including the Niger and Senegal rivers, Lake Chad and floodlands in Senegal and Niger which are very important for migratory birds. The inner Niger delta is a vast floodplain (more than 30,000 km2) situated in the middle of the Sahelian landscape, rich in natural resources and featuring varied ecosystems (lakes, forest floodplains, flooded grasslands and savannah) which supports the livelihoods of 1 million people. The delta is also well known as a wintering and staging area for million of migratory birds. Other important sub-regional biodiversity values include the west African manatee, a globally endangered species. The Guinea forest contains half the mammal species on the African continent, including the rare pygmy hippopotamus, the zebra duiker and the drill, the most threatened primate.
Challenges faced in realizing opportunities for developmentLand degradation and desertification are major causes of biodiversity loss. Three factors contribute:
A relatively dense and growing population with strong dependence on natural resources:
Relatively easy access to resources; and
Recurrent droughts.
These processes affect grasslands, steppes, savannahs and woodlands:
They fragment forests and alter their structure and composition, especially when they are followed by recurrent forest and bush fires;
They reduce surface water points and their associated plants;
They strongly deplete animal populations and notably reduce a number of rare and vulnerable species through habitat degradation, sport hunting and especially through exploitation for bushmeat, which is exacerbated by drought-related food deficits.
Dust storms, forest fires, locust outbreaks and population displacement are all linked to the phenomenon of desertification, and have strongly negative consequences for people, in particular through the loss of livelihood and economic opportunities.
the West African Gaboon viper (Bitis gabonica rhinoceros) is a venomous and highly camouflaged snake which can fetch up to US$600 in the international exotic pet trade.
(Source: J. Gerholdt/Still Pictures)Land degradation is a persistent reduction in the capacity to support life and supply ecosystem services. It affects biological diversity directly and indirectly. It may affect the survival of species and alter processes that support their life, or it may trigger socioeconomic phenomena that impact on living species and their ecosystems. Land degradation phenomena directly affecting biodiversity include water and wind erosion. Along major river basins siltation processes accumulate debris and materials that engulf natural vegetation, such as the Acacia nilotica riparian forests. Trees may survive for years, but the diverse understorey may not. Soil erosion contributes to moving the seed capital of the ground, uprooting grassy as well as woody species, and in accumulation areas it smothers valuable species. This occurs in the sand dune areas of countries such as Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal.
Box 1: The Diawling National Park (DNP), Mauritania
(Source: Hamerlynck and Duvail 2003, IUCN 2003)Indirect factors associated with land degradation that impact on biodiversity include the coping strategies people adopt to deal with environmental change. The movement of people south towards subhumid to humid tropical areas has resulted in depletion of natural resources: loss of primary forests and woodlands, repeated logging of the secondary vegetation, and depletion of a number of species. The influx of refugees from war-stricken areas also triggers severe land degradation in host regions and the overuse of wildlife resources. More diffuse degradation of land resources also occurs in the arid and sub-humid parts. These include the extraction of tree resources outside forests for charcoal making (about 150 million tonnes/year from the savannahs and woodland areas), and the use of high-value woods. Most affected are the Meliacaea family (Khaya species), Pterocarpus erinaceus, and Dalbergia melanoxylon.
The degradation and fragmentation of natural landscapes is caused by agricultural expansion. Agricultural expansion affects the survival and regeneration of animal populations, destroys the structure of wildlife habitat, and strongly contributes to reduction of wildlife populations. The number of species threatened continues to grow; these include lion, elephant, most of the greater antelopes, and waterdependent species such as manatees and crocodiles, which could form the basis of a tourism industry.
Strategies to enhaced the opportunities for development Table 2: International protected areas in Western Africa
(Source: Wetlands International, UNESCO 2006)A number of conservation efforts, some involving communities, have been undertaken. An example of a successful conservation initiative involving local communities is shown in Box 1.
