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Not actually a fox or a wolf, the manned wolf exists in its own genus.
Living on open savannahs the manned wolf is unfortunately facing the loss of most of its habitat. Though we hear about the loss of the Amazon rainforest the most, all other ecosystems in South America are also under threat.
Continue reading “The manned wolf is being seen increasingly often in the Amazon rainforest”A carbon bomb is defined as a project (mine, oil well or similar) which if allowed to go ahead will emit 1 billion tonnes of carbon over its lifetime. A guardian analysis suggests that there are around 200 of these so called carbon bomb mega projects around the world. This is the equivalent of 18 years of total global emissions.
Ugandan authorities are considering two roads that will pass through Bwindi. These roads are likely to have two devastating impacts.
Firstly, these roads are likely to splinter the park from the connected park across the border in the DCR. As with the proposed Serengeti road, neither side of the road is big enough for large ecosystems to survive long term, therefore you are threatening one of the biggest draws of tourists to the country – these tourists if well managed bring the means to pull millions out of poverty.
The other problem is that roads ease the progress of poachers deep into the park. It has regularly been shown that a road is often the easiest way to remove the wildlife that lives in an area.
The recovery of wolves bears and lynx over the last several generations in western Europe has been nothing short of astounding.
In the 1960s the population of the iberian wolf did not number more than a few hundred, yet now there are 2500. Similarly, bears got very low but now more than 300 roam – though this still has some way to go. The Iberian lynx was not heavily hunted, yet was still almost wiped out due to human introduced diseases wiping out most of the rabbits in Spain.
France destroyed its wolf population completely, though they are back, having crossed from Italy about 20-30 years ago. Bears were similarly almost wiped out, except a tiny relict population in the Pyrenes. Unfortunately, this population has not done well and is essentially only there because of bear translocations from further east. Similarly, Lynx were eradicated by 1900 though this has been reversed by reintroduction projects. There are a couple of zones where lynx are found (a reintroduction project in Switzerland returned them to part of france), However, there is not going to be more than 130 lynx in the whole country and the population does not seem to be growing.
Italy retained a wolf population, though in the 1970s there was only 70-100 left. Nowadays, 1000-2000 wolves roam the country, and it is roaming members of this population that seeded the population in France. 80-90 bears remain in Italy (the Marsican bear), and while this is a more healthy population than that in France, it is still not enough to be secure. Lynx were eradicated but have been reintroduced, though they are not thought to have established a population that would be secure longterm without continued translocations.
Scandinavia could in some ways be thought of as a strong-point for all three animals in western-Europe, though there are still views that are not helpful. The encouraging thing here, is that the wolf is able to return from Russia. There are no more than 500 wolves in this area, and Norway has a relatively strange view of the wolf, with human hunting elk very popular, wolves are seen as a nuisance and kept at a minimum. Norway has a similar view of the bear, with them being far more common in Sweden. Lynx are widespread in this part of the world.
Why should we champion the return of these animals? They have the capacity to rebalance environments, as well as allowing forests to operate properly – in the UK, as we are missing these predators, replanting forests are often hindered by deer grazing them to much. There are other reasons though. These animals can be a big tourist draw, allowing people to make a good income, often in places where there is little other economic potential. In the UK, return of wolves and lynx would save hundreds of human lives each year by reducing deer collisions on our roads.
Will their recovery continue? I hope so, though it seems to very much be an area where progress is two steps forwards and one step back.
Currently, 70% of the land in the UK is given over to agriculture. Of this, just 15% is used to grow crops for human consumption. A further 22% goes towards feeding livestock. The rest is given over to livestock grazing.
This means that we give over 44% of the country to livestock, and a further 15% of the country to feed the livestock.
If growing food in a lab does indeed take off, 59% of the UK would suddenly be freed up – lab grown meat done properly could have a near 0 carbon footprint, and can be created in close proximity to the shop that will sell it -further reducing or eliminating the transport carbon footprint of food.
Now, assuming that this is to happen we would still need to keep some livestock. This would be needed to harvest cells. Never the less, we could still see a reduction of more than 99% of the livestock and land required. I do not believe that I am the only person who would be far happier satisfying my desire for meat, without the climate implications or indeed the fact that animals have to die to satisfy it (I am not a vegetarian, but over the last few years we have made efforts to reduce our meat footprint).
This would free up more than 50% of the country. What could we do with this?
