International Conservation & Development

Editor's note: Fellow Lauren Howe recently won the USAID Agrilinks Young Scholars Food Security Blog Contest with the following post about her work in Ethiopia with sweet potato leaves, which first appeared on the Agrilinks website.

In 2018 Fellow Daniel Orenstein helped narrate an interactive website for an EU-funded project he participated in. The ECOPOTENTIAL project uses Earth Observation analyses in the Israeli desert to examine natural and human-induced changes in the landscape and assesses ecosystem services for improved management and planning in the area.

Abstract

The future of the Antarctic ecosystems depends on the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) rising swiftly to the challenge of climate change. If they do, writes Fellow Cassandra Brooks, Antarctica will continue to be a beacon of international diplomacy, scientific collaborations, peaceful cooperation, and thriving ecosystems.

Scientists have found a new culprit contributing to China’s notorious wintertime smog, and controlling it could help sustain the significant improvements in air quality that Beijing and other northeastern cities experienced last winter, according to research published on Thursday. Scientists from Harvard and two Chinese universities reported that emissions of formaldehyde — principally from vehicles and chemical and oil refineries — played a larger role than previously understood in producing the thick, toxic pollution that chokes much of the country each winter.