Biodiversità

The weekly round-up on the climate crisis and data on carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. For the first time in the Atlantic Ocean a category 5 hurricane formed at the beginning of the summer and this is not a good sign for the rest of the year and our immediate future.This is the case of Beryl, the first major hurricane of a season that will arrive until late November, which went from tropical depression to storm and then to hurricane in the space of 48 hours.The speed with which Beryl transformed into a Category 5 hurricane is a bad sign for the Atlantic hurricane season which, fueled by increasingly rising ocean temperatures, is becoming more dangerous and unpredictable.So much so that, how underlines Simone Fant on Renewable Matter, some scientists are proposing to add an additional category – category 6 – to measure the intensity of hurricanes. “This early-season storm activity is breaking records set in 1933 and 2005, two of the most in...

The weekly round-up on the climate crisis and data on carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. European countries must end the repression and criminalization of peaceful climate protests and act urgently to reduce emissions in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5°C, he has declared the United Nations special rapporteur on environmental defenders, Michel Forst. At the end of a year-long investigation, which included gathering evidence from several European countries, Forst said the crackdown on peaceful environmental activists around the world poses a grave threat to democracy and human rights.All states involved in the UN expert's investigation into environmental defenders have joined the Aarhus Convention, which holds that peaceful environmental protest is a legitimate exercise of the public's right to participate in decision-making processes and that those who participate must be protected.Yet the response to peaceful environmental pr...

According to a new study published in Nature, the loss of biodiversity is the main environmental cause of infectious disease epidemics, which become more dangerous and widespread.In what is called a 'meta-analysis' in technical jargon, the researchers found that of all the 'factors of global change', species loss was the most important in increasing the risk of epidemics.Climate change follows, chemical pollution and the introduction of non-native species.Urbanization was instead associated with a decrease in risk, this is because urban areas tend to host fewer wild animals and to have better sanitation infrastructures compared to rural environments.The experts they analyzed 2,938 observations of infectious disease responses to drivers of global change in 1,497 host-parasite combinations, covering every continent except Antarctica. Interest in zoonoses, diseases caused by agents transmitted directly or indirectly from other animals to humans, has increased after the Covid19 pand...

Some scientists from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), in collaboration with local farmers, are promoting a program to restore the chinampas in the Xochimilco wetland, south of Mexico City.The chinampas are delicious small artificial islands created by the Aztecs, a sort of floating farms that play a fundamental role in the identity of Xochimilco, an area of ​​lakes and swamps that has survived urbanization and the expansion of industrial agriculture.The objective of the initiative is to preserve the chinampas system and all living beings that depend on it.A system which, in 1987, was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO precisely because of its cultural importance and ecological value. The chinampas, once used only to grow vegetables and leafy greens, are now largely abandoned or transformed into, for example, football fields and restaurants.In 2018, FAO data revealed that only 17% of the 20,922 chinampas it was still cultivated in the traditional wa...

A new study recently published in the prestigious journal Science confirmed that the strategies of conservation they work in protecting biodiversity.In particular, the analysis considered 186 case studies to evaluate the impact of the interventions conservation globally over the last century.Specifically, the research highlighted the effectiveness of various strategies conservation, such as controlling invasive species, restoring habitats and creating protected areas, in different geographic locations and in different ecosystems and political systems.The actions of conservation, it turns out, have improved or slowed the decline of species in over two thirds of the cases analyzed.“Our study shows that when conservation actions work, they really work – said Jake Bicknell, co-author of the work and conservation scientist at the University of Kent in the United Kingdom – in other words, they often lead to outcomes for biodiversity that they are not just a little bett...