Table 2 shows international protected areas in Western Africa. An example of successful cooperative is the endeavour of Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger, supported by external partners such as France, to protect the extensive transboundary complex of the Pendjari and Arly national parks. Concerted efforts have succeeded in maintaining the overall system and resources in the protected areas in the three participating countries. Biodiversity is relatively well conserved in this area: avifauna is represented by around 378 species; fish species, amphibians and reptiles are prominently present; and the greater mammals of the savannahs and woodland areas are extensively featured (10,000 buffalo, 4,500 elephants, 7,500 roan antelopes, 2,000 bubals, 1,100 warthogs and 1,000 kobs). Lions, cheetahs, panthers and hyenas are also well represented. The habitat is also well conserved, and the overall trend of biological diversity is deemed very positive and on the rise.
(Source: Groombridge and Jenkins 2002, Hoekstra and others 2005, Mayaux and others 2004 and WRI 2005)The wide range of ecosystems – forests, savannahs, deserts, rivers, mountains, mangroves and seas – makes the sub-region rich in biodiversity. The Sahelian zone has several wetlands, including the Niger and Senegal rivers, Lake Chad and floodlands in Senegal and Niger which are very important for migratory birds. The inner Niger delta is a vast floodplain (more than 30,000 km2) situated in the middle of the Sahelian landscape, rich in natural resources and featuring varied ecosystems (lakes, forest floodplains, flooded grasslands and savannah) which supports the livelihoods of 1 million people. The delta is also well known as a wintering and staging area for million of migratory birds. Other important sub-regional biodiversity values include the west African manatee, a globally endangered species. The Guinea forest contains half the mammal species on the African continent, including the rare pygmy hippopotamus, the zebra duiker and the drill, the most threatened primate.
Challenges faced in realizing opportunities for developmentLand degradation and desertification are major causes of biodiversity loss. Three factors contribute:
A relatively dense and growing population with strong dependence on natural resources:
Relatively easy access to resources; and
Recurrent droughts.
These processes affect grasslands, steppes, savannahs and woodlands:
They fragment forests and alter their structure and composition, especially when they are followed by recurrent forest and bush fires;
They reduce surface water points and their associated plants;
They strongly deplete animal populations and notably reduce a number of rare and vulnerable species through habitat degradation, sport hunting and especially through exploitation for bushmeat, which is exacerbated by drought-related food deficits.
Dust storms, forest fires, locust outbreaks and population displacement are all linked to the phenomenon of desertification, and have strongly negative consequences for people, in particular through the loss of livelihood and economic opportunities.
the West African Gaboon viper (Bitis gabonica rhinoceros) is a venomous and highly camouflaged snake which can fetch up to US$600 in the international exotic pet trade.
(Source: J. Gerholdt/Still Pictures)Land degradation is a persistent reduction in the capacity to support life and supply ecosystem services. It affects biological diversity directly and indirectly. It may affect the survival of species and alter processes that support their life, or it may trigger socioeconomic phenomena that impact on living species and their ecosystems. Land degradation phenomena directly affecting biodiversity include water and wind erosion. Along major river basins siltation processes accumulate debris and materials that engulf natural vegetation, such as the Acacia nilotica riparian forests. Trees may survive for years, but the diverse understorey may not. Soil erosion contributes to moving the seed capital of the ground, uprooting grassy as well as woody species, and in accumulation areas it smothers valuable species. This occurs in the sand dune areas of countries such as Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal.
Box 1: The Diawling National Park (DNP), Mauritania
(Source: Hamerlynck and Duvail 2003, IUCN 2003)Indirect factors associated with land degradation that impact on biodiversity include the coping strategies people adopt to deal with environmental change. The movement of people south towards subhumid to humid tropical areas has resulted in depletion of natural resources: loss of primary forests and woodlands, repeated logging of the secondary vegetation, and depletion of a number of species. The influx of refugees from war-stricken areas also triggers severe land degradation in host regions and the overuse of wildlife resources. More diffuse degradation of land resources also occurs in the arid and sub-humid parts. These include the extraction of tree resources outside forests for charcoal making (about 150 million tonnes/year from the savannahs and woodland areas), and the use of high-value woods. Most affected are the Meliacaea family (Khaya species), Pterocarpus erinaceus, and Dalbergia melanoxylon.
