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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.

Taza set up this crowd-funding site to fund satellite transmitters for better tracking of Clark's Nutcrackers than she's been able to do with the hand-held units. "Clark's nutcrackers are pivotal players in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, dispersing whitebark pine seeds and enabling the trees to reproduce and regain their population amid a decline. The whitebark pine trees are critical to the ecosystem because of their role in feeding wildlife and stabilizing the water supply. In light of the severe decline of whitebark pine trees, tracking the movement of the nutcrackers will yield crucial findings which will help managers ensure persistence of the Clark's nutcrackers, whitebark pine and the nutcrackers' important seed dispersal function. Please help support this first-ever satellite tracking of Clark's nutcrackers by giving to this project, which will cover the satellite transmitter costs for one full year. Read on for more information!"

An article and video clips about Crossing Boundaries Conservation Scientist Taza Schaming's research on Clark's Nutcrackers in the Yellowstone ecosystem.

The State of the Nation's Ecosystems 2008

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.

Around the world, once-giant ecosystems have been cut up into tiny fragments. Islands of habitat have been left on the land that can be wiped by a single storm.

Oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico has begun to make landfall in Louisiana's Chandeleur Islands. Nancy Rabalais, director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, says the spill's effects on the larger Gulf ecosystem could last for years.

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.

Animal species all follow the same rule for how common they are in an ecosystem, scientists have discovered. And the rule is simple. Everything from birds to fishes, crabs to snails to worms, and the parasitic animals that live inside or on them, follows it. "You can predict how common something might be just by knowing its body weight--how big an individual is--and how high up the food chain it is," says biologist Ryan Hechinger , lead author of a paper in this week's issue of the journal Science.

State of the Nation's Ecosystems 2008 - Wildlife

"large animals were once ubiquitous across the globe. They shaped the structure and dynamics of ecosystems. Their decline, largely caused by humans through hunting and habitat fragmentation, has far-reaching and often surprising consequences, including changes in vegetation, wildfire frequency, infectious diseases, invasive species, water quality and nutrient cycles."

I've got a pdf file of the actual article from 7/15 Science. Let me know and I'll gladly e-mail a copy to anyone interested.

Students learn about a few key migratory bird species and the USFWS National Wildlife Refuge System that conserves them, as well as the impacts of oil spills on the Gulf Coast ecosystem and its human communities. Introduces a variety of natural resource careers and the academic experience and job skills needed to be successful in these conservation positions.

"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. "

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

"The soils in tundra, grasslands, tropical forests are very different, but they have one thing in common; they all host an astounding diversity of life. Inhabiting these underground worlds are millions of species, which play vital roles in maintaining soil health and preserving the balance of their ecosystems. A new study shows that biodiversity underground is much greater than previously thought, with a direct relationship to life on the surface. "

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?

Human growth has strained the Earth's resources, but as Johan Rockstrom reminds us, our advances also give us the science to recognize this and change behavior. His research has found nine "planetary boundaries" that can guide us in protecting our planet's many overlapping ecosystems.

By piecing together a complex ecological puzzle, biologist Willie Smits has found a way to re-grow clearcut rainforest in Borneo, saving local orangutans -- and creating a thrilling blueprint for restoring fragile ecosystems.

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.

"BioCarbon Tracker uses satellite data and advanced methods to map the ecosystems where biocarbon is stored, identify vegetation at risk from land use change and monitor where high biocarbon stock land such as forest is converted to agriculture."