Conservation Thematic Portal: News
Species Data Reveal Areas of High Biodiversity in the Americas, the World
Date: September 12, 2008
Human activities have contributed to habitat loss for a large number of species worldwide. In response, species mapping has become an increasingly important tool for conservation priority-setting and ecological modeling. Now a consortium of conservation organizations―NatureServe, IUCN, Conservation International, and World Wildlife Fund-USA―has developed a vast digital library of the distribution of birds and mammals of the Americas and amphibians of the world. To make these data more useful for a wide range of applications, CIESIN’s NASA-funded Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) converted the entire collection of shapefiles to raster format at 1-km grid-cell resolution. Data are available for global amphibian distributions, and for birds and mammals in the Americas. SEDAC provides individual species distribution grids along with family grids that show the density and distribution of species within a given family.
Web site
New Characterization of Biomes Includes Human Interaction
Date: August 2008
Existing systems of ecological research have traditionally omitted any representation of human interaction, or have simplified it. Now a recently-released data set, “Anthropogenic Biomes of the World,” authored by Erle C. Ellis and Navin Ramankutty, presents the first description of biomes that includes the element of human interaction with ecosystems. This data set identifies 18 so-called “anthropogenic biomes,” acknowledging that human residence and agriculture have significantly altered ecosystems. This integrated approach to ecological classification suggests new possibilities for exploring and understanding patterns within the terrestrial biosphere.
Now Released: First-Ever Global Map of Total Human Effect on Oceans
Date: April 1, 2008
The world’s oceans are significantly impacted by human activities, with no unaffected areas remaining, according to the first global-scale study of human influence on marine ecosystems. However, there are still large areas that are relatively unaffected by humans, particularly near the poles.
Researchers overlaid maps of 17 different activities such as fishing, climate change, and pollution, to produce a composite map of human influence on the oceans of the world.
The report, “A Global Map of Human Impact on Marine Ecosystems,“ was published in the February 15 issue of Science. Data is available from the Web site. The project had its genesis in a working group at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis in Santa Barbara, California.
Report | Web site
New Human Footprint Data Available
Date: March 17, 2008
CIESIN has released an updated version of The Human Footprint, a data set that aims to measure the extent of human influence on the Earth’s surface. First produced in 2002 by CIESIN with the Wildlife Conservation Society, this new version of The Human Footprint uses updated data on human population density, land transformation, human access, electrical power infrastructure, and settlements. Urban boundaries are drawn from CIESIN’s urban population data (Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project (GRUMP)), which is more recent (circa 2000) and is also a better representation of urban boundaries than what was used in the first version. The population density data (Global Population of the World (GPWv3)), produced by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN, also have a number of improvements over the data used in the earlier version. The roads data are more complete, particularly concerning roads in Africa and Latin America; a greater number of navigable rivers is included; and more extensive land cover data are used.
Data available for download include the Human Influence Index, Human Footprint, and the Last of the Wild data sets.
Web site
TerraLook: Improved Access to Satellite Imagery
Date: January 2008
Developed by USGS, TerraLook aims to serve user communities who need images of the Earth but do not have technical remote sensing expertise or access to expensive and/or specialized scientific image processing software. Terralook is accessible to any user who can open a JPEG, providing both ASTER and Landsat data as simulated natural-color JPEG images.
Web site
New Biodiversity Data Portal Released by GBIF
Date: 2007
The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is an international non-profit organization to provide free and universal access to data regarding the world's biodiversity, with a wide range of countries and organizations participating and sharing data. The portal provides access to the two types of data which are already being shared through the GBIF Network, taxonomic names; and specimens and observations.
Web site
Global Amphibian Assessment
Date: Fall 2006
The Global Amphibian Assessment (GAA) is the first-ever comprehensive assessment of the conservation status of the world’s 5,918 known species of frogs, toads, salamanders, and caecilians. Since the initial release of the GAA data in 2004 there has been constant updating and upgrading of the information. The 2006 update is now available.
Banking on Conservation: IUCN and EIB Sign Framework for Cooperation on Biodiversity
Date: September 19, 2006
The World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the European Investment Bank (EIB) have signed an historical cooperation agreement.
Managing Large River Basins: Solutions that Benefit Both People and Nature
Date: September 13, 2006
In the Yellow river basin in China, 100 million people need to share the water. In the Pangani river basin in Tanzania, conflicts are emerging between water users. To promote peaceful ways of solving potential water crises while benefiting both people and nature, the World Conservation Union (IUCN) convened a workshop at the IWA Beijing World Water Congress ( September 10–14, 2006).
New Documentary Exposes National Crisis, Louisiana's Disappearing Coastline
Date: August 23, 2006
As Louisiana rebuilds one year after the Hurricane Katrina and Rita tragedies, "Washing Away," a new public broadcast documentary exposing the extent of the hurricane's impact on the state's disappearing coastline, premiered to Louisiana audiences....
2006 IUCN Red List Reveals Continuing Declines
Date: May 2, 2006
The 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species brings into focus the ongoing decline of the earth's biodiversity. Widely recognized as the most authoritative assessment of the global status of plants and animals, the Red List provides an accurate measure of progress, or lack of it, in achieving the globally agreed target to significantly reduce the current rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. Of the 40,177 species worldwide assessed using the IUCN Red List criteria, 16,119 are now listed as threatened with extinction. This includes one in three amphibians and a quarter of the world's coniferous trees, on top of the one in eight birds and one in four mammals known to be in jeopardy. The total number of species declared officially Extinct is 784 and a further 65 are only found in captivity or cultivation.
Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Defines Indicators to Meet 2010 Target
Date: March 2006 (CoP VII)
The CBD Conference of the Parties agreed on a limited number of trial indicators, to assess progress at the global level towards the 2010 target, and to effectively communicate trends in biodiversity related to the three objectives of the Convention (paragraphs 3 and 4 of decision VII/30). The 2010 target is "to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on earth." The COP agreed on eight indicators for immediate testing and another 13 indicators requiring further development.