The degradation and fragmentation of natural landscapes is caused by agricultural expansion. Agricultural expansion affects the survival and regeneration of animal populations, destroys the structure of wildlife habitat, and strongly contributes to reduction of wildlife populations. The number of species threatened continues to grow; these include lion, elephant, most of the greater antelopes, and waterdependent species such as manatees and crocodiles, which could form the basis of a tourism industry.
Strategies to enhaced the opportunities for development Table 2: International protected areas in Western Africa
(Source: Wetlands International, UNESCO 2006)A number of conservation efforts, some involving communities, have been undertaken. An example of a successful conservation initiative involving local communities is shown in Box 1.
Table 2 shows international protected areas in Western Africa. An example of successful cooperative is the endeavour of Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger, supported by external partners such as France, to protect the extensive transboundary complex of the Pendjari and Arly national parks. Concerted efforts have succeeded in maintaining the overall system and resources in the protected areas in the three participating countries. Biodiversity is relatively well conserved in this area: avifauna is represented by around 378 species; fish species, amphibians and reptiles are prominently present; and the greater mammals of the savannahs and woodland areas are extensively featured (10,000 buffalo, 4,500 elephants, 7,500 roan antelopes, 2,000 bubals, 1,100 warthogs and 1,000 kobs). Lions, cheetahs, panthers and hyenas are also well represented. The habitat is also well conserved, and the overall trend of biological diversity is deemed very positive and on the rise.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Genetic Engineering May Be a Boon to Biodiversity
What should we do with genetically modified foods in the twenty-first century? A more appropriate question perhaps would be what will the twenty-first century be without genetically modified foods? Before we consider either question, let us examine a future scenario. By its very nature, agriculture disrupts the natural ecosystem. Combine this very significant disruption of the land, water, and air with the unceasing march of mankind via urban sprawl and population growth and the future may indeed be bleak.
Increasingly, the media are focusing on individuals who tell us that the future should be one of vast green spaces interlaced with a sustainable agriculture. With minimal use of pesticides, fertilizers, and energy, an incredible variety of bountiful and healthful foods will be produced. Under their scenario, the future will be free of food irradiation, agribusiness conglomerates, and genetically modified organisms. Don’t misunderstand me, I would love a world free of pollution, as green as Ireland and with a balanced global ecosystem abounding with species diversity. But I am a realist. The answer to mankind’s unchecked population growth and need for habitable land and water is science and technology, not pretty words and empty phrases.
In an era of great regulatory uncertainty and government oversight, farmers are in a very risky business. Vocal environmentalists frequently demand food that is grown with organic fertilizers rather than pesticides or hormones, “free-ranging,” and nurtured with the purity of bottled water. Yet, they demand all this at a price that allows them to commit less than 15 percent of their income for food. Having spent so little to support the real cost to the farmer, they then sponsor “Farm Aid” concerts and sing of the loss of the family farm. But do they really recognize the challenges facing the agricultural producing community"
Farmers know that to stay in business, feed their families, and plan for their future, they must maximize their profits. That means keeping the cost of inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides, and tillage low to produce the largest yields that meet the highest standards of food quality for marketing. Farmers also know that to compete successfully, they need every opportunity and advantage that science and technology can offer. It’s a historical fact that the first farmer to adopt a technology profits most from its adoption. Increasingly, farmers are being forced to raise crops on marginal lands. They must compete for water rights with large cities and find more efficient ways to harvest, process, and transport produce and livestock to global markets
Increasingly, the media are focusing on individuals who tell us that the future should be one of vast green spaces interlaced with a sustainable agriculture. With minimal use of pesticides, fertilizers, and energy, an incredible variety of bountiful and healthful foods will be produced. Under their scenario, the future will be free of food irradiation, agribusiness conglomerates, and genetically modified organisms. Don’t misunderstand me, I would love a world free of pollution, as green as Ireland and with a balanced global ecosystem abounding with species diversity. But I am a realist. The answer to mankind’s unchecked population growth and need for habitable land and water is science and technology, not pretty words and empty phrases.
