I had the privilege of attending the 1st Fiji Conservation Science Forum in 2009, and greatly enjoyed the quality of the talks and science presented, and the enthusiasm of the attendees. Unfortunately, I was unable to get along to the 2nd meeting, held 14–16 September 2011, but I gather that it likewise was an informative and exciting meeting. The abstracts are available at the Wildlife Conservation Society website, and show the breadth of territory covered by the forum.
The Fiji Conservation Science Forums are an excellent initiative that have and will continue to inspire science in the South Pacific. I wish the organisers all the best in their preparations for a third forum in the next couple of years.
Showing posts with label Conservation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Conservation. Show all posts
Monday, 5 March 2012
Monday, 24 January 2011
GIS Shapefile of DOC-administered land
The New Zealand Department of Conservation, fondly known as DOC is the department in charge of the bulk of New Zealand's publically owned land. Their best known pieces of real estate are the 14 national parks that conserve some of New Zealand's most iconic landscapes and least modified habitats. Less well known are the legion of scenic reserves and conservation areas that make up a substantial portion of our property. These smaller reserves are no less interesting, and tend to protect small but important areas of near-natural habitat, or intriguing aspects of New Zealand history. Until now, the main way of finding out about them is by stumbling across them while on a road trip, or by word-of-mouth. However, now DOC has released a GIS shapefile that shows the boundaries of all the conservation estate, along with information on what acts of parliament they're protected under and how large the reserve is.
It is important to note that this shapefile only shows those reserves in DOC's ownership and management. Thus, it does not show community-initiated reserves such as Maungatautari Ecological Island or QEII Covenants; nor does it show reserves owned by city councils, like the Auckland Regional Parks or Christchurch's Port Hills Reserves.
It is important to note that this shapefile only shows those reserves in DOC's ownership and management. Thus, it does not show community-initiated reserves such as Maungatautari Ecological Island or QEII Covenants; nor does it show reserves owned by city councils, like the Auckland Regional Parks or Christchurch's Port Hills Reserves.
Tuesday, 29 June 2010
Act for the sake of Love
The Copenhagen summit on climate change in December last year promised much and delivered little. During the talk-fest, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams delivered a sermon entitled "Act for the sake of love". Unfortunately, this talk received very little publicity. This is a shame because I for one think that it details very elegantly why the push for action on climate change thus far has largely failed and turns the
A couple of (what I reckon are) the highlights of the talk:
The second sentence sums up in a nutshell my motivation for what I do and why I love science. The third sentence grounds this motivation in what really matters---Love.
A couple of (what I reckon are) the highlights of the talk:
Love casts out fear. If we begin from the belief that God wants us to rejoice and delight in the created world, our basic attitude to the environment will not be anxiety or the desperate search for ways of controlling it; it will be the excited and hopeful search for understanding it and honouring its goodness and its complex, interdependent beauty. If there is any 'fear' around here, it should be fear of spoiling the heritage given us, of forgetting the overwhelming scale and depth of the gift and of our responsibility and care for it, fear of forgetting that we are called to show consistent and sacrificial love for the created world as we must show towards our fellow-human beings.
The second sentence sums up in a nutshell my motivation for what I do and why I love science. The third sentence grounds this motivation in what really matters---Love.
We are afraid because we don't know how we can survive without the comforts of our existing lifestyle. We are afraid that new policies will be unpopular with a national electorate. We are afraid that younger and more vigorous economies will take advantage of us – or we are afraid that older, historically dominant economies will use the excuse of ecological responsibility to deny us our right to proper and just development.
I think that this is a very insightful quote that sums up exactly what happened in Copenhagen. Archbishop Williams does recognise that these fears may be justified:
There is, in a word, no shortage of excellent excuses for turning away from decisions that will mean real change. But at least let's be honest about where they come from: it is fear – not necessarily irrational fear, not even necessarily purely selfish fear, but fear all the same. And so long as that dominates our calculations, we are stepping back from love – love for the creation itself, which we must look at as God looks at it, love for one another and for the generations still unborn
Unfortunately, although Archbishop Williams outlines the principle, he does not give concrete guidelines as to how this works. He has a precedent for this: it tends to be the primary way God appears to operate. This means that it is up to us to work out how "Acting for the sake of Love" looks like. It's a bit easier at the personal level than at the governmental level---at the personal level you don't have angry constituents on your back if you decide something they don't agree with.
Acting out of Love always involves vulnerability, and making yourself vulnerable is NOT the aim of international relations. However, it is the model that Christ gives us and is what frees us from fear, greed and oppression. While it may have largely fallen under the radar, this speech by Archbishop Williams is a great reminder that Christ's redemption extends not only to us and our personal lives, but to the environment also.
