Posts Tagged ‘deforestation’
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Rainforests: Seeing is Believing
This week I am in Costa Rica with various CI colleagues. We are taking part in a workshop and are lucky enough to be staying along a protected national rainforest. This protected land is part of a growing effort by the Costa Rican government to safeguard its most precious treasure: tropical rainforests. As I walk through the dense jungle, I am wandering along narrow paths that are used by the various indigenous peoples who live nearby and consider this jungle their home. Although today is a rainy day and the rainforest (today very aptly named) is covered in a heavy fog, ... -
New Publication Highlights World’s Most Threatened Primates
[caption id="attachment_2413" align="aligncenter" width="598" caption="Russ Mittermeier with lemur at publication launch event"][/caption] I remember when I was living in Tanzania in 2008, I stopped by the Wildlife Conservation Society office in Mbeya to learn more about their programs. I was surprised to hear that an entirely new species of monkey (the kipunji—Rungwecebus kipunji) had been discovered in the nearby Southern Highlands only five years before. At the time of my visit, the researchers were just beginning to familiarize the animals with their presence. [caption id="attachment_2435" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="kipunji"][/caption] But despite the kipunji’s remote habitat and how little we know about them, the ... -
Cerrado Project Update: Voices from the Field
While Fernando and Artur were planting trees on a farm in Mineiros (see last Thursday’s blog post), I spent a couple of hours collecting some video footage and interviewing local stakeholders. I had the opportunity to talk to Renato Alves, project coordinator of the NGO Oréades, CI-Brazil´s local partner. In the video below (in Portuguese), he explains the carbon project. Mirella Domenich is the communications manager of Conservation International Brazil. After filming the video above, she joined in to help plant many native trees! VIDEO: Renato Alves explains the carbon project (em português)[flv:http://blog.conservation.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Mineiros_entrevista_Renato.flv 511 287] Em português Enquanto Fernando e Artur plantam sementes de árvores ... -
Tree Planting in the Cerrado
Today was the third day of our team’s visit to the Emas-Taquari carbon project in Mineiros, Brazil, which CI-Brazil is implementing with partner organization Oréades. At six o'clock this morning, Artur, Mirella and I met the Oréades staff members, an headed out to the field, where we would be planting one hectare of plants native to the Cerrado, the Brazilian savannah. Two hours later, after traveling almost 90 kilometers (56 miles) along a road surrounded by soy plantations, we arrived at the farm that would receive the first seedlings of the carbon sequestration project. I immediately smelled the fertilizer we would ... -
What’s your personaliTEA?
Celestial Seasonings® is supporting CI's “Protect an Acre” campaign by donating one dollar for every person who takes their new quiz, PossibiliTEAS (up to $50,000 total). Just $15 protects one acre of tropical forest, so get your friends to take the quiz, too! The PossibiliTEAS quiz uses thought-provoking questions to match you with one of nine symbolic Asian characters found on boxes of Celestial Seasonings' new green tea. Take the quiz now! Celestial Seasonings' support of CI is part of their larger 40-year commitment to social and environmental responsibility. CI often works with companies through our Center for Environmental Leadership in Business ... -
CI Partner Wildlife Works Pioneers Kenya’s First GOLD Level REDD Project
In 2005, CI’s Verde Ventures program helped to finance the establishment of Wildlife Works’ eco-factory in Rukinga Kenya as a critical piece of the long term vision of Wildlife Works. Founded in San Francisco in 1997, with an innovative mission based on “consumer-powered conservation,” Wildlife Works aimed to use revenue from the sale of sustainable products to finance wildlife protection efforts in Kenya and around the world. Now, thirteen years later, Wildlife Works has expanded from selling clothes and accessories to selling something that is more vital to life on Earth, yet also harder to see: carbon. Last month, Wildlife Works ... -
Despite Troubled History, New Hope in Liberia
As I stood in front of our new office in Congo Town this week, just steps away from the sprawling Chinese Embassy complex, I was taken back to my introduction to Liberia in 2005. CI had already been in the country for three years, seeing our partners through the end of war, a transitional government and the election of the first female African Head of State. At that time, the only way to get to Monrovia was with the UN peacekeeping mission or on one of the Nigerian carriers, all of which overbook and work on a first-come, first-serve basis. ... -
Time Running Out at Copenhagen
It’s been a long week-and-a-half of tough negotiations at Copenhagen. There have been many stops and starts, late night sessions that go well into the next morning and more than a few frustrated negotiators. As far as the NGOs, we are usually standing outside on the snow-covered ground for hours, trying to get back into the conference center that we may have left only a few hours before (by the way, thank you Greenpeace for the free coffee every morning). For all of us, it has been an exhausting process. Fortunately, some progress has been made. Today, Secretary Clinton announced that ... -
New scientific paper: REDD+ can be key to stop the extinction crisis too
A new scientific paper being previewed at Copenhagen shows how Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) can not only contribute to the fight against climate change, but also provide an excellent opportunity to slow the rate of extinction of species. Revenues developing countries receive under almost any REDD+ scheme would be the biggest investment in tropical forests in history and should lead to enormous gains in conservation of species. According to one of the authors and Vice President of Global Change and Ecosystem Services at CI, Dr. Celia Harvey, the paper presents a variety of options for how ... -
16% of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Result from Deforestation and Logging
[caption id="attachment_1774" align="alignright" width="400" caption="Global GHG Emissions (2005) - Data sources"][/caption] 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 ...
