© CI/Piotr Naskrecki

As the saying goes, it’s the little things in life that really matter. Literally. I’m talking about the millions of tiny creatures that go unnoticed each day by most of us.

Dr. E.O. Wilson and David Liittschwager’s recent article in the February issue of National Geographic Magazine, “Within One Cubic Foot,” really brings these creatures to life for us. The close-up photos of hundreds of colorful and spectacular species bring this microscopic world to our eyes.

In just one cubic foot, Liittschwager documented an incredible array of biodiversity: more than 600 individual organisms in a coral reef in French Polynesia, 90 species in the Fynbos of South Africa, 32 fish species and over 100 clams in a river in Tennessee (USA) and over 500 insects representing 100 species in a Costa Rican cloud forest.

To me, this diversity is fascinating but not too surprising. As an entomologist working for CI’s Rapid Assessment Program (RAP), I have closely studied hundreds of one meter square plots on the rain forest floor, many containing over 30 ant species per plot. Our RAP team scientists document the diversity of remote and unexplored parts of our world, consistently revealing hundreds of species new to science, most of them from this realm of miniature creatures. It’s truly exhilarating for us to explore and study these tiny organisms, knowing that most of what we’re looking at has not yet been described by science and may not even have been seen by humans before!

The diversity of these little animals is the foundation of life in the forest and on the rest of our planet. They serve essential functions by breaking down dead and decaying material, acting as predators and prey, pollinating plants and sustaining the chemical processes that keep us all alive. In the article, renowned entomologist and biodiversity expert (and my Ph.D. advisor), Dr. E.O. Wilson points out that “without the smooth working of all this linkage, the biosphere would cease to exist”. In his book, “The Creation” (2006), Dr. Wilson explains, “People need insects to survive, but insects do not need us. If all humankind were to disappear tomorrow, it is unlikely that a single insect species would go extinct, except three forms of human body and head lice…but if insects were to vanish, the terrestrial environment would soon collapse into chaos.”

I am excited to see this intriguing story in National Geographic and hope that these spectacular photos help to bring these creatures more attention and respect.  If you’d like to see more photos and stories of this fascinating world, I highly recommend reading the book “The Smaller Majority” by my good friend and colleague, Dr. Piotr Naskrecki.  His macro-photography is beautiful and the stories of the small but dominant creatures of the earth are a must read.

Learn more about the discoveries made on our RAP expeditions.

Leeanne Alonso manages CI’s RAP program.

Rob McNeil and a giant Japanese salamander

Last week I was in Japan looking for giant salamanders (Andrias japonicus), and for two days I stayed in the charming and bustling city of Hiroshima.

Visiting Hiroshima for the first time is a peculiar experience. As a 36 year-old who grew up in fear of nuclear Armageddon during the 1980s, the word Hiroshima evoked two frightening images for me: a mushroom cloud and the shattered dome of the one building that still stood after the attack. The human horrors that those images captured were so frightening that I experienced them as a feeling of deep fear at the bottom of my stomach.

Extraordinary Creatures

The extraordinary creature that I was in Hiroshima to visit seems strangely relevant to my teenage picture of Hiroshima. It looks like the sort of terrifying mutation that all those 1950s sci-fi movies implied that the atomic age would unleash on us – a giant salamander, 100,000 times the weight of a normal salamander, with a bite that could take off a limb (or a finger at least).

But these salamanders are not mutants, created by a gamma ray burst in 1945. They are in fact ancient animals that have lived in the beautiful streams around Hiroshima for millennia.

The fear of nuclear Armageddon, thankfully, no longer haunts me, but as a person living through the biggest extinction crisis since the age of the dinosaurs, I still feel that nameless dread sometimes. It seems that humans simply can’t grasp that the biological systems that support the creatures that we are wiping out are also the ones that support us. And as our carelessness leads to the loss of more and more of the building blocks of ecosystems, we make our own future all the more precarious.

Reasons for Hope

But every now and then, I see a ray of hope, and the giant salamanders of Hiroshima are one of those rays.

Salamanders, for those of you who aren’t thinking about animals every day are amphibians, and amphibian species are being lost at a truly alarming rate – at present a third of all amphibian species are threatened with extinction.

