Natural Resource Management

Current ecological thought suggests the more diverse a plant community is, the more productive it is. But scientists don’t fully understand why this is so. “We’re exploring the possibility that plant-soil feedbacks may also be a critical but underappreciated factor in plant community development,” says Andrew Kulmatiski, assistant research professor in Utah State University’s Ecology Center and Department of Plants, Soils and Climate. Read the full story

The United States and Puerto Rico account for 80% of the total value of Peruvian timber sales, said Andrea Johnson, forest campaign director of the Environmental Investigation Agency. Read the full story

When most people look at a forest, they see walking trails, deer yards, or firewood for next winter. But scientists at the Harvard Forest and Smithsonian Institution take note of changes imperceptible to the naked eye -- the uptake and storage of carbon. What they’ve learned in a recent study is that an immense amount of carbon is stored in growing trees, but if current trends in Massachusetts continue, development would reduce that storage by 18 percent over the next half century. Forest harvesting would have a much smaller impact.

Nutrient pollution isn't only a Gulf problem, said Glynnis Collins, the executive director of the Illinois-based Prairie Rivers Network, another group involved in the suits. She said nutrient-rich waters have led to toxic algae blooms in many places. "They can sicken people, pets and livestock," Collins said. "It's a worldwide story. We have to get a handle on it. It's crazy not to." Read the full story

LITZINGER12:34:22 Okay. Are we causing a problem? For example, here in the United States, we are a consumer society. Sometimes we don't think about where things come from. What's the connection between what we buy and the Sumatran Tiger? KRAMME12:34:34

As a college student in the mid-1980s, Maria Fernandez-Gimenez worked as a seasonal interpreter for the National Park Service. That’s when she was first exposed to the great Western debate over public-lands ranching. She soon became familiar with environmentalists’ gripes about grazing impacts, but realized she knew nothing about the ranchers’ point of view. So she went to work on a distant cousin’s ranch in northwestern Colorado, where she spent the summer sleeping in a hayloft.

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What will cost $7 billion; will snake across the country from Alberta to the Gulf Coast, carrying 700,000 barrels a day of Canadian crude oil; and seems (at least from the animated assertions of Congressional Republicans and the American Petroleum Institute) a perfect solution for the flagging U.S. economy? Answer: TransCanada’s Keystone oil sands pipeline expansion project. Imagine a river of dirty oil running right through the country’s mid-section. Read the entire piece

As many of you probably already heard, last week the Coastal Conservancy approved up to $6.5 million to complete studies and permitting for the Ballona Wetlands. If that price tag for planning is giving you sticker shock, I have two words: Army Corps. Actually more than two words – you see, one alternative proposes removing and relocating the levees that currently contain Ballona Creek’s flows from spreading over the wetlands. (You know, th