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This report provides a new approach to examining the links between ecosystem services (the benefits derived from nature) and the poor. Through a series of maps and analyses, the authors focus on the environmental resources most Kenyans rely on such as soil, water, forest, rangeland, livestock, and wildlife. The atlas overlays georeferenced statistical information on population and household expenditures with spatial data on ecosystems and their services (water availability, wood supply, wildlife populations, and the like) to yield a picture of how land, people, and prosperity are related in Kenya.

This free downloadable report addresses the question of how can we expect to tackle poverty and climate change if we don't look after the natural wealth of animals, plants, microorganisms and ecosystems that make our planet inhabitable? The articles look at the scientific, social, economic and cultural case for keeping diversity, showing how biodiversity supports our health and physical security, food production, medical research, livelihoods, tourism, artistic expression and cultural life.

Plant and animal extinctions are detrimental to your health. That's the conclusion of a paper published in this week's issue of the journal Nature by scientists who studied the link between biodiversity and infectious diseases. Species loss in ecosystems such as forests and fields results in increases in pathogens, or disease-causing organisms, the researchers found.

"Preventing the extinction of the world's most imperiled species would also bring untold benefits to people according to new research"

A National Ocean Service Education lesson developed following the Exxon Valdez spill. This lesson focuses on the aftermath of an oil spill, its effects on the people and ecosystems, lessons learned, and what recovery means. It also includes links to an Oil Spill Trajectory Model, an Oil Spill Primer for Students, and How Toxic is Oil?

"Rather than look at protected areas as preserves cut off from our human activity except as tourist destinations, we need to recognize their broader role in our economies. "

A free downloadable textbook written by the top names in conservation biology with the principal aim of disseminating cutting-edge conservation knowledge as widely as possible. Topics include balancing conversion and human needs, climate change, conservation planning, designing and analyzing conservation research, ecosystem services, endangered species management, extinctions, fire, habitat loss, and invasive species.

"World leaders need to do much more to protect the Earth's millions of species for the services they provide, according to a new scientific consensus statement in Nature based on over 1,000 research papers. "

"First report of its kind assesses state of world's plants, including baseline information on all vascular plants currently known to science, new plant discoveries and threats. The report estimates that there are about 391,000 species of vascular plants in the world."

Reflections by a teacher on the resilience of birds in the face of Hurricane Katrina and how that relates to struggles in the lives of people here and around the globe