Amphibians play a host of roles in an ecosystem, and from a human point of view, a key one is keeping insect populations in check – reducing the risk of insect-borne diseases. So if amphibian populations collapse, we may see an increase in human diseases.

A key reason for the decline in amphibian populations – along with human-induced habitat loss – is a fungus called Chytridiomycosis that can wipe out entire species, but recent research has shown that the Japanese giant salamander has lived with this fungus for hundreds of years without becoming ill.

So this extraordinary creature may hold a key to preventing the disease in other amphibians, which may in turn, help to protect humanity. Pretty cool.

VIDEO: Claude Gascon on the Giant Japanese Salamander
Claude is Executive VP, Projects + Science at Conservation International.

So as Japan prepares to host the Convention on Biological Diversity this coming fall – a major conference that brings nations together to try to slow or stop the loss of their plants and animals – we should make sure that we think about this weird looking, cold-blooded beast, and consider what unquantifiable benefits all of the other species at risk may end up offering us as well.

Rob McNeil is the Director for Media Strategy at Conservation International.  For more on this, check out the two great BBC  News pieces from that Japan trip:  “Close Encounters with Japan’s “living fossil” and Giant Salamander: Human  Threat, Human Promise.

Last week, the Times U.K. published an article about reported errors in scientific data compiled by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). CI’s Michael Totten responds.

Healthy skepticism is an excellent scientific tool and virtue; uncovering errors and any other mistakes, omissions, misinterpretations, analytics, methodologies and outdated knowledge is most welcome by the scientific community.

I count myself as a strong skeptic. I wrote a column a few years ago asking whether advocates of taking action to mitigate climate change may have won the battle but ultimately lose the war, as groups try to claim that their solutions should be the first and best things to do regardless of cost, risk or relative effectiveness.

Hence, just as patriotism is the last refuge for scoundrels, so are climate solutions the last refuge of pork barrel scoundrels. We see government officials rolling out tens of billions of dollars for advancing fast breeder reactor technology, geoengineering of the oceans, skies and land, while ignoring the cheapest options like energy efficiency and REDD+.

Skepticism applies to both sides of the argument—to climate deniers, cynics, critics and opponents as well as proponents of costly and risky solutions.  Web sites like www.realclimate.org and www.climateprogress.org are managed by a number of the world’s top climate scientists and do a great job at debunking the deniers’ misinformation, as well as owning up to mistakes that scientists have made, as with the Himalayan glacier melt date.

At the end of the day, there is overwhelming confirmation being derived from so many different independent scientific disciplines that even a few mistakes here and there do not make any real dent in the conclusion that climate change is real, serious, and only getting worse.  After all, the fact that the Himalayan glaciers are going to take longer to melt than the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report indicated is hardly a game-changing insight; they will still melt, it will just take longer. One could hold up similar counter-examples, noting that the IPCC Report also mistakenly underestimated sea level rise and Arctic and Antarctic ice melt (both occurring faster than the IPCC thought would happen this century).

Whether one looks at paleoclimate data (derived from a myriad of disciplines encompassing the geosphere, atmosphere, biosphere, ocean chemistry, etc.), computer simulations, experimental research, mathematical models or real-time and long-term series observations of natural world dynamic changes (land and water ecosystems), the results reinforce previous findings to such a significant degree that no denier, cynic or climate opponent has been able to put forward an alternative interpretation of all this scientific data. Rather, their role has been to play sleuths in making sure the data is accurate, and as they turn up possible mistakes, it is readily embraced by the scientific community to be checked and either verified or shown to be a false misinterpretation of the data.

From this vantage point, climate change cynics are actually providing a service; unfortunately, they only glean the crumbs of potential errors, failing to see or acknowledge the immense edifice of confirmation evidence.

Michael Totten is Chief Advisor for Climate and Water in CI’s Center for Environmental Leadership in Business (CELB).

What might this target look like?

Writing in the prestigious scientific journal “Nature” this week the President of IUCN, Dr Ashok Khosla, and the Director-General of IUCN, Julia Marton-Lefèvre, argue that the target must be an ambitious one.