In an era of great regulatory uncertainty and government oversight, farmers are in a very risky business. Vocal environmentalists frequently demand food that is grown with organic fertilizers rather than pesticides or hormones, “free-ranging,” and nurtured with the purity of bottled water. Yet, they demand all this at a price that allows them to commit less than 15 percent of their income for food. Having spent so little to support the real cost to the farmer, they then sponsor “Farm Aid” concerts and sing of the loss of the family farm. But do they really recognize the challenges facing the agricultural producing community"
Farmers know that to stay in business, feed their families, and plan for their future, they must maximize their profits. That means keeping the cost of inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides, and tillage low to produce the largest yields that meet the highest standards of food quality for marketing. Farmers also know that to compete successfully, they need every opportunity and advantage that science and technology can offer. It’s a historical fact that the first farmer to adopt a technology profits most from its adoption. Increasingly, farmers are being forced to raise crops on marginal lands. They must compete for water rights with large cities and find more efficient ways to harvest, process, and transport produce and livestock to global markets
Corporate Control over Genetic Resources Threatens Biodiversity
More than 3.5 million people starved to death in the Bengal famine of 1943. Twenty million were directly affected. Export of food grains continued in spite of the fact that people were going hungry. At the time, India was being used as a supply base for the British military. More than one-fifth of India’s national output was appropriated for war supplies. The starving Bengal peasants gave up over two-thirds of the food they produced. Dispossessed peasants moved to Calcutta. Thousands of female destitutes were turned into prostitutes. Parents started to sell their children.
As the crisis began, thousands of women organized in Bengal in defense of their food rights. “Open more ration shops” and “Bring down the price of food” were the calls of women’s groups throughout Bengal.
After the famine, the peasants also started to organize. At its peak the Tebhaga movement, as it was called, covered 19 districts and involved 6 million people. Everywhere, peasants declared, “We will give up our lives, but we will not give up our rice.” In the village of Thumniya, police arrested some peasants who resisted the theft of their harvest. They were charged with “stealing paddy.”
A half-century after the Bengal famine, a new and clever system has been put in place that is once again making the theft of the harvest a right and the keeping of the harvest a crime. Hidden behind complex free-trade treaties are innovative ways to steal nature’s harvest of seed and nutrition.
Ifocus on India both because I am an Indian and because Indian agriculture is being especially targeted by global corporations. However, this phenomenon of the stolen harvest is not unique to India. It is being experienced in every society, as small farms and small farmers are pushed to extinction, as monocultures replace biodiverse crops, and as farming is transformed from the production of nourishing and diverse foods into the creation of markets for genetically engineered seeds, herbicides, and pesticides.
How Farmers View Seed
For centuries, Third World farmers have evolved crops and given us the diversity of plants that provide us nutrition. Indian farmers evolved 200,000 varieties of rice. They bred rice varieties such as Basmati. They bred red rice and brown rice and black rice. They bred rice that grew 18 feet tall in the Gangetic floodwaters and saline-resistant rice that could thrive in coastal water.
The seed, for the farmer, is not merely the source of future plants an.....
Claiming Seed as Property
The new intellectual-property-rights regimes, which are being universalized through the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement of the World Trade .....
Engineering Life
Global corporations are not just stealing the harvest of farmers. They are stealing nature’s harvest through genetic engineering and patents on life forms. Crops s.....
Save the Seed
In 1987, the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation organized a meeting on biotechnology called “Laws of Life.” This watershed event made it clear that the giant chemical .....
Food Democracy
In India, the poorest peasants have been organic farmers because they could never afford chemicals
As the crisis began, thousands of women organized in Bengal in defense of their food rights. “Open more ration shops” and “Bring down the price of food” were the calls of women’s groups throughout Bengal.
After the famine, the peasants also started to organize. At its peak the Tebhaga movement, as it was called, covered 19 districts and involved 6 million people. Everywhere, peasants declared, “We will give up our lives, but we will not give up our rice.” In the village of Thumniya, police arrested some peasants who resisted the theft of their harvest. They were charged with “stealing paddy.”
A half-century after the Bengal famine, a new and clever system has been put in place that is once again making the theft of the harvest a right and the keeping of the harvest a crime. Hidden behind complex free-trade treaties are innovative ways to steal nature’s harvest of seed and nutrition.