Wednesday, 24 March 2010
Conservation Biology papers with a Pacific focus
The most recent (April 2010) issue of Conservation Biology has a number of papers which focus on the fauna, flora and environment of the South Pacific.
The issue starts off with an editorial by David Melick on economic schemes to negate carbon emissions. In particular he deals with the scheme to compensate landowners for NOT cutting down forests on their land (REDD) and the way this has played out thus far in the Papua New Guinea scene. He ends with this very pertinent statement:
Highly relevant for all who work in the South Pacific, particularly those of us with a western, productivity-based mindset. As the Mainland cheese ads say---Good things take time.
William Laurance and others discuss the impact of Oil Palm cultivation and some of the issues and opportunities surrounding it. In particular, they discuss the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) a nonprofit organisation that hopes to promote and market sustainably grown palm oil. Unfortunately, its track record appears to be fairly poor. The seeming blind eye the organisation has taken toward the destruction caused by growing oil palm in peat swamps is singled out as being a major failing of the RSPO. however Laurance et al. refuse to be pessimistic about the situation and make some recommendations, most of which involve fairly major restructuring of the RSPO and developments in its monitoring and enforcement policies. However, the real problem in the situation is the lack of market demand for sustainably grown palm oil, meaning that the RSPO has little clout.
Alison Boyer revisits the very high extinction rate of Pacific Island birds, this time investigating what ecological traits seem to have an influence on extinction rate. She concludes that differences in endemism, body size and diet influence the potential for extinction and gives a list of bird species that may be worthy of a higher threat category than currently given.
Shankar Aswani and Armagan Sabetian look at the impact that urbanisation has had on the parrotfish population around Gizo and Munda, in the Western Province of the Solomon Islands. Not surprisingly, they found that over the period 2004--2005 parrotfish numbers decreased around Gizo. However, they did find that some customary management systems were effectively preserving larger and greater numbers of parrotfish. The most effective systems were those that prevented all fishing in certain areas.
Mayeul Dalleau and team looked at shallow marine habitats around Wallis Island and used digital imagery and habitat maps as surrogates for biodiversity in the proposal of marine protected areas. While they promote this method as being an effective and efficient of surveying large areas, they do recognise that it is very desirable to do some actual field work to complement the habitat data, particularly in regions such as the Red Sea which has a very different environment from the oceanic Pacific islands.
It's a good issue. Well worth a read, certainly if any of the above issues pique your interest.
References:
The issue starts off with an editorial by David Melick on economic schemes to negate carbon emissions. In particular he deals with the scheme to compensate landowners for NOT cutting down forests on their land (REDD) and the way this has played out thus far in the Papua New Guinea scene. He ends with this very pertinent statement:
... REDD will come to nothing if the system is not supported by the people who own and live in the forests. If the process is not rushed (it may take years, not months) and the PNG government is willing to accept international scrutiny and advice, forest governance and communitybenefits for the rural poor may finally be improved significantly...
Highly relevant for all who work in the South Pacific, particularly those of us with a western, productivity-based mindset. As the Mainland cheese ads say---Good things take time.
William Laurance and others discuss the impact of Oil Palm cultivation and some of the issues and opportunities surrounding it. In particular, they discuss the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) a nonprofit organisation that hopes to promote and market sustainably grown palm oil. Unfortunately, its track record appears to be fairly poor. The seeming blind eye the organisation has taken toward the destruction caused by growing oil palm in peat swamps is singled out as being a major failing of the RSPO. however Laurance et al. refuse to be pessimistic about the situation and make some recommendations, most of which involve fairly major restructuring of the RSPO and developments in its monitoring and enforcement policies. However, the real problem in the situation is the lack of market demand for sustainably grown palm oil, meaning that the RSPO has little clout.
Alison Boyer revisits the very high extinction rate of Pacific Island birds, this time investigating what ecological traits seem to have an influence on extinction rate. She concludes that differences in endemism, body size and diet influence the potential for extinction and gives a list of bird species that may be worthy of a higher threat category than currently given.
Shankar Aswani and Armagan Sabetian look at the impact that urbanisation has had on the parrotfish population around Gizo and Munda, in the Western Province of the Solomon Islands. Not surprisingly, they found that over the period 2004--2005 parrotfish numbers decreased around Gizo. However, they did find that some customary management systems were effectively preserving larger and greater numbers of parrotfish. The most effective systems were those that prevented all fishing in certain areas.
Mayeul Dalleau and team looked at shallow marine habitats around Wallis Island and used digital imagery and habitat maps as surrogates for biodiversity in the proposal of marine protected areas. While they promote this method as being an effective and efficient of surveying large areas, they do recognise that it is very desirable to do some actual field work to complement the habitat data, particularly in regions such as the Red Sea which has a very different environment from the oceanic Pacific islands.
It's a good issue. Well worth a read, certainly if any of the above issues pique your interest.
References:
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