Desertification: the result of social, economic and technical factors.

It has been stated, the word desert originated in an ancient Egyptian hieroglyph pronounced as Tesert, meaning a place that was forsaken or left behind. From this came the Latin verb Deserere, to abandon. From the latter came Desertum, a waste place or wilderness, and Desertus meaning abandoned or relinquished. This in itself implies the desert was …

Environmental Economics

Environmental economics is a distinct branch of economics that acknowledges the value of both the environment and economic activity and makes choices based on those values.  The goal is to balance the economic activity and the environmental impacts by taking into account all the costs and benefits.                  …

Rural Tourism: combining natural and cultural landscape values as a base!

Rural tourism can be multi-faceted rather than farm-based only, and may include special interest nature holidays and ecotourism, walking, climbing and riding holidays, adventure, sport and health tourism, arts and heritage tourism and in some areas, cultural tourism. Agri-tourism is when the purpose of the visit has a specific agricultural focus such as being with animals, …

Maintaining Essential Sustainable Ecological Processes in Forestry

It is through a study of the smallest organisms that we learn most about nature. It is the activities of microorganisms, invisible to the naked eye, that dominate the processes which control the productivity and stability of forest ecosystems. Most of these microbes are found in the soil, and a single handful of soil contains …

Australian Invasive Species ~Bufo Marinus (Cane Toad)

Although invasive species are viewed as major threats to ecosystems worldwide, few such species have been studied in enough detail to identify the pathways, magnitudes and timescales of their impact on the native fauna. One of the most intensively studied invasive taxa in this respect is the cane toad (Bufo Marinus), introduced to Australia in …

Forest Eradication and Significant Ecological Damage.

Obviously, human activities result in many environmental changes that enhance species ecosystems and ecological processes, although at the same time, cause significant damage to others.  The challenge for the concept of ecological integrity is to provide a means of distinguishing between responses that represent improvements in the quality of ecosystems, and those that are degradations.  …

Sustainable Urban Living: integration not only balance!

Closely intertwined with many global issues is sustainability.  Yet, fifty or more years on, are we any more assertive towards the complex relationships between these concerns and sustainability?  And have we moved any closer to understanding how to plan sustainable cities and repetitively discuss the issues throughout the planning process?   I do believe that through …

Urban Planning and the Incorporation of Environmental Considerations

Building resilience within communities to adapt to the inevitable impact of climate change is essential, and design has long played a role in promoting sustainability and quality of life. We need to address global environmental concerns from an urban perspective and to integrate the urban dimension of global environmental issues; more specifically, to promote a …

The Richness of Queensland’s Wetland Ecosystems

Natural bush and wetlands have many values, not just for conservation purposes.  The location and botanical characteristics of coastal tree swamps in Queensland make them important habitat for a range of fauna and flora, and most significant as a food resource for migratory species.   Abundant food and nest resources, high water availability and a favourable …

Warming Of The Climate System Is Unequivocal, With Increases In Global Average Air And Ocean Temperatures.

Greenhouse gas emissions are increasing and with it the danger of global catastrophes. That's the bad news in the new report from UN climate change panel, the IPCC. The good news? There's still hope - for a very limited time... The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published the second part of its broader Fifth …

Overfishing and the exploitation trends of the Mediterranean Sea

Although it is only equivalent to 1% of the world’s oceans, the Mediterranean Sea is one of the most international waters on Earth. About 20 nations border it, more than 10,000 species live in it and millions of people get food, work and pleasure from it. It is the feeding and breeding ground for many …

GMOs v’s Agro-ecological ~ you decide…

The theories have been around for a long time, biotechnology companies have been making lofty claims that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are the cure for world hunger, and that without them, people will starve to death. Well, according to many agricultural scientists and researchers, such claims have absolutely no basis in reality, and are nothing …

Countries should plan ahead to mitigate the effects of El Niño!

So here is a development! We are aware that El Niño has a significant impact on world and local economies – but according to a new Working Paper from the University of Cambridge, not always for the worst and countries should plan ahead to mitigate its effects. El Nino weather effects will be doubly accelerated due …

Threats to Earth’s Biodiversity

The disastrous costs of human welfare due to Biodiversity loss, are telling us what we have settled ourselves into by abusing the planet above ground and indeed below.  Earth’s biodiversity is under serious threat as a result of human activities (Heal 2005; Enger & Smith 2000).                Biodiversity refers to all varieties of nature and their …

Earth’s Global Energy Balance -an easy explantion of Longwave or Terrestrial Radiation

The Earth receives radiant energy from the sun and emits infrared radiation also termed longwave or terrestrial radiation, outward in all directions into space.  To have stable conditions, there must be a balance between the net absorbed solar radiation and net outgoing terrestrial radiation.  At the surface, an energy balance exists due to the additional …

The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)

The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) describes an irregular cycle of warming and cooling of sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean (Harrison and Vecchi 2001), and closely linked to the Southern Hemisphere Annular Mode (SAM) which describes changes in the atmospheric circulation in the southern high latitudes (Zhang 2006) .  ENSO and SAM both …

Does ‘big business’ always win – and does the planet always lose?

What a topic!  Since the Stockholm United Nations Conference on Human Environment of 1972, UNCED of 1992, and Sustainability Conferences of 2002 Johannesburg and Brazil 2012 it has been action stations for the United Nations bodies, and it seems they are leading a reluctant band of countries behind them.  Since the 1980's the IMF and …

The Impacts of Deforestation

Ecosystems are continuously affected by disruptions of various intensities and frequencies.  Deforestation is a long-term conversion of forest to agricultural or urbanised land, and the human impact of deforestation and global climate change causes severe damage to forest ecosystems. Globally, many rainforest species are increasingly threatened due to deforestation, and even though they cover only …

Ocean Heat Transferrence

Ocean circulation and the way in which heat is transferred within the ocean-atmosphere system is a current area of research, advocating a mutual interaction between global climate and ocean-current circulation (Ribbe 2004).  Driven essentially by solar energy, the oceans’ circulation moves heat or thermal energy around the Earth (Pickering and Owen 2006).   Surface currents are …

Salinity changes – Oceans are a key component in our climate system

The Oceans are a key component in our climate system, transporting heat and fresh water, and exchanging these with the atmosphere.   The World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) began as a component of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), using resources to form unique in-situ and satellite observations of the global ocean currents, global thermohaline circulation, …