Ifocus on India both because I am an Indian and because Indian agriculture is being especially targeted by global corporations. However, this phenomenon of the stolen harvest is not unique to India. It is being experienced in every society, as small farms and small farmers are pushed to extinction, as monocultures replace biodiverse crops, and as farming is transformed from the production of nourishing and diverse foods into the creation of markets for genetically engineered seeds, herbicides, and pesticides.
How Farmers View Seed
For centuries, Third World farmers have evolved crops and given us the diversity of plants that provide us nutrition. Indian farmers evolved 200,000 varieties of rice. They bred rice varieties such as Basmati. They bred red rice and brown rice and black rice. They bred rice that grew 18 feet tall in the Gangetic floodwaters and saline-resistant rice that could thrive in coastal water.
The seed, for the farmer, is not merely the source of future plants an.....
Claiming Seed as Property
The new intellectual-property-rights regimes, which are being universalized through the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement of the World Trade .....
Engineering Life
Global corporations are not just stealing the harvest of farmers. They are stealing nature’s harvest through genetic engineering and patents on life forms. Crops s.....
Save the Seed
In 1987, the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation organized a meeting on biotechnology called “Laws of Life.” This watershed event made it clear that the giant chemical .....
Food Democracy
In India, the poorest peasants have been organic farmers because they could never afford chemicals
Capitalism Threatens Agricultural Biodiversity
It’s said that variety is the spice of life, but capitalism—particularly as applied to agriculture—is doing much to destroy the variety of life on earth. Nonhuman life forms that occupy the land—plants, animals, insects and microorganisms—do not, as far as we know, hold opinions on economic philosophies. Yet, economic activities shape many aspects of their existence, and they in turn have many effects on humanity.
No More Family Farms
Agriculture, essential to human survival, becomes increasingly perverted by the capitalist profit motive as agricapitalism pushes out family and middle-sized farms. Strictly speaking, of course, the family farm, on which the farmer and his family members performed all the labor, is a thing of the past, at least in this country. The few that remain cut no figure in the agriculture industry. They were pushed out by the growth of the middle-sized farmer, who first brought hired labor, advanced machinery and industrial methods of production to the industry. Now, of course, even the middle-sized farmer is being pushed out by the huge agricapitalist concerns that increasingly dominate the countryside.
This is not news, of course, because the process of concentration in agriculture has been going on for generations. Socialists are not among those who would say that this is wholly a bad thing. The development and application of science and technology in agriculture have, so to speak, plowed the way for greater productivity and efficiency. They have opened the door to the production of an agricultural abundance that can be produced with a minimum of arduous toil. That potential will be realized under a sane socialist system of industrial democracy and production to meet human requirements. Not so under capitalism, however, where science and technology in farming have been perverted to profit demands, have aided in reducing the agricultural and rural populations to a fraction of the national population, and have increased the burden and exploitation of a dwindling number of agricultural workers. These, however, are not the only baneful effects capitalist concentration has on agriculture.
All businesses have to operate with profit as their goal. To achieve profits, farm capitalists look for ways to cut production costs and improve yields. The advances in labor-displacing mechanization mentioned have played the primary role by reducing the amount of human labor power needed to farm. Another way is to design or discover a plant having characteristics that make it easy to harvest, and then to concentrate on the cultivation of that plant.
Such plants may have consistent growth patterns, so that an entire field of the plant would stand at the same hei.....
Biodiversity Loss
Historically, of course, cotton and tobacco were the “cash crops” in the South, while wheat and corn filled the same role in the prairie states. Agricapital.....
Consequences of Biodiversity Decline
What happens when only a few varieties of food crops remain in the fields? Remember that the size of the population of any living creature largely de.....
Cloning Not a Factor
Incidentally, the recent advances in cloning that prompted Davidson’s article obviously are not responsible for the enormous loss of agricultural diversity ove.....
