From the category archives:
As a follow-on to today’s forestry application post, another helpful application launched today. Leafsnap is a mobile application that uses a sophisticated shape identification algorithm to identify the tree species from a photograph. The pocket field guide also includes details about tree flowers, fruit, seeds and bark. The application was developed by Columbia University, the [...]
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The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) recently sponsored a contest with Visualizing.org and Challengepost.com to communicate the value of nature. Jacob Houtman’s Value of Nature – Ecological Footprint and Biocapacity visualization was deemed the most effective at showing how we are using our natural resources. The interactive map depicts the difference between each country’s [...]
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Today the Indian government approved an investment of $10.14 billion (460 billion rupees) for the National Mission for a Green India (NMGI). The plan will expand forests by five million hectares, while also remediating and improving forest quality on another five million hectares. The plan is part of a larger National Action Plan on Climate [...]
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The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), in collaboration with other partners, is helping to integrate habitat and species data in order to stem biodiversity loss. The Digital Observatory for Protected Areas (DOPA) aims to assess, monitor and forecast the state of protected areas on a global scale in order to prioritize and support decision-making [...]
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Coral reefs, the most biodiverse ecosystems in the ocean, have been facing local and global pressures for some time. In an updated report titled, Reefs at Risk Revisited by the World Resources Institute (WRI), this pressure has reached the point that 75% percent of the world’s reefs are threatened, and 30% of endangered reefs identified [...]
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The Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), inspired by a U.N. panel on climate change, will be an item for discussion at the UNEP Governing Council meetings next week in Nairobi. The IPBES will likely focus on shorter term focuses on a more local scale than the panel on climate change, tackling issues [...]
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The National Research Council’s committee to study the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill will evaluate the loss of ecosystem services in the Gulf of Mexico due to the spill. The 16-member committee, led by an ocean mapping expert from the University of New Hampshire, are currently evaluating techniques to quantify the impact in [...]
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We’re used to seeing maps that show the rate and spread of deforestation, and impacts that this degradation has on climate change. The Global Partnership on Forest Landscape Restoration (GPFLR) has taken a different tact, along with partners, in their effort to map the opportunities for forest restoration. The global map shows lands with characteristics [...]
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Brazil launched the Biomes Project today at the COP16 meeting in Cancun. The goal of the project is to reconcile agricultural production with environmental preservation across the six Brazilian biomes (the Amazonian and Atlantic Rainforests, savanna, wetlands, grasslands and pampas). The nine-year project has a budget of R$ 40 million (approximately $23.5 million). The focus [...]
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