Clipmarks | urbanlife's 'ecosystem' clips

Yellowstone's Greatest Threat: the Loss of Habitat to Development

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 21:42:05 GMT

clipped by: urbanlife
clipper's remarks: The world's first national park is concerned about the fate of wildlife in the park: Each year their habitat is slowing disappearing. Yellowstone gets millions of visitors each year, which makes preserving the park even more challenging.

Achieving a balance between the ecosystem and the visitors is what was originally intended in creating the park. Congress told the rangers, 'You will conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife in the parks, and you will manage them in such a manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for future generations'

Clip Source: www.bundubashers.com

Clip Source: www.npr.org

Harsh winters in Yellowstone drive the animals to more suitable winter habitats, where they can find food. In many cases, those areas are being lost to development.

the greatest threat to the park in the next 10 to 20 years is the loss of winter habitat

the animals can't survive without this scarce habitat type and it's disappearing rapidly

Yellowstone can recover from fires, it can recover from a lot of things — it can't recover from permanent loss of winter habitat

Clip Source: www.nature.org

Clip Source: www.npr.org

only about 10 percent of the greater Yellowstone area, almost none of which is in the park, is suitable for wildlife during the winter

Of that percentage, a third is already developed and another third is slated for development.

The Nature Conservancy is advocating for the last third — about 1 million acres — to be protected under some kind of conservation status

The future of the park depends on striking a balance between preserving the ecosystem and allowing visitors to get the most they can from their time there.

Clip Source: www.naturalsciences.org

Clip Source: www.nationalparkstraveler.com

Clip Source: www.itsnature.org

Tags: wildlife, conservation, protect, future, winter, development, plan now

Woman Challenges Putin and Saves World's Oldest & Deepest Lake

Fri, 02 May 2008 18:36:17 GMT

clipped by: urbanlife
clipper's remarks: Environmental activism is growing increasingly hazardous in Putin's Russia. With growing limitations on freedom of speech in Russia, if you oppose a state company, you can expect to come to the attention of the state security services. But Rikhvanova, a biologist and veteran environmental crusader, was devoted to saving Lake Baikal, she won even Putin's ear after organizing protests, petitions and flash mobs. (Last year her adult son Pavel was one of 20 people arrested after an attack on her group's environmental encampment).

Baikal, also known as the "Blue Eye of Siberia", is the world's oldest and deepest -- and largest -- freshwater lake, home to more than 1,700 species of plants and animals, two thirds of which can be found nowhere else in the world.

Rikhvanova is now organizing to block the expansion of a state-run uranium enrichment facility at Angarsk, just 50 miles from Lake Baikal, where the Russian government is planning to import nuclear waste from around the world

Clip Source: www.irkutsk.org

Clip Source: www.csmonitor.com

Concerned with plans to route a major oil pipeline within 900 yards of pristine Lake Baikal, Marina Rikhvanova and her Baikal Environmental Wave advocacy group led thousands of people into the streets

collected over 20,000 petition signatures

After two months of protests, President Vladimir Putin pointedly asked the chief of state-owned oil company Transneft on TV whether an alternative route was possible

The pipeline was subsequently rerouted

In recognition of her work, Ms. Rikhvanova will on Monday receive the Goldman Environmental Prize

she has spent her life battling to save Siberia's "sacred sea" – which holds over 20 percent of the world's fresh water reserves – from the depredations of Soviet industrial planners and unregulated Russian businessmen

Lake Baikal is a unique ecosystem

2,000 endemic plant and animal species

400 miles long and more than a mile deep

it is a vast reservoir of pure water – the world's largest – collected in an ancient rift valley at Asia's heart

Clip Source: www.irkutsk.org

Tags: environment, actvist, russia, lake baikal, protest, ecosystem

Why Not Build a Lowe's Store In The Everglades?

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 19:18:38 GMT

clipped by: urbanlife
clipper's remarks: The 18,000-square-mile "River of Grass" is not a swamp but a unique and vital ecosystem. In 2000, Florida and federal government embarked on a $10 billion, 20-year project to restore the Everglades: This project would work to fix a half-century's worth of draining, diversion and other damage that development had wreaked on one of the world's most delicate but vital eco-systems, and return it to something like its original state.

