e360 digest

20 Jan 2012: Value of Conserving Habitats
Could be Worth $500B to World’s Poor

A new study says that compensating the world’s poorest communities for helping conserve the planet’s most vital habitats would help solve two major challenges: biodiversity loss and poverty. In fact, if global

Interview: Putting a Price
On the Value of Nature

Pavan Sukhdev Putting a Price on Value of Nature

In an interview with Yale e360, Indian banker Pavan Sukhdev discusses the ways natural ecosystems benefit people and why policymakers and businesses must rethink how they assess environmental costs and benefits.
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leaders were to put an economic value on the preservation of the world’s biodiversity hotspots — including such benefits as providing food and water and absorbing carbon emissions — it could be worth more than $500 billion annually for 330 million of the world’s poorest people. Since the people who live near these resources typically don’t have the means to protect them, the urgency for such economic mechanisms becomes increasingly critical, according to the study, published in the journal BioScience. “Developed and developing economies cannot continue to ask the world’s poor to shoulder the burden of protecting these globally important ecosystem services for the world’s benefit,” said Will Turner, vice president of Conservation International and lead author of the study. An example of such a scheme is the UN-based REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) initiative, which provides incentives to developing nations to prevent large-scale deforestation.

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Tracking the Causes of Sharp <br/> Decline of the Monarch Butterfly

Tracking the Causes of Sharp
Decline of the Monarch Butterfly

Into the Heart of Ecuador’s Yasuni

Reviving Europe’s Biodiversity By Importing Exotic Animals

For Wolves on the Brink, A Hobbled Recovery Plan

How the Web Can Help Identify Countless Undiscovered Species

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South African photojournalist Adam Welz documents the harrowing relocation of six white rhinos to a region that has lost all its rhinos to poaching. View the gallery.

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A Yale Environment 360 video explores Ecuador’s threatened Yasuni Biosphere Reserve with scientists inventorying its stunning forests and wildlife. Watch the video.

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In a Yale Environment 360 video, photographer Pete McBride documents how increasing water demands have transformed the Colorado River, the lifeblood of the arid Southwest. Watch the video.

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The Warriors of Qiugang, a Yale Environment 360 video that chronicles the story of a Chinese village’s fight against a polluting chemical plant, was nominated for a 2011 Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject). Watch the video.

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