Category: Saving Nature Collection

Measuring Resilience Is Essential To Understand It

October 10, 2019 erinwilligan

October 10, 2019

In this recent paper published in the October 2019 Issue of Nature Sustainability, Dr. Pimm and his colleagues make the case for using data to more precisely define and apply key terminology used in conservation science.

MEASURING RESILIENCE IS ESSENTIAL TO UNDERSTAND IT

Stuart L. Pimm, Ian Donohue, José M. Montoya and Michel Loreau

Words matter, especially when trying to accomplish something as important as stopping the loss of biodiversity or fighting climate change.

Stuart Pimm and his colleagues make the case that scientific terms need measurement to ensure their meaning is explicit. The link between words and evidence requires rigor in defining how we measure, what we measure, and over how long we measure. “Talk is cheap, measurements hard.” comments Pimm in his recent blog for Nature Sustainability, “Without them, we have no way to compare what we are doing for good or ill to the natural world.”

The authors consider ubiquitous terms like sustainability, resilience and others grouped under the heading of ‘stability’. These terms speak vital need to characterize changes in complex social and environmental systems. In a bewildering array of terms, practical measurements are essential to permit comparisons and so untangle underlying relationships.

Categories: Saving Nature Collection, Science, Science Corner

The Health of Our Oceans: Seabirds as Sentinels.

September 16, 2019 erinwilligan

September 16, 2019

The Bird Catchers

A FILM BY JAMES ROBINSON

Sooty terns have been returning to the Dry Tortugas National Park in the Florida Keys to breed from mid-January through July for untold years. Scientists have been there to meet them since the 1930’s. An ambitious research project has collected decades of data on over 500,000 birds to help reveal the secrets of their life at sea.

Scientists can learn a lot from the terns about climate change and the health of our oceans. Because of the extensive area covered on their ocean journeys, terns are yielding new insights about how humans are altering the planet. Unfortunately, most of the insights come from mortalities of the terns.

But first, they have to catch them.

We recently got a unique perspective on what it takes to monitor the 500,000 sooty terns that have been banded over the life of the project. Created by James Robinson, a student at Duke University, we see the project through the eyes of young scientists following in the footsteps of Dr. Pimm to collect the data needed to understand our planet through the journey of the terns.

Play Video

In the eight decades since research began, sooty tern populations on the Dry Tortugas have dropped 84 percent, from 3 million birds to around 350,000. Their struggles could point to troubling changes in our oceans and our climate. Rising sea levels are flooding nesting grounds. More frequent and intense storms are battering terns in the open ocean. Over-fishing is depleting their food supply.

What We’ve Learned About Hurricanes

Dr. Ryan Huang, a scientist from Duke University led a recent study on the connection between hurricanes and seabird deaths. A new map produced by the research shows that sooty terns leave their breeding colony at Dry Tortugas National Park in the Florida Keys each June as hurricane season starts. They migrate southward and eastward across the Caribbean through summer and early fall, before skirting the northern coast of South America and arriving at their winter habitat off the Atlantic coast of Brazil in November.

Huang and his colleagues charted the migratory path by recording and mapping the dates and locations of all sooty terns banded for study at the Dry Tortugas since the 1950’s but found dead elsewhere. They also mapped locational data retrieved from birds that were fitted with satellite-telemetry tracking tags. When they overlaid all this data with maps of hurricane paths from the same period, they discovered a striking correlation between bird deaths and hurricanes.

Migration itself is a very stressful, very taxing process for these birds to undergo,” said Huang. “Encountering a storm adds even more stress, forcing the birds to fight strong winds and rain. Those that can’t handle that will likely die.” Unlike many shorebirds, sooty terns do not have special feather oils to help repel water, so they’re susceptible to drowning.

What We’ve Learned About Overfishing

In another recent study, tern feathers provided insights into the effects of overfishing. The feathers gave the scientists a window into broad changes in the terns’ diets over time. Starting at the end of the last century, presumably due to overfishing, the terns started eating more squid and small crustaceans, and fewer fish.

The change in diet corresponded with a decline in the sooty tern population. Fish are loaded with protein and fats and as such are a nourishing food source for seabirds and their fast-growing chicks; squid and crustaceans are not a good alternative.

Please support conservation efforts that fight climate change. For the terns. For all of us.

Categories: Research, Saving Nature Collection, Science Corner

Living The Promise of the Tyler Prize

September 13, 2019 erinwilligan

September 13, 2019: Tyler Prize Twitter

The problem as far as species extinction is concerned is that the tropical forest is where the wild things are,” Pimm said. “It’s where the greatest number of species is found.”