The Socialist Solution
In a socialist economic system, food production would be organized for consumption and not for profit
No More Family Farms
Agriculture, essential to human survival, becomes increasingly perverted by the capitalist profit motive as agricapitalism pushes out family and middle-sized farms. Strictly speaking, of course, the family farm, on which the farmer and his family members performed all the labor, is a thing of the past, at least in this country. The few that remain cut no figure in the agriculture industry. They were pushed out by the growth of the middle-sized farmer, who first brought hired labor, advanced machinery and industrial methods of production to the industry. Now, of course, even the middle-sized farmer is being pushed out by the huge agricapitalist concerns that increasingly dominate the countryside.
This is not news, of course, because the process of concentration in agriculture has been going on for generations. Socialists are not among those who would say that this is wholly a bad thing. The development and application of science and technology in agriculture have, so to speak, plowed the way for greater productivity and efficiency. They have opened the door to the production of an agricultural abundance that can be produced with a minimum of arduous toil. That potential will be realized under a sane socialist system of industrial democracy and production to meet human requirements. Not so under capitalism, however, where science and technology in farming have been perverted to profit demands, have aided in reducing the agricultural and rural populations to a fraction of the national population, and have increased the burden and exploitation of a dwindling number of agricultural workers. These, however, are not the only baneful effects capitalist concentration has on agriculture.
All businesses have to operate with profit as their goal. To achieve profits, farm capitalists look for ways to cut production costs and improve yields. The advances in labor-displacing mechanization mentioned have played the primary role by reducing the amount of human labor power needed to farm. Another way is to design or discover a plant having characteristics that make it easy to harvest, and then to concentrate on the cultivation of that plant.
Such plants may have consistent growth patterns, so that an entire field of the plant would stand at the same hei.....
Biodiversity Loss
Historically, of course, cotton and tobacco were the “cash crops” in the South, while wheat and corn filled the same role in the prairie states. Agricapital.....
Consequences of Biodiversity Decline
What happens when only a few varieties of food crops remain in the fields? Remember that the size of the population of any living creature largely de.....
Cloning Not a Factor
Incidentally, the recent advances in cloning that prompted Davidson’s article obviously are not responsible for the enormous loss of agricultural diversity ove.....
The Socialist Solution
In a socialist economic system, food production would be organized for consumption and not for profit
Commercial Agriculture Is Detrimental to Biodiversity
Snaking along the border of Minnesota and the Dakotas, the Red River Valley has long been one of North America’s leading grain-producing regions. Blessed with fertile prairie soils deep enough “to bury a man standing,” Red River farmers have intensified their production in recent decades, and planted more and more of their land to just two crops, wheat and barley.
Such specialization is supposed to be the key to success in the brave new world of multinational agribusiness. Yet the last few years have been anything but bountiful for most Red River farmers. In the early 1990s, following several years of abnormally cool, wet weather, their fields were hit with unprecedented outbreaks of a fungal disease called “wheat scab.”
But according to Brian DeVore of the Minnesota-based Land Stewardship Project, the fungus is benefiting from more than just the weather. Many of the region’s farmers have recently adopted a “no till” cultivation system that is designed to conserve soil. Standard cultivation prepares the soil for planting by plowing, but as the soil is broken up it becomes vulnerable to erosion. “No till” reduces erosion by leaving the previous year’s broken stalks in place and planting through them. Unfortunately, however, those crop residues are a perfect home for the fungus in between growing seasons. A few decades ago, one solution would have been to let cattle graze down the residue, but there are few cattle in the region any more. Cattle production has grown increasingly specialized too; few of the valley’s farmers can compete with the enormous livestock operations elsewhere. So the fungus has its way with these vast, monotonous expanses of wheat, one field after another, year in and year out: that must be the wheat scab version of heaven.
The bottom line is that disease and record low grain prices have cost Red River farmers over $4.2 billion since 1992. Nearly half of that loss is directly attributable to the scab. On the Minnesota side of the river, wheat and barley plantings in 1999 were down some 35 percent compared to their levels at the start of the decade. One-fifth of the region’s farmers went out of business in 1997 alone.
Biodiversity in Agriculture
Such problems are usually debated in economic terms, but they are related just as fundamentally to the loss of biological diversity in agriculture. Biodiversity refers to the variety inherent in life—both the genetic variety within single species and the “species variety” within ecosystems. For most people, the term probably evokes Nature with a capital “N”—tropical rain forests, coral reefs, mountain wildernesses, and other untra.....
