Sensors & Systems - Ecosystem Services

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Ecosystem Services

To Achieve Scale, REDD Must Embrace Satellite Technology

Details: 17 July 2012 | By Ecosystem Marketplace | 979

Carbon projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) can save rainforests and slow climate change by keeping carbon locked in trees, but this mechanism and its sibling, REDD+, can only scale up if investors will know how many trees there are, and how much carbon is stored within them and whether this carbon is staying put, year on year.

Current methodologies being advocated within the United Nations require the use of forest audits based on traditional forestry management methods of the developed world, but these are simply too expensive to work in the developing world. The Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, has more than 100 million hectares of inaccessible rainforest, and the country doesn’t have the resources to survey this from the ground in a cost-effective manner, let alone quantify the results into a standardised format to be cross-checked against forest stocks elsewhere.

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Green vs. Gray Infrastructure: When Nature Trumps Concrete

Details: 25 June 2012 | By GreenBiz | 981

People often don’t think of forests, wetlands, coral reefs, and other natural ecosystems as forms of infrastructure. But they are. Forests, for instance, can prevent silt and pollutants from entering streams that supply freshwater to downstream cities and businesses. They can act as natural water filtration plants. As such, they are a form of “green infrastructure” that can serve the same function as “gray infrastructure,” the human-engineered solutions that often involve concrete and steel. Read More

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New Report Evaluates Progress of Everglades Restoration Plan

Details: 21 June 2012 | By National Research Council | 1152

Twelve years into a multibillion-dollar state and federal effort to save the Florida Everglades, little progress has been made in restoring the core of the ecosystem, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council. Expedited restoration projects that improve the quality and amount of water in this area are necessary to reverse ongoing declines. A new federal pilot project offers an innovative approach to this challenge, although additional analysis is needed to maximize restoration benefits within existing legal constraints.

Indonesia’s Mangrove Loss Threatens Community Resilience

Details: 23 June 2012 | By Matt Ball | 911

Millions of hectares of mangrove forests in Indonesia are being lost to agriculture, oil palm plantations and even fish farms, making coastal communities more vulnerable to the force of tropical storms and the loss of livelihoods and products. “There’s quite a lot of evidence that mangroves reduce wave and wind energy in relation to storms, and also reduce the impacts of coastal erosion,” said Ben Brown, the Indonesia representative of the Mangrove Action Project (MAP), an international NGO that works to conserve and restore mangrove areas worldwide. Read More

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Code REDD Campaign to Save World's Threatened Forests Illuminates Rio+20

Details: 20 June 2012 | By Wildlife Works | 834

Thousands of people from around the globe gathered at Arcos da Lapa last night to support the launch of Code REDD, an emergency action campaign to save the threatened forests of the world. The celebration of the Code REDD Campaign launch got under way as the historic Arcos da Lapa aqueduct in the heart of Rio was transformed by Obscura Digital with an architectural projection experience of visuals and sound followed by the premier of a Code REDD film that demonstrated Code REDD’s solution to stop deforestation now.