LIVING THE PROMISE OF THE TYLER PRIZE

In 2010, Stuart Pimm was awarded the Tyler Prize in recognition of his scientific contributions, his understanding of ecosystem functions, and his application of this knowledge to the management and restoration of ecosystems to the benefit of their inhabitants.

Considered the “Nobel Prize of environmental achievement,” the award was an important milestone in Stuart’s lifelong commitment to preventing the loss of biodiversity.

During his acceptance lecture, Pimm explained how human impact is causing species to become extinct 100 to 1,000 times faster than anticipated, and outlined practical solutions to the crisis.

Deforestation is not only the principal driver of extinction; it contributes 50 percent of carbon dioxide seeped to the atmosphere each year, Pimm said. That’s more carbon emission than all cars and trucks worldwide.

Recently, the Tyler Prize revisited Stuart’s continuing efforts, sharing a short video on Twitter about our work at Saving Nature.

Categories: News, Saving Nature Collection

Yellow Fever Threatens Golden Lion Tamarins

September 10, 2019 erinwilligan

Golden lion tamarin (Leontopithecus rosalia), Atlantic Forest of Brazil

September 10, 2019: Troubling news for golden lion tamarins. Yellow fever threatens one of the world’s most renowned conservation successes.

YELLOW FEVER OUTBREAK THREATENS ENDANGERED GOLDEN LION TAMARINS

The wild population of golden lion tamarins suffered a dramatic decline in the wake of the worst yellow fever outbreak in Brazil in 80 years. According a study published today in the journal Nature.com, the wild tamarin population has declined by 32 percent since 2014. This reduction marks the first drastic loss the species has faced in nearly 40 years.

Prior to the yellow fever epizootic, golden lion tamarin numbers had been steadily increasing—from a few hundred in the 1970s to 3,700 in recent years. The team at Saving Nature joined the effort to save the golden lion tamarin in 2012, helping connect them to larger forest expanses capable of supporting viable populations.

A recent population census by the Associação Mico-Leão-Dourado (AMLD; golden lion tamarin association), triggered by the spread of yellow fever throughout the region, found only 2,500 survivors. A reduction in population size of this magnitude will make it difficult for golden lion tamarins to find unrelated mates, resulting in inbreeding and local extinctions of the species.

Yellow fever was first detected near their geographic range in early 2017, and reports of sick or dead tamarins surfaced in 2018. The AMLD is currently hard at work to reduce the devastating impact of yellow fever on golden lion tamarins. Their multifaceted approach includes an ongoing population census, yellow fever risk and acquired immunity assessments, strategic translocations, and a vaccination program.

Click here to read the full publication.

Categories: Brazil, Saving Nature Collection

The Lungs of the Planet Are Burning

September 3, 2019 erinwilligan

Burning tropical forests is a major factor in climate change. Deforestation contributes one fifth of all the greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere due to human activity–more that all the emissions from Europe.

September 3, 2019: Rewilding Earth

As the world watches the Amazon fires rage, destroying one of our most important global treasures there is only one question on everyone’s mind:

Can we survive this unchecked destruction?

In his recent article for Rewilding Earth, Stuart Pimm, President of Saving Nature, shares his insights into the Amazon fires and explains the potential consequences.

Days of Fire

by Stuart Pimm

Fly from the USA to Rio de Janeiro and choose a day-time flight. Reject all demands to lower your window shades. You must not miss the view. One heads southeast, crosses Cuba, and makes landfall near Caracas, Venezuela. The next two and a half hours are a planetary spectacular, while the final three are apocalyptic.

The transect from Caracas to Manaus on the Amazon shows vast, unbroken tracts of forest. I’ve done this on crisp, clear days and, on magical ones, when the tepuis rise above low-lying mist. They inspired Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World. I don’t think undiscovered dinosaurs live there, but undiscovered species? Bet on it.

At Manaus, the black waters of the Rio Negro, coming in from the north, meet the coffee-coloured ones from the Andes. From the plane, I see they refuse to mix for a long way downstream. Unbroken forest returns – but not for long. Soon, there will be huge columns of smoke rising to the height of the plane, their plumes trailing downwind for as far as we can see. All too soon, thick grey smoke will completely cover the ground below. It will continue for most of the rest of the journey.

No other journey tells me what wonderful places we still have of our planet — and how we might lose them in a generation.

