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A Light in the Forest. Across the world, complex social and market forces are driving the conversion of vast swaths of rain forests into pastureland, plantations, and cropland. Rain forests are disappearing in Indonesia and Madagascar and are increasingly threatened in Africa's Congo basin. But the most extreme deforestation has taken place in Brazil. Since 1988, Brazilians have cleared more than 153,000 square miles of Amazonian rain forest, an area larger than Germany.

With the resulting increase in arable land, Brazil has helped feed the growing global demand for commodities, such as soybeans and beef. But the environmental price has been steep. In addition to providing habitats for untold numbers of plant and animal species and discharging around 20 percent of the world's fresh water, the Amazon basin plays a crucial role in regulating the earth's climate, storing huge quantities of carbon dioxide that would otherwise contribute to global warming.

To continue reading, please log in. Don't have an account? 275na6.pdf. Nserving biodiversity hotspots 'could bring world's poor $500bn a year' | Environment. Some of the world's poorest people would be half a trillion dollars a year better off if the services they provide to the rest of the planet indirectly – through conserving natural habitats – was given an economic value, a new study has found.

Many of these valuable habitats and species are under threat, but the people who live in these areas lack the means to improve their conservation, according to a new study in the journal BioScience. If poor people were paid for the services they provide in preserving some of the world's key biodiversity hotspots, they could reap $500bn. There are some fledgling schemes that could help to raise this cash – for instance, the United Nations-backed system called Redd (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation), which uses carbon trading to generate cash to preserve trees – but so far they are small in scale.

He said that preserving areas of highest biodiversity should be the priority. National Trust aims for nature generation. 16 February 2012Last updated at 11:22 By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News There is even talk that the modern environment is leading to "nature-deficit disorder" The National Trust is planning a campaign this year to improve peoples' links with nature and wildlife. The Trust's director general Fiona Reynolds said children needed freedom to discover nature for themselves. More children go to hospital having fallen out of bed than having fallen out of a tree, she said. The trust is marking the centenary of the death of Octavia Hill, one of its founders, who fought to preserve public open spaces in London and elsewhere. "It's about wanting to give children a sense of freedom to discover," said Ms Reynolds at a news conference in London. "The campaign will help children to get outdoors and connect them with nature, including things that can be done at trust properties, to try and stimulate a nation of nature-lovers.

" Ponds and dens Turbine troubles. SYSTEM ANALYSIS OF THE STRUCTURE OF CULTURAL ECOSYSTEM SERVICES ENERATION AND IN. SAO/NASA ADS Physics Abstract Service · Electronic Refereed Journal Article (HTML)· References in the article· Reads History· · Translate This Page Abstract It is needed to evaluate ecosystem services in order to make appropriate decision for ecosystem management. In this background the purpose of this study is to analyze structural processes of human enjoying culture-related ecosystem services. As a database including processes of enjoying cultural ecosystem services, "one hundred waka poems" was selected and coded from the context of symbiotic systems conce pts. How crowdsourcing games help solve scientific problems: Review of current projects. Contributions of cultural services to the ecosystem services agenda.