Hotspot Agriculture
During the 1920s, a brilliant young Russian scientist named Nikolai I. Vavilov undertook to answer a question that must at the time have seemed vast in its implicatio.....
Traditional Farming and Biodiversity
The biodiversity associated with traditional agriculture is no coincidence—it has arisen precisely because people have actively fostered it. Al.....
Impoverished by Success
At the same time that Vavilov was scouring fields for clues to the origins of crop diversity, another agricultural visionary, the American plant breeder (and late.....
The Green Revolution
During the 1950s and 1960s, the agricultural “Green Revolution” brought extremely uniform, “high input” varieties to the developing world. (I.....
Reduced Ecological Diversity
The industrialization of agriculture has also dramatically reduced ecological diversity in farm landscapes
Such specialization is supposed to be the key to success in the brave new world of multinational agribusiness. Yet the last few years have been anything but bountiful for most Red River farmers. In the early 1990s, following several years of abnormally cool, wet weather, their fields were hit with unprecedented outbreaks of a fungal disease called “wheat scab.”
But according to Brian DeVore of the Minnesota-based Land Stewardship Project, the fungus is benefiting from more than just the weather. Many of the region’s farmers have recently adopted a “no till” cultivation system that is designed to conserve soil. Standard cultivation prepares the soil for planting by plowing, but as the soil is broken up it becomes vulnerable to erosion. “No till” reduces erosion by leaving the previous year’s broken stalks in place and planting through them. Unfortunately, however, those crop residues are a perfect home for the fungus in between growing seasons. A few decades ago, one solution would have been to let cattle graze down the residue, but there are few cattle in the region any more. Cattle production has grown increasingly specialized too; few of the valley’s farmers can compete with the enormous livestock operations elsewhere. So the fungus has its way with these vast, monotonous expanses of wheat, one field after another, year in and year out: that must be the wheat scab version of heaven.
The bottom line is that disease and record low grain prices have cost Red River farmers over $4.2 billion since 1992. Nearly half of that loss is directly attributable to the scab. On the Minnesota side of the river, wheat and barley plantings in 1999 were down some 35 percent compared to their levels at the start of the decade. One-fifth of the region’s farmers went out of business in 1997 alone.
Biodiversity in Agriculture
Such problems are usually debated in economic terms, but they are related just as fundamentally to the loss of biological diversity in agriculture. Biodiversity refers to the variety inherent in life—both the genetic variety within single species and the “species variety” within ecosystems. For most people, the term probably evokes Nature with a capital “N”—tropical rain forests, coral reefs, mountain wildernesses, and other untra.....
Hotspot Agriculture
During the 1920s, a brilliant young Russian scientist named Nikolai I. Vavilov undertook to answer a question that must at the time have seemed vast in its implicatio.....
Traditional Farming and Biodiversity
The biodiversity associated with traditional agriculture is no coincidence—it has arisen precisely because people have actively fostered it. Al.....
Impoverished by Success
At the same time that Vavilov was scouring fields for clues to the origins of crop diversity, another agricultural visionary, the American plant breeder (and late.....
The Green Revolution
During the 1950s and 1960s, the agricultural “Green Revolution” brought extremely uniform, “high input” varieties to the developing world. (I.....
Reduced Ecological Diversity
The industrialization of agriculture has also dramatically reduced ecological diversity in farm landscapes
Declining Biodiversity Is a Serious Crisis in Hawaii
Tourists walking the beaches, streets and parks of resort towns [in Hawaii] . . . see an impressive array of lush vegetation and a kaleidoscope of birds.
Exotic-looking papaya and banyan trees, beautiful blossoms of bougainvillea and the sweet smell of jasmine are everywhere. Canaries, cardinals and Saffron finches flitter about.
But this perfect tropical paradise holds a dark secret: None of these plants or animals is native to Hawaii.
Contrary to the myth, when vacationers come to the Hawaiian Islands, they unknowingly enter a zone of mass extinction, not Eden.
An Ecological Catastrophe
The real Hawaii has become the biggest ecological catastrophe in the United States—the nation’s capital of species extinction and endangerment, scientists say.