But post-9/11, the Everglades fell down the priority list of the Bush Administration and Congress alike. Today the project is less than half finished, years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget. Last year Congress had to override President Bush's veto of a $20 billion water preservation bill that included a sorely needed $2 billion for the Everglades.

Letting Lowe's build beyond the UDB could diminish the urgency of the Everglades and welcome more developers to push their way in. This is the time to step up and push back!

Clip Source: www.nps.gov

Clip Source: www.time.com

Tamiami Trail

is a large parcel of wetlands and pine trees protected by Miami-Dade County's Urban Development Boundary (UBD), a line drawn in the marsh to keep South Florida builders from encroaching any further on this unique eco-system

Lowe's, the home improvement chain, wants to move the border so it can erect a new store on more than 20 acres of the wetlands

further south, developers want to hop the line to build a commercial park and thousands of new homes

on Thursday the Miami-Dade County Commission approved the Lowe's and the office developments

Commission critics say the measure to move Miami's UDB sends a troubling signal that could further dampen Washington's flagging enthusiasm for a $10 billion repair bill for the Everglades

an essential source of water and flood protection for Florida's burgeoning population

the UDB dispute may indicate that they, like much of the rest of America, find it too hard to curb their insatiable development urges

Clip Source: www.nps.gov

Tags: everglades, florida, ecosystem, urban sprawl, planning, developers, local government

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch: Also Know As The Trash Vortex

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 18:42:35 GMT

clipped by: urbanlife
clipper's remarks: Sad Picture: No one to blame for this but ourselves. Four fifths of the plastic detritus floating over 2.5 million square miles of ocean surface arrives there from land-based run off: from stormwater, in other words: litter.

Sadly - many people take the "out of sight, out of mind" approach.

Plastic contamination in the world's oceans is worse than previously imagined and no amount of technology can clean it up.

We are damned to a future of pollution by plastic. All succeeding generations will only see an ocean filled with trash.

Net a piece of plastic, and you’ll find barnacles and small crabs clinging to it. Not a good thing for fish, birds, and mammals that mistake it for its natural food, such as eggs, jellyfish, or other sea creatures.

Most of the plastic will eventually photo-degrade into small, dust-like particles to the point that it will be non-detectable to the human eye, but ingestible by sea mammals, birds, and fish—many of which we then consume ourselves.

Clip Source: www.treehugger.com

The carcass of an albatross on the beach; birds and sea mammals mistake plastics for food then inevitably starve to death. This is the bird’s actual gut sample.

Clip Source: www.treehugger.com

the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch," or "trash vortex" - essentially a floating expanse of waste and debris in the Pacific Ocean now covering an area twice the size of the continental U.S. Believed to hold almost 100m tons of flotsam, this vast "plastic soup" stretches 500 nautical miles off the Californian coast, past Hawaii and almost as far as Japan

"trash vortex" aren't just limited to the marine ecosystem

"What goes into the ocean goes into these animals and onto your dinner plate. It's that simple."

Clip Source: www.treehugger.com

It’s everywhere. Multiple paths of Ziploc baggies, bottle caps, balloons, pretzel bags, and other debris lead you to the swirling trash vortex like a trail of bread crumbs

In the most polluted areas, the plastic-to-plankton ratio is 48 to 1. It’s become part of the oceanic landscape

Clip Source: www.treehugger.com

Tags: ocean, plastic, what will happen, litter, trash, dirty, ignorance

2030 Face It: Reverberate “No Coal” Body Paint Design Winners

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 14:27:23 GMT

clipped by: urbanlife
clipper's remarks: Students were told to spread the word about the negative impacts of coal on our natural ecosystems and its role on greenhouse gas emissions. Face Color Winner: Emily Bibler, Iowa State University. Face B+W Winner and Metropolis Ad Winner: Jackie Fabella, Cal Poly Pomona. Body Winner: Miles Courtney, Pratt Institute.

The Reverberate competition brought together students from a range disciplines to take direct action on the topic of climate change. 4,500 attendees participated in a variety of activities relating to global climate change - ranging from architecture to agriculture; from politics to poetics; from green jobs to green food.