Click here to read the entire article.

Categories: Climate Change, News, Saving Nature Collection

Of What Use is Biodiversity?

August 15, 2019 Stuart Pimm

In the August 2019 Special Edition of Duke Magazine, Dr. Stuart Pimm shares his observations from a recent visit to China.

A TOAST AT THE FRONLINE

Of What Use is Biodiversity?

August 15, 2019: Stuart Pimm

I stand on a small tributary of the Irrawaddy River. Across it is Myanmar—formerly Burma: I’m about as far west in the Chinese province of Yunnan as I can be. Borders between countries fascinate, for they illuminate different experiments in how we manage our natural world. Across the river, the land is going up in smoke. There’s a dense blue haze. At night, I see dozens of small fires, while overhead a satellite maps them from their thermal infrared radiation.

On returning to Duke, I look at what those maps show. China’s border is obvious. For a thousand miles along its southern and southwestern frontier, it has very few fires, while thousands carpet the land of its immediate neighbors.

Across the river unfolds a human tragedy, repeated across the developing world. Poor farmers burn the land each year to clear forests and brush and to enrich the poor soils with the nutrients the burning releases. On steep slopes, the inevitable heavy rains will wash away those nutrients, the soils, and often people’s homes too. The land’s fertility degrades each burning season.

Globally, burning tropical forests adds 4 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere a year, almost as much as all the emissions in the U.S. and more than those from the European Union.

Categories: China, News, Saving Nature Collection

Stuart Pimm Awarded Cosmos Prize

July 22, 2019 erinwilligan

July 22, 2019

We are proud to announce that Stuart Pimm, Founder and President of Saving Nature, has been awarded the 2019 International Cosmos Prize in recognition of his outstanding achievements in promoting “The Harmonious Coexistence between Nature and Mankind” and for his contributions to the advancement of a global outlook and long-term vision for Earth’s future.

The prize, widely viewed as one of the most prestigious honors presented in the environmental field, recognizes the culmination of Dr. Pimm’s leadership in preventing the loss of biodiversity. Past recipients of the Cosmos Prize include Jane Goodall, E.O. Wilson, Richard Dawkins, and Sir David Attenborough, among other luminaries in the fields of conservation science and natural history.

In selecting Pimm as this year’s laureate, the prize jury cited not only his research and scholarship but also his leadership of Saving Nature and the impact the organization has had, particularly in protecting and restoring habitat for threatened biodiversity in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, India, and Sumatra.

The jury also cited Pimm’s commitment to fostering future environmental leaders by mentoring students at all levels – doctoral, master’s, undergraduate and even high school — and giving them hands-on experience in the lab and field as members of his research team.

A prolific and widely cited scientist, Pimm has published more than 330 peer-reviewed research studies, including seminal works on biodiversity and species loss in the Everglades, the coastal forests of Brazil, and the northern Andes, the latter two of which are among the planet’s hotspots for threatened species.

His work has helped shed light on the threats facing hundreds of endangered species, from iconic ones such as giant pandas, African elephants, and lions, to humble creatures like the Cape Sable seaside sparrow, a sentinel species of environmental health in Florida’s Everglades.

In addition to his scientific papers, he has published four books intended for mainstream audiences, including a widely praised assessment of human impacts on the planet, The World According to Pimm: A Scientist Audits the Earth, in 2001.

Pimm also has testified before both the U.S. House and Senate on the reauthorization of the Endangered Species Act.

It’s no exaggeration to say that much of what we know today about endangered species and what can be done to reverse their declines is directly attributable to Stuart.

Over the course of his remarkably productive career so far, he’s developed quantifiable methods for estimating extinction rates and identifying global patterns of species and habitat loss.

He’s championed the use of big data, geospatial analysis, remote sensing and other tools that have revolutionized how we do conservation and measure its impacts.

And he’s pioneered a more strategic approach for investing limited conservation resources and partnering with local communities.

This is a richly deserved honor.

Toddi Steelman, Stanback Dean of the Nicholas School

Categories: News, Saving Nature Collection

Why Saving Small Spaces Matters

July 20, 2019 erinwilligan

July 15, 2019

Humans have disproportionately harmed those places where small-ranged species are concentrated.

Why Saving Small Spaces Matters

In a recent article published in American Scientist, Drs. Stuart Pimm and Clinton Jenkins of Saving Nature make the case for why saving biodiversity means thinking small….as in spaces.

