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Cool Green Science: The Conservation Blog of The Nature Conservancy - A blog on conservation, from migratory birds to coral reefs, from rainforests to climate change to personal green technology.

"Eight years ago, world governments made a pledge to put a halt to growing biodiversity loss by 2010. They have not succeeded. The ongoing loss of biodiversity has instead become even more severe of a threat to the planet's once-balanced ecosystems--it's become a full-on extinction crisis. Thanks to human development and expansion, species are now going extinct exponentially faster than ever before--they're dying out at the frightening speed of 1,000 times the natural rate."

"Or it could be an ecological disaster, as introducing one species to combat another species often turns out to be. However, after a "detailed" study, scientists are looking at using tiny parasitic wasps as a natural solution to pesticide to protect crops."

A lot depends on how 'peat' and 'natural forest' are defined and how rights are agreed upon. Strong lobbies from the forest and tree-crop plantation industry argue that the economy will be harmed if 'business as usual' is interrupted. According to news sources, definitions of 'natural forest' and 'peat' differ between drafts prepared by the Indonesian Government's emissions reduction taskforce and by the Ministry of Forestry. There are several key issues that need to be resolved.

The steady loss of forests, soils, wetlands, fisheries, species and coral reefs around the world is closely tied to the lack of value we put on nature, says three-year study.

Maps in the new Atlas of Global Conservation show the diversity of bird, animal and plant species populations, which are among 80 that scientists have produced for a comprehensive look at the planet's eco-regions. The maps crosses three types of habitats that exist: terrestrial, freshwater, and marine.

Direct experience of extreme weather events increases concern about climate change and willingness to engage in energy-saving behaviour, according to a new research paper published in the first edition of the journal Nature Climate Change this week. In particular, members of the British public are more prepared to take personal action and reduce their energy use when they perceive their local area has a greater vulnerability to flooding, according to the research by Cardiff and Nottingham Universities.

A frog species thought to have been extinct for more than three decades has been sighted in farmland in Australia.

"Our ecological footprint - what we take out of the planet - is now 1.3 times the biological capacity of the Earth. In the words of Professor Bob Watson, Defra's chief scientific adviser and former chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we are in danger of approaching "a point of no return". So the action we take in the... See More next couple of decades will determine whether the stable environment on which human civilization has depended since the last Ice Age 10,000 years ago will continue. "

A new species of bird, the spectacled flowerpecker, has been spotted in the rainforests of Borneo.

EU nations decide to support a ban on international trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna until stocks recover.