Natural Resource Management

Despite decades of discussion and implementation, conservation monitoring remains a challenge. Many current solutions in the literature focus on improving the science or making more structured decisions. These insights are important but incomplete in accounting for the politics and economics of the conservation decisions informed by monitoring. Our novel depiction of the monitoring enterprise unifies insights from multiple disciplines (conservation, operations research, economics, and policy) and highlights many underappreciated factors that affect the expected benefits of monitoring.

On December 11, 2013, we released the report Changes to the Land: Four Scenarios for the Future of the Massachusetts Landscape (link will download report) to an overwhelmingly positive response.

This reference resource, in atlas format, is an online-only compendium of maps and data sets accompanied by multimedia elements designed to illustrate key concepts in green issues and environmentalism graphically and interactively. Topics for the maps presented in this work were selected from articles in the 12-volume SAGE Reference Series on Green Society: Toward a Sustainable Future. Each map includes links to one or more of the series articles. Maps include interactive components, with clickable icons to deliver the data and statistics that make up each map.

Wilmar International, one of the world’s biggest palm oil producers, has agreed to ensure the oil it supplies will not result in any additional loss of rainforests, in a move that could significantly slow the destruction of tropical forests around the world. “If Wilmar is genuine in its commitments to deforestation-free, peat-free, exploitation-free palm oil, this could be a game-changer for the industry,” said Sharon Smith, palm oil campaign manager for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Many countries have begun the readiness process, but they have had little incentive to see it through to completion. Lloyd Gamble, the Senior Forest Carbon Program Officer for WWF-US, says the new framework offers both an incentive to move forward and clarity on how to proceed. "Tropical forest nations can now move forward and engage in REDD+ with a clear understanding of what they need to deliver in order to receive valuable performance-based payments for the conservation of their tropical forests,” he says.

As you gather with family and friends to enjoy a hearty meal and a flurry of holiday events, your plans are probably focused inside — seated around a table, in front of the television watching the big game, or inside the shopping mall.

Andrea Johnson is now working in Turrialba, Costa Rica, at the Center for Training and Education in Agriculture and Forestry (CATIE, for the Spanish acronym), a well-known regional institution in Latin America. She is overseeing the monitoring, evaluation and planning for a project focused on supporting sustainable forest management, community forestry and wood product value chains throughout Central America. They have partners and activities in Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Visit Andrea's LinkedIn profile

We believe that the process of unconventional fossil fuel development including shale tight oil and gas development in the Monterey Shale formation using hydraulic fracturing, acidization, and other forms of well stimulation will exacerbate many of these environmental threats, particularly climate disruption, local air and water pollution, and resource consumption. Thus, the decisions you make about the development of unconventional oil and gas production from shale in California will hold important consequences for California and the state’s future.

I am excited to announce that this week, International Rivers published a new report titled An Introduction to Integrated Resources Planning. The report, written by 1999 Fellow Chris Greacen, Chom Greacen, David von Hippel, and David Bill, demonstrates the benefits of a comprehensive approach to energy planning.