They take a deep dive into setting conservation priorities by analyzing how range size affects the risks of extinction and conclude that species with small ranges are at the greatest risk of extinction. For these species, an area smaller than 1,000 square kilometers is their entire world. When it’s gone, they are too.

Setting aside habitat for species with small ranges is a practical approach to protecting biodiversity in the face unrelenting population growth. Saving Nature applies these principles to set conservation priorities, saving the greatest number of species at risk of extinction with a very cost-effective approach.

We look for opportunities to restore and protect corridors that link habitat remnants to create viable ecosystems for vulnerable and endangered species.

For over a decade, the team at SAVING NATURE has worked with local partners to create wildlife corridors in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, India, and the Indonesian island of Sumatra. All areas high in biodiversity and endemism. All areas that have lost a great deal of their once expansive forests.

Read More about the science behind SAVING NATURE and why saving small spaces has a big impact.

Help us save small spaces for endemic species suffering habitat loss.

Categories: News, Saving Nature Collection, Science

Helping Species Adapt to Climate Change

July 11, 2019 Stuart Pimm 2 Comments

Help species trying to escape climate change. Help Saving Nature plant trees to offset your carbon footprint and give species an escape route.

July 19, 2019

In the face of climate change, species are fleeing to the poles and to higher elevations. Saving Nature is trying to help them get there.

HELPING SPECIES ADAPT TO CLIMATE CHANGE

Every year, the world’s increasing population adds approximately 37 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from industry, agriculture, forestry, utilities, and transportation.

Deforestation — of which the burning of tropical forests is the major component — contributes about 10% of these emissions. It is also the principal driver of biodiversity loss.

Our unrelenting carbon dioxide emissions have surpassed the planet’s ability to absorb these greenhouse gases, leading to climate disruption and species extinctions.

Species Moving to Higher Elevations as the Climate Warms

While governments struggle with finding solutions for climate change, species must seek higher ground with habitable temperatures for their survival.

Even under the most optimistic scenarios, we aren’t going to reduce the high levels of carbon dioxide anytime soon. Species do not have the option of waiting. They are moving towards the poles and, in the tropics, to higher elevations. That is, when they can.

Some species may not reach the refuge of higher elevations and will go extinct. The cycle of deforestation and climate change blocks their passage through degraded wastelands. As a result, they become trapped them in an uninhabitable landscape, dooming them to extinction.

Evidence from a 40-year Study: 1978 vs. 2018

Ph.D. student, German Forero-Medina, under the direction of Dr. Pimm, examined the distribution of birds along an elevation gradient in the mountains of Peru. Forty years earlier, Dr. Pimm’s Duke colleague, John Terborgh, had surveyed this same mountain chain at various elevations.

Returning to the original sites and using the same methods, the team compared where the birds are now versus in the past. Simply, they are at higher elevations — though not as high as one expects.

This suggests that the already threatened birds in the isolated patches of forest are in deep trouble. Isolation is bad enough, the inability to move to higher elevations is even worse news.

Saving Nature Builds Corridors to Safe Harbors

Our approach is a simple, effective, and scalable solution to reducing carbon dioxide and preventing extinctions. Restoring degraded land and reconnecting isolated forests achieves two objectives – it absorbs atmospheric carbon emissions and helps species adapt to climate change by finding safe harbor.

Simply put, the corridors we create in biodiversity hotspots connect forest fragments and liberate species trapped and isolated in increasingly inhospitable habitats. By reconnecting isolated forests, we create vital migration routes for species seeking higher ground.

In doing so, we get massive leverage by financing local partners to buy relatively small amounts of land to create significant protected refuges and strategic connections. Merging isolated forest fragments is critical to facilitating colonization of previously inaccessible areas. Doing so diversifies genetics and builds resiliency. In this era of climate change, the forest corridors also serve as the routes to survival as the climate warms.

How Can You help?

We will continue to use both science and savvy to connect, protect, and restore forest corridors. We invite you to join us in this ambitious effort!

Donating to Saving Nature puts trees in the ground for biodiversity, and sequesters carbon from the atmosphere. In short, supporting Saving Nature helps fight the two most pressing environmental problems the world faces—mass species extinction and global warming—at the same time!

Categories: Birds, Carbon Offsets, Climate Change, Research, Saving Nature Collection, Science

Let’s Talk Carbon!