Well my argument is that this land could be given over to rewilding. With this amount of land, we could suck up vast amounts of carbon a year. 50% of the UK is roughly 120,000 square kilometres. Now roughly speaking, forest suck up 500g per square m per year, or 500 metric tonnes per square km. Therefore, the UK could suck up 60 million tonnes a year. Now it is true that this is not huge compared to our emissions and we might have some other uses, never-the-less I am sure that I am not the only person that is frustrated by the lack of wilderness in the UK. Even just 10% of the gained land being given over to rewilding could make great progress in returning wilderness to the UK.
In a world where we are worried about global warming and carbon emissions, it is insanity that we are still cutting down trees. Recent research shows it even more insane – the carbon footprint of deforestation has been shown to have doubled in the last 2 decades.
Unfortunately, this problem is for simple reasons. Generalizing, the majority of people who are worried about global warming are in developed countries – few of these countries have an significant rainforest left, as they cut them down (often centuries ago).
In developing countries, people are less worried about global warming. Are the stupid? No, of course not. In the developed world, for the vast majority of people, we do not need to worry about where our next meal is coming from (sure there are varying levels of poverty, but on the whole dying from starvation in the west is rare). In developing countries, however, starvation is still a problem that occurs from time to time. Terrible famines have occurred within living memory, which means that the populations in these countries are more concerned with plans to stay alive, not with concerns over how difficult they are making their descendants lives.
The worlds forests contain more than a century of human carbon emissions (from fossil fuels). In other words, if we cut it all down we will blow past all possible safety points and will be well in to runaway global warming. We need to help the countries which still contain rainforest – even one off payments in the billions are not enough. The west needs to assist countries with large rainforests, particularly the Democratic republic of the Congo, Indonesia, and Brazil in growing both their economies and food production in the smallest amount of space possible, alongside significant regular payments for retaining their rainforests.
Unfortunately, this is unlikely to happen. There is also significant differences between concern from individuals on the ground and the government. If this site succeeds we will create a marketplace for those living by rainforest to benefit, however if the government decides to cut down the forest this will not matter.
What is clear is that not only do we need to end deforestation, but we need to reverse deforestation in many places. This is not only necessary for global warming, but also for rainfall and the whole host of other reasons that benefit local people.
The coral itself is actually usually quite a dull colour, the brilliant colours of coral reefs come from the algae that lives within its coral tissue. These algae’s are called Zooxanthellae and in return for their home, the algae supply most of the corals nutrients.
The problem, is that these algae are very sensitive to temperature changes, and so if the sea remains unusually warm or cold for more than a few days, the algae leaves the corals and this is called a bleaching. This bleaching has occurred more and more recently in the last few years.
As a result of this, it is feared, that up to 90% of the corals worldwide will be lost by 2050.
This is where the red sea corals become so interesting.
Just 2 years ago, researchers found some corals in the Gulf of Aqaba, a trench between Israel, Jordan and Egypt which could withstand higher temperatures for longer. Just 1 degree above normal, sustained for a week can be enough to cause bleaching. If the temperature does not fall quickly, the corals will die. Yet here, corals have been seen to survive temperature rises above 7 degrees. It is thought that these corals have developed these abilities because they regularly suffer large temperature changes.
If they can identify corals that have this ability, and translocate them into new reefs, they will cross-breed. As the heat resistant corals are heat resistant, they are likely to survive far longer and therefore be able to pass on their heat resistant trait into the whole reef.
Given the rapidly warming planet, we only have about 30 years to act. Apart from their own intrinsic value, coral reefs are also worth roughly $600,000 per square kilometre each year, through protecting coastlines, increased tourism, medication and a whole lot more effects.
This is a fantastic possible save for the worlds reefs, time will tell if it works.
Seemingly, often as a result of mapping issues (though this may not have been accidental) Unesco sites and land mapped as Orangutan habitat have been turned into plantations.
The idea that 1/5 of the plantations fall into this category is hard to explain – not surprisingly this is explicitly illegal.
The UK has had a problem with bovine TB for years. The problem has continued to be that many cattle are lost each year.
Badgers are blamed for carrying the infection between fields. It has been pointed out that cows are often not checked when bought or sold, and that the spread of the illness can often be attributed to this. Never-the-less, the British government has steadfastly continued on this plan for a very long time.
Continue reading “Despite all the evidence, the government is determined to placate farmers by killing a further 60,000 badgers and for what”Declared extinct in 2003, recent genetic analysis shows that the Caspian and Amur tiger are so similar that they cannot be declared as sub species. As such, if the Amur tiger population continues to reboand it would be possible to translocate members west to restart the Caspian tiger population.
This should not be done though until the Amur tiger population is more stable.