Large areas of tropical forest worldwide are used for selective logging which requires extensive road networks to access trees harvested for timber. It is well documented that building roads into intact forest can have consequences for forest ecosystems. This is because they lead to fragmentation and facilitate access for people which can lead to long-term […]
Earth is in a land degradation crisis. If we were to take the roughly one-third of the world’s land that has been degraded from its natural state and combine it into a single entity, these “Federated States of Degradia” would have a landmass bigger than Russia and a population of more than 3 billion, largely […]
Increasing intensity of human land-use makes ecological communities progressively more similar to one another, leading to an overall loss of diversity. Ecological metrics used to quantify diversity loss could provide helpful conservation benchmarks. How does one estimate biological diversity? Answering this seemingly simple question has occupied many an ecologist’s time. With the rapid rate of […]
Climate change is a well-established reality in Kenya, with evidence continuing to mount in recent years. Over 70 per cent of natural disasters are related to extreme weather and climate: recurrent droughts, floods, mudslides, crop failure, loss of livestock, and unpredictable erratic rainfall patterns. Vast areas of farmlands in Kenya have been degraded and no […]
Industrial timber plantations could provide a way for Ethiopia to reduce rural unemployment and conserve natural forests. Work on a timber plantation in Ethiopia is tough, with low wages, poor conditions and little security – but at least it’s a living. And in a country with high demand for wood products and widespread rural poverty […]