Khosla and Marton-Lefèvre propose that in the short-term, the world’s governments must bring a stop to the loss of biodiversity – “in particular, by setting an intermediate target to prevent further extinctions”, because extinctions are irreversible – once a species is lost, it can never be brought back.

They recommend that this immediate target should have a deadline of 2015, because of the synergy that this would bring with the timing of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, and because it would place the deadline within current political cycles, to provide an incentive “to ensure that elected politicians successfully deliver the target to their constituencies”.

Finally, they recommend that this immediate target should be supplemented by a long-term 2050 vision of not only halting the loss of biodiversity but of turning the tide to provide comprehensive restoration of biodiversity and ecosystem services essential for supporting human well-being. This 40-year time frame is appropriate for the restoration of populations, habitats, and ecological processes, given the decades necessary for the re-establishment of forests, wetlands, coral reefs, and other ecosystems.

Conservation International strongly endorses this call from IUCN, and will be engaging with the policy process over this coming year to help ensure that the world’s new biodiversity target will be an ambitious one.

The current draft of the new biodiversity target is posted on the Convention on Biological Diversity’s website along with an eForum with 18 questions on the subject for public comment. We encourage you, our readers, to sign in to this eForum (it requires a simple registration: just enter your e-mail and you will be sent a password) and support the message from IUCN, Conservation International, and civil society around the world that the planet needs a powerful biodiversity target. The key questions are numbers 5 and 15!

Happy New International Year of Biodiversity to you all!

* All but three of the world’s governments. Andorra, the Vatican, and the United States of America are the only ones of the world’s 193 nations who are not yet parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity. Conservation International urges citizens of these three nations to encourage their governments to become parties to this important global treaty as part of their celebrations of the International Year of Biodiversity.

Dr. Thomas Brooks is a Vice-President in the Center for Applied Biodiversity Science at Conservation International.

Global GHG Emissions (2005) - Data sources

That’s more than the annual emissions of the world’s entire transportation sector.

Where does that number come from?

As part of our regular best practices and to prepare for the fast-evolving climate discussions happening in Copenhagen and around the world, CI recently re-investigated the sources, context and timeliness of our climate data to ensure that we are working with the most accurate and up-to-date figures available. This is the result of our recent analysis of anthropogenic (human-linked) greenhouse gas emissions:

1. About 16% of annual global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions result from deforestation and logging.

2. Annual GHG emissions from deforestation and logging are:

• More than the total annual GHG emissions of the United States or China

• More than the annual emissions of all the cars, trucks, planes, trains and ships in the world.

• More than the annual emissions of the world’s entire transportation sector.

Read our deforestation, logging, and GHG emissions factsheet (PDF –2.7 KB) for full data and data sources.

Reports have indicated a recent drop in the percentage of emissions from deforestation and logging. Deforestation rates have not slowed. Deforestation has continued apace over the last decade and the smaller relative percentage is mostly due to a faster relative increase in emissions from energy use.

The world cannot achieve the emissions reductions necessary to safely stabilize climate without addressing emissions resulting from deforestation. Reducing emissions from deforestation is among the most immediate and cost effective climate change solutions available. These strategies can be implemented now, without waiting for more costly technologies to be developed, tested, and to become more cost effective.

Right now in Copenhagen, the UN is considering ways to formalize a system to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) at the global scale.

CI delegates are currently working hard at the Copenhagen COP15 Climate Change conference. Find out more about what we’re doing and who’s attending.

Elizabeth Baer manages Conservation Tools for Business at Conservation International.

Just prior to the summit, a study came out entitled, “Eating the Planet: Feeding and fueling the world sustainably, fairly and humanely-scoping study”¹. The study argues that, “while modern agricultural technologies have resulted in rapid increases in yields and efficiencies; they have also caused significant and widespread negative environmental effects.” This research explores many inter-related issues—including different agricultural development models, diet scenarios, and bio-energy pathways—while also considering the uncertainty associated with climate change and population growth.