Through their involvement, they put their ideals into action. As future environmental stewards, these students have every right to ask: why are we all not doing the same?

Clip Source: www.metropolismag.com

Clip Source: www.architecture2030.org

Clip Source: www.metropolismag.com

the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo campus

the “Reverberate” competition

part of Architecture 2030’s Face It events

The competition, aimed at universities around the country

charged students to broadcast the message about the negative impacts of coal on our natural ecosystems and its role on greenhouse gas emissions

students produced face and body paint designs that conveyed the “no coal” message as directed by the competition

At Cal Poly, students and faculty wandered around campus, into classes and faculty gatherings with painted faces that ranged from stark “NO COAL” scrawls to artfully illustrated American flags urging students to cast their votes with the environment in mind

“The entries varied in meaning: some depicting strong political messages about health and environmental impacts, while others took a positive approach by displaying a set of alternatives to coal.”

Through their participation

students have come to recognize that their work can affect the awareness of those around them

Clip Source: www.architecture2030.org

Tags: body paint, no coal, ecosystem, future, environment, steward, college

Tree Nation To Plant 8 million Trees in Niger: You Can Adopt One!

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 15:43:08 GMT

clipped by: urbanlife
clipper's remarks: “A people without children would face a hopeless future; a country without trees is almost as helpless.” - Theodore Roosevelt

More than 90% of Niger is in a deserted zone and is the poorest country in the world: To not plant in a deserted area in Niger would be to abandon the best hope of development for the country.

Tree-Nation: an online community, where members can buy their own tree and become the guardian of a tree that Tree-Nation will plant in its park in Niger.

Members can play an active role in the development of the project online: contributing suggestions, sharing photos and gathering ideas in the Tree-Blog or creating their own projects.

Prices range from USD 10 for an acacia to USD 75 for a baobab tree. So far, over 26,000 members have raised money to plant over 19,000 trees...with the goal of a park of 8 million trees in the shape of a giant heart, visible from space.

Clip Source: www.tree-nation.com

Tree-Nation is an ecological project with a focused objective: To plant 8 million trees in Niger, Africa to fight desertification!

Large-scale plantation of trees will increase the land's productivity and re-generate the soil.

you can buy your own tree and become the guardian of a real and happy tree

you will play an active role in the development of the project

The project will benefit local populations in terms of welfare, education and farming practices.

Primarily environmental, but also closely linked to the humanitarian aid

"Desertification is potentially the most threatening ecosystem change impacting livelihoods of the poor."

Niger, the poorest country in the world

most affected by desertification and poverty, which is why we are concentrating our efforts in this region

Tree-Nation is a company whose fundamental philosophy is to use business enterprise for ecological projects.

By planting your tree, you are not only investing in your own future, but also the future of others.

Clip Source: www.tree-nation.com

Tags: trees, thinking outside the box, climate change, africa, make the heart grow

Manmade Flood in Grand Canyon to Save Colorado River

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 20:23:09 GMT

clipped by: urbanlife
clipper's remarks: A 60-Hour Flood with more than 300,000 gallons of water released per second.

98 percent of the sediment carried by the Colorado River has been lost since Glen Canyon Dam was built in 1963: this flood should help restore some sediment and revitalize the ecosystem of the river.

Clip Source: www.npr.org

water unleashed from a dam coursed through the Grand Canyon on Wednesday in a flood meant to mimic the natural ones that used to nourish the ecosystem by spreading sediment

More than 300,000 gallons of water per second were released from Lake Powell above the dam near the Arizona-Utah border

high flows of water from the dam to help, in part, to rebuild beaches along the Colorado River that runs through the Grand Canyon

officials hope the water will leave behind sediment and restore sandbars as it goes back to normal levels

Before the dam was built in 1963, the river was warm and muddy, and natural flooding built up sandbars that are essential to native plant and fish species. The river is now cool and clear, its sediment blocked by the dam.

Since Glen Canyon Dam was built, 98 percent of the sediment carried by the Colorado River has been lost

a 60-hour, controlled flood will help revitalize the Colorado River and replenish backwaters for several of the river's endangered species.