And this disaster is playing out in the tropical jewel of the United States unnoticed by the American public.
Hawaii, the nation’s leader in biological diversity, is well on its way to becoming an archipelago of the “living dead.” That’s a term biologists use to describe a species of animal or plant that still has a few individuals alive but which almost surely will go extinct soon.
Invasion by non-native species, economic development, suburban sprawl, even environmental destruction by hooved animals—all these have added up to devastation for native animals, plants and the ecological connections that bind them, scientists say. In turn, this threatens the fragile tapestry of life on the islands, its supply of fresh water, its soil and its economic future.
For years, researchers warned about the impact of wild pigs, goats, mongooses and other alien animals imported on purpose or by accident. These creatures have sucked out the natural life of the islands like movie space aliens that take over a human body, feed on it and kill it.
Only a few years ago, scientists here still talked hopefully of reviving nature by applying the techniques of restoration ecology. But some now speak of “hospice ecology”—taking care of species while they inevitably slip into extinction.
Like a doctor trying to save a fatally injured person in a hospital emergency room, some of these scientists are reluctantly awakening to the fact that their patient cannot be saved.
“Depressing—that’s an optimistic way to frame it,” said Rick Warshauer, a biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s biological resources division on Hawaii. He coined the term hospice ecology. “What we’re dealing with is whole suites of organisms disappearing.”
Said Peter Van Dyke, manager of the Amy B.H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden, on the Kona coast of Hawaii: “It’s very frustrat.....
Lost Species
More than 1,000 native Hawaiian species are known to have gone extinct since humans arrived.
Among other measures of the crisis, according to recent reports:
&.....
Spider Web of Destruction Keeps Growing
The small dirt hole in the forest didn’t look like much, but it was a good place to begin to understand extinction in Hawaii.
Exotic-looking papaya and banyan trees, beautiful blossoms of bougainvillea and the sweet smell of jasmine are everywhere. Canaries, cardinals and Saffron finches flitter about.
But this perfect tropical paradise holds a dark secret: None of these plants or animals is native to Hawaii.
Contrary to the myth, when vacationers come to the Hawaiian Islands, they unknowingly enter a zone of mass extinction, not Eden.
An Ecological Catastrophe
The real Hawaii has become the biggest ecological catastrophe in the United States—the nation’s capital of species extinction and endangerment, scientists say.
And this disaster is playing out in the tropical jewel of the United States unnoticed by the American public.
Hawaii, the nation’s leader in biological diversity, is well on its way to becoming an archipelago of the “living dead.” That’s a term biologists use to describe a species of animal or plant that still has a few individuals alive but which almost surely will go extinct soon.
Invasion by non-native species, economic development, suburban sprawl, even environmental destruction by hooved animals—all these have added up to devastation for native animals, plants and the ecological connections that bind them, scientists say. In turn, this threatens the fragile tapestry of life on the islands, its supply of fresh water, its soil and its economic future.
For years, researchers warned about the impact of wild pigs, goats, mongooses and other alien animals imported on purpose or by accident. These creatures have sucked out the natural life of the islands like movie space aliens that take over a human body, feed on it and kill it.
Only a few years ago, scientists here still talked hopefully of reviving nature by applying the techniques of restoration ecology. But some now speak of “hospice ecology”—taking care of species while they inevitably slip into extinction.
Like a doctor trying to save a fatally injured person in a hospital emergency room, some of these scientists are reluctantly awakening to the fact that their patient cannot be saved.
“Depressing—that’s an optimistic way to frame it,” said Rick Warshauer, a biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s biological resources division on Hawaii. He coined the term hospice ecology. “What we’re dealing with is whole suites of organisms disappearing.”
Said Peter Van Dyke, manager of the Amy B.H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden, on the Kona coast of Hawaii: “It’s very frustrat.....
Lost Species
More than 1,000 native Hawaiian species are known to have gone extinct since humans arrived.
Among other measures of the crisis, according to recent reports:
&.....
Spider Web of Destruction Keeps Growing
The small dirt hole in the forest didn’t look like much, but it was a good place to begin to understand extinction in Hawaii.
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