The largest areas available for crop land expansion occur in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. The study states that there is a high degree of uncertainty and dispute regarding how well-suited much of this area is for large-scale, intensive agriculture. Tropical soils have the potential to lose fertility rapidly if poorly managed, and they are highly vulnerable to climate change. The paper argues that the introduction of agro-ecological measures in low-income tropical countries with poor soils has especially high potential to greatly improve yields.

CI is very interested in studies of this nature as they directly relate to our new Food Security Program. CI believes we must consider the role of our natural ecosystems in solving global challenges like food security. It is not an either-or situation: we must feed growing populations, but we will not be successful if we ignore the role of nature in meeting this challenge. Healthy ecosystems provide many services that are vital for producing the food we need, including clean water, nutrients, climate stabilization, pollinators and more.

As a part of our food security strategy, we are focused on working with local communities to implement sustainable farming strategies and improve access to markets and payments for ecosystem services, along with mitigating and adapting to climate change. This study represents food for thought—for political leaders that discussed these issues at the World Summit for Food Security, and for us, as we think about how we can contribute to food security and other global challenges. Agriculture will continue to take different forms in different parts of the world, and we will continue to seek agricultural systems that optimize food production with protection of environmental services and well-being of farmers and communities. It is encouraging that the study’s authors concluded that we can feed a growing world without clearing additional forested lands around the world. We hope they are right – our future depends on it.

Bemmy Granados works in the Food and Livelihood Security Program at Conservation International.

^[1] The research for this study was undertaken by researchers at The Institute of Social Ecology, Alpen Adria Universität Klagenfurt, Vienna, Austria, and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany.

At CI, we have made it our mission to conserve natural ecosystems and protect the essential benefits they provide for all life on Earth. This challenge is especially vital in the face of threats like climate change.

This week, we are proud to announce that the work of CI’s own Will Turner will be published in Nature, the internationally-renowned science journal. The paper was co-written with Michael Oppenheimer and David S. Wilcove of Princeton University, and is entitled, “A Force to Fight Global Warming.”

In the paper, the authors emphasize the huge role that preserving (or destroying) intact ecosystems will have on how climate change affects all of our lives. They also stress the need for different sectors to work together on innovative climate change solutions, and the importance of funding for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) in the upcoming climate meetings in Copenhagen.

Full article available in Nature, November 19 2009  issue or online (Nature subscribers only).

Bolitoglossa salamander in the Sierra Gorda. © Robin Moore

I am not sure what it is that makes the Sierra Gorda feel so magical; whether it is the golden sunlight that filters through fern-laden trees to a carpet of soft moss on the forest floor; the knowledge that jaguars slink silently and invisibly through the dappled light, or uncovering cryptic salamanders lurking in the bromeliads that drip from the trees.

Whatever it is, I would challenge anyone to enter these forests and not feel moved.

Guided by local conservationists Roberto Pedraza and his wife Marina, I spent two days exploring the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve, and was treated to the sight of an elusive brocket deer, a docile rattlesnake, flowering orchids, salamanders concealed under logs and in bromeliads, and fresh jaguar tracks.

As we hiked higher into the reserve and further from the concrete jungle, magnificent oaks laden with epiphytes hinted at the age of the forest like the wrinkles on an elderly face weathered by many years. By the end of the second day my muscles ached, my fingernails were blackened from turning logs, and my neck was stiff from craning to see the canopy. I have never felt better.

Orchid in Sierra Gorda, Queretaro Province, Mexico. © Robin Moore

The amazing thing to me is that the very existence of these forests can be attributed to one family. Since the 1980s, starting with Roberto’s father, the Pedraza family has fought to preserve the forests that they call home. The Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve emerged from a presidential decree granted on May 19, 1997, planting a seed of forest protection that continues to grow.

Today, some 40,000 hectares (almost 100,000 acres) are protected, hundreds of landowners are earning their living through payments for ecosystem services, and proposals for devastating road expansion have been thwarted time and time again.

The success of Roberto and his family stems from their savvy approach to conservation, combining strategic land acquisition with payments for ecosystem services, trading of carbon credits and ecotourism to generate a revenue stream from standing forests that exceeds the value of cutting them down. However, while the family has effectively employed economics as a powerful tool for conservation, their motivation for preserving these forests has been far from financial.