Tags: grand canyon, ecosystem, colorado river, manmade flood, restore, revitalize

World’s Largest Marine Reserve...Last Intact Coral Ecosystem

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 14:46:02 GMT

clipped by: urbanlife
clipper's remarks: A 164,200-square-mile ocean wilderness will conserve one of Earth’s last intact oceanic coral ecosystems.

Kiribati consists of 33 islands scattered across 2,400 mi of the Pacific Ocean near the equator. It includes 8 of the 11 Line Islands, including Kiritimati (formerly Christmas Island), as well as the Gilbert and Phoenix groups and Banaba (formerly Ocean Island).

Clip Source: www.naia.com.fj

Clip Source: www.abcnews.go.com

tiny Pacific islands nation of Kiribati declared the world's largest marine protected area

The Phoenix Islands Protected Area, or PIPA, lies about halfway between Hawaii and Fiji and also includes undersea mountains

It will conserve one of the Earth's last intact oceanic coral archipelago ecosystem

coral reefs and bird populations of the islands are unique, virtually untouched by man a true wilderness of natural beauty

fully establish the 164,200-square-mile area as a protected zone by the end of the year with the goal of attracting more tourists to Kiribati an impoverished coral atoll nation

Some commercial fishing in the area will be restricted, meaning the Kiribati government will forego some revenue from foreign commercial fishing licenses

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

a California-sized marine reserve in the Phoenix Islands, home to diverse species

lies 1,600km south of Hawaii

the reserve is home to more than 120 species of coral and more than 500 types of fish

Clip Source: www.naia.com.fj

Tags: kiribati, marine reserve, ocean, protect the coral reefs

To Beat the Heat in Madrid: Build an Air Tree

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 21:13:39 GMT

clipped by: urbanlife
clipper's remarks: A new structure that will “climatically transform” its urban architecture. These trees will cool the surrounding environments and as a bonus generate clean electricity.

Designed by Urban Ecosystems

Clip Source: www.inhabitat.com

The city of Madrid soon plans to add a striking new structure that will “climatically transform” its urban architecture.

the Air Tree pavilion is to be built from recycled materials and will be 100% energy self-sufficient.

Using photovoltaic cells, the Air Tree produces a substantial amount of energy, which is then sold back to the local electric companies, the profits being used for maintenance of the structure.

The second byproduct is of course oxygen - hence the name ‘Air Tree’!

the trees have a very interesting benefit for the local residents who have to suffer through hot Spanish summers

The surrounding environment near the air tree will be naturally conditioned, reducing the heat island effect found in most city centers

the structure, made from lightweight recycled materials, can be easily disassembled and moved to another site when needed.

The air trees will be implemented city wide in the coming years

Clip Source: www.inhabitat.com

Tags: cool trees, heat island, madrid, spain, urban ecosystem, energy, recycled materials

A Mobile Sea Barrier To Save Sinking Venice

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:37:37 GMT

clipped by: urbanlife
clipper's remarks: The project is building 78 floodgates at the 3 inlets that link the Venice lagoon to the Adriatic Sea.

When the giant doors are at rest, they will be lying on the bottom of the inlet channel, invisible to the world. Each gate will be up to 92 feet long, 65 feet wide, and will weigh 300 tons.

The gates allow one inlet to close and not the other so you are not obliged to close the whole lagoon.

Some 37 percent of the work has been completed, and MOSE should open as planned in 2012.

Clip Source: www.npr.org

the Venice lagoon

The lagoon covers 212 square miles

Along with the city of Venice in the center, there are some 50 smaller islands

This delicate and fragile ecosystem is the largest wetland in the Mediterranean

If Venice is to be saved, the lagoon must be protected

rising seas threaten the Venice lagoon

windows of buildings near sea level have been closed and filled with cement

No Venetian lives on the ground floor any more

In the last century, the city sank 11 inches

Flooding is more frequent as climate change brings higher tides

A century ago it happened seven times a year, now it's more like a hundred

MOSE

is the biggest public works project in Italian history

78 giant mobile floodgates that can be raised against high water

the mobile gates are designed to last at least a century and to protect Venice from a difference in water level between the sea and lagoon of up to six and half feet

The latest prediction of the United Nations

is for a one- or two-foot increase by the end of this century.

Tags: venice, lagoon, flood, gates, wetland