July 11, 2019 Stuart Pimm

Offest Your Carbon Footprint by Planting Trees

July 5, 2019

Stuart Pimm

HOW TO BECOME CARBON NEUTRAL

Let’s talk carbon. Saving Nature offsets carbon emissions surprisingly cheaply and, in doing so, helps species adapt to climate change.

This can be a complicated subject. Let’s simplify it.

We ask each supporter for $100 per year. That will make the average US citizen “carbon neutral” — the native trees we plant to restore forests with that money will soak up as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere that he or she puts into it each year.

Carbon Dioxide Causes Global Warming

Our various human activities put about 37 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year. That’s from burning coal and gasoline, of course, but also by burning forests.

We measure increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere with great precision and have done so for decades. As the concentration increases, it traps more of the sun’s energy and so the planet warms. That massively disrupts the climate, harming people and biodiversity alike.

How to Become Carbon Neutral

Taking action to erase your carbon footprint is as simple as answering three questions.

1. How much carbon dioxide am I putting into the atmosphere each year?

If you are average and live in the USA, the answer is 16 tons.

2. How much carbon does a forest soak up?

Growing trees take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. So how many trees do you need to plant so that you are “carbon neutral?” That is, how many trees with your name on them are needed to soak up — technically, the word is sequester — as much carbon dioxide as your lifestyle produces.

The answer is that the corridors we reforest at Saving Nature soak up about that same amount per hectare per year. Those corridors continue to do that for twenty years or more and at a slower rate thereafter. The bottom line is: help us plant and protect a hectare of forest and you’ll be carbon neutral for decades.

3. And finally, how much does it cost to be carbon neutral?

Tropical forests soak up about 26 tons of carbon dioxide per hectare per year as they grow back. They do so for 20 years — and usually considerably longer. Close enough, buying and reforesting a hectare of tropical forest will offset almost all a typical American’s carbon dioxide emissions for 20 years.

So how much does a hectare cost? Well, that depends on where we help our partners buy land and whether they plant the trees. Apart from some very difficult restorations, for which we solicit support from foundations, our costs are about $4 a ton per carbon dioxide. So about $100 per year will offset a typical American’s carbon emissions. (Other nations have different and usually lower ones.)

4. How to help combat global warming and save species?

We will continue to use both science and savvy to connect, protect, and restore forest corridors. We invite you to join us in this ambitious effort! Donating to Saving Nature puts trees in the ground for biodiversity, and sequesters carbon from the atmosphere.

Please support Saving Nature in fighting global warming — at the same time you’ll be fighting mass species extinctions!

Categories: Carbon Offsets, Climate Change, Saving Nature Collection

Measuring Resilience Is Essential To Understand It

MEASURING RESILIENCE IS ESSENTIAL TO UNDERSTAND IT

The Health of Our Oceans: Seabirds as Sentinels.

The Bird Catchers

What We’ve Learned About Hurricanes

What We’ve Learned About Overfishing

Please support conservation efforts that fight climate change. For the terns. For all of us.

Living The Promise of the Tyler Prize

The problem as far as species extinction is concerned is that the tropical forest is where the wild things are,” Pimm said. “It’s where the greatest number of species is found.”

LIVING THE PROMISE OF THE TYLER PRIZE

Yellow Fever Threatens Golden Lion Tamarins

YELLOW FEVER OUTBREAK THREATENS ENDANGERED GOLDEN LION TAMARINS

The Lungs of the Planet Are Burning

Can we survive this unchecked destruction?

Days of Fire

Of What Use is Biodiversity?

A TOAST AT THE FRONLINE

Of What Use is Biodiversity?

Stuart Pimm Awarded Cosmos Prize

Why Saving Small Spaces Matters

Why Saving Small Spaces Matters

In a recent article published in American Scientist, Drs. Stuart Pimm and Clinton Jenkins of Saving Nature make the case for why saving biodiversity means thinking small….as in spaces.

Helping Species Adapt to Climate Change

HELPING SPECIES ADAPT TO CLIMATE CHANGE

Species Moving to Higher Elevations as the Climate Warms

Evidence from a 40-year Study: 1978 vs. 2018

Saving Nature Builds Corridors to Safe Harbors

How Can You help?

Let’s Talk Carbon!

HOW TO BECOME CARBON NEUTRAL

Carbon Dioxide Causes Global Warming

How to Become Carbon Neutral

1. How much carbon dioxide am I putting into the atmosphere each year?

2. How much carbon does a forest soak up?

3. And finally, how much does it cost to be carbon neutral?

4. How to help combat global warming and save species?

Help Us Have a Bigger Impact

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