Forest in Sierra Gorda, Queretaro Province, Mexico. © Robin Moore

Roberto and family are driven by a pure, unadulterated love of the mystical forests that cloak these mountains. They have devoted their lives to fight for the survival of something to which they feel intimately connected.

I left Sierra Gorda feeling inspired not just by the place, but also by the people responsible for its existence. I look forward to partnering with Roberto and his family to support their efforts in securing a sustainable future and quality of life for Sierra Gorda and all its inhabitants; human and otherwise.

See more photos after the jump!

Robin Moore is the Amphibian Conservation Officer at Conservation International.

Turtle in Sierra Gorda, Queretaro Province, Mexico. © Robin Moore	Bolitoglossa salamander in Sierra Gorda, Queretaro Province, Mexico. © Robin Moore
Bromeliad-laden tree in Sierra Gorda, Queretaro Province, Mexico. © Robin Moore	Forest in Sierra Gorda, Queretaro Province, Mexico. © Robin Moore

Recently, I had the opportunity to visit one of these partners, the Perry Institute for Marine Science, as a volunteer at their tropical research center on Lee Stocking Island, in the Bahamas’ Exuma Cays.

The island is as far away from the steel drum-lined ports of Nassau or Freeport as you can get. From CI’s headquarters in Arlington, VA, I took three flights (including a 19-seater plane with no bathroom), an airport taxi, and finally, an open boat across a channel to get from “town” to the island’s research facilities.

“The island is as far away from the steel drum-lined ports of Nassau or Freeport as you can get.”

Once I arrived, I quickly settled into the beautiful surroundings and relaxed atmosphere of this wild, largely uninhabited island. As a volunteer, I worked with staff to prepare for an upcoming environmental education summit in nearby George Town on Great Exuma. With the support of the Institute, more than 200 Bahamian students in 4th-6th grade would come together from all over the islands to spend three days learning about issues affecting their marine environment.

I helped create posters and presentations about marine life and threats including marine debris, pollutants and invasive species. I also spent time talking with research scientists about their work, visiting the “Lobster Lab” to see their projects and discussing issues affecting their research, ranging from the impact of local fishermen on study sites to the presence of invasive lionfish (family Scorpaenidae) and the impact on native fish populations and reef ecosystems.

I also had time to explore the island’s deserted, pristine beaches. From the main dock, a 30-minute walk through forested overgrowth brought me to beautiful Coconut Beach – a long stretch of half-moon-shaped beach and white sand without another soul in sight. From there, it was only a 10-minute hike to Perry’s Peak – at 123 feet, the highest peak on the Exuma Cays.

To find out more about volunteer opportunities in this amazing place, and to see a virtual fly-over of the island, visit the Institute’s website:
www.PerryInstitute.org

To learn more about how lionfish are threatening Bahamian reefs, including an animated map of the 1993-2009 lionfish invasion, please visit the NPR story,
“Spreading Lionfish Invasion Threatens Bahamas”

Jennifer Snyder is the Senior Science Development Manager at Conservation International

“Landing” is a euphemism for packing everything in watertight containers, jumping off the skiff with mask, fins and snorkel, then dragging all your stuff backwards up into the surf and (hopefully) out of the water onto the island. I felt fully prepared with my special wetpack backpack purchased by John Tschirky for MMAS in a moment of inspiration.

Once I’d changed into my jungle gear (oddly appropriate on this sun-scorched rubble pile) I stumbled about, trying hard not to fall in petrel burrows. It was a magical hour. I’d always wanted to see grey noddy terns close up. How about hovering two feet in front of your face? Bridled tern were everywhere. Brown noddies held siege to the upper edges of a broad bowl that sloped down into the island’s central guano lake. In what passed for trees (a small bushy mallow about 35 cm high), black noddy…or what I thought were black noddy…I am still a bit puzzled by them since they weren’t in trees. Read more >>

Les Kaufman is the Senior Investigator for Marine Management Area Science at Conservation International

Learn more about the Phoenix Island Protected Area expedition