But, through the use of GIS cartography methods, we have been gather data on sea level rise over time that impacts coastal habitats, as well as remote sensing data conducted from satellites that helps us see the changes of things like land use, sea level rise, deforestation, and urban sprawl over time. This technology is only getting better and although the data that exists is minimal, the growing concern and direction of attention to climate change is fueling future innovation for new projects that capture data of changes to the extent and conditions of habitats.

A prime e example of conflicting conservation mandates are when international conservation efforts meet. It's tough for a country to tell another country how to conduct effective permaculture methods when they aren't even doing it themselves. Sharing conservation methods with other countries is also hard due to cultural reasons as well. Some ecosystems and plant species have more cultural or religious significance than the other country understands. Ecosystems and species that have cultural and religious significance impact the priorities of conservation and creates the differences in the prioritization of what species should be conserved.

And most of those "extenuating variables modifying species patterns" are anthropogenically caused. Funny, no wonder how we have such a difficult time implementing management intervention methods, because we are the ones that have caused that difficulty.

I believe this is the best type of conservationist. It is a "realist" approach, if you will, to modern conservation. I feel like it's important for a conservationist to also be a part of local resource usage because it's important for them to advertise that yes, its possible to utilize local resources, but in a sustainable way. I would not consider a conservationist who sees the solution as somewhere along the lines of not being able to develop on a piece of land at all, but instead figure out how to develop in a sustainable way, a more "healthy" form of conservation. I feel there is such a thing as radical conservatism, and that is harmful to land development and expansion. That is what environmental planners do, they are more, "moderate conservationists". In the same way that a political moderate sees both sides of democratic and republican agenda, they see both the importance of conservation and the importance of natural resource use.

Does this mean that the taking or hunting of the saw-whet owl is illegal in Maryland but not in parts of Mexico, or states within the owl's range inside the U.S. like Texas? Like if you were a hunter and hunted the owl in Texas but sold it to someone in Maryland, would you be arrested for that despite the eagle not even coming from Maryland? I just ask that because when a species is on the ESA list, that means you can't take, hunt, or sell the animal. Does the same apply to Maryland even if the bird that's being sold to the buyer isn't from Maryland? I feel like that makes it rather confusing.

I'm puzzled by how you'd conduct this survey. Would you just take sample size N and ask them if they know about the hornbill and its fragility, and then come back after the campaign has run for a while and ask the same N size the same question? If so, then how can you attribute any increase in knowledge of hornbills to the efforts of the flagship species marketing done by the Pride campaigns? I'm sure there is a straight forward answer to this but for now it's just going right over my head.

My god this is depressing. The fact that there are unidentified bird species out there, or unidentified species in general that have never had their taxa recorded and have become extinct, is heartbreaking. There leaves barely any evidence after their extinctions of them existing whatsoever. These unknown flower and bird species could have a certain ecological benefit or perk that we haven't discovered yet that could be farmed in order to aid ecosystem problems, or help them, or do something. It's like knowing there are trillions of planets in the galaxy but we've only been able to record and research mere a handful, and its guaranteed we will never know what makes all of them unique, or their role in the universe for that matter.

Crazy to think that thousands of species are going extinct every year caused in part by natural background rates but also artificial extinction from human development. The U.N. Convention of Biological Diversity estimated that about 150 species are lost per day, which would mean about 10% of species are lost annually. Hard to stomach but also hard to know for sure because the estimates are just estimates. The destruction of rainforests are a significant contributor to biodiversity loss.

https://e360.yale.edu/features/global_extinction_rates_why_do_estimates_vary_so_wildly#:~:text=Convention%20on%20Biological%20Diversity%20concluded,as%2010%20percent%20a%20decade.

I think there should be a mobile application that any person can use to access data like this. There was something similar to it just developed but for early earthquake warnings and the beta for the app just started this month. It could help people be aware of the risk of wild fires where they live by showing their location in reference to where the dangerous parts of the fire regime are on a digital, GPS map. Just a thought.

This has significantly impacted chestnut trees in NH years ago when it happened. Because of this, the Chestnut Challenge was established by the Upper Valley Land Trust (UVLT) in order to preserve and restart the population, and has incorporated Doug McLane of Plymouth, who is a part of the American Chestnut Foundation, to help them with their effort. Doug actually has an area of land dedicated to chestnut trees right near his house in Plymouth. Just a fun fact to share.

I was trying to think of a situation where invasive species could be useful, besides driving out or regulating an overpopulated species, but this is definitely not something I thought about. Why wouldn't this be done in an automated manner with the use of tech instead of risking the spread of an invasive species by using them as a tool? I guess this is more of a complaint than an insightful comment, but I feel like this is an example of where some countries go wrong with invasive species which in turn puts native species at risk of being threatened.

I know it's silly to say, but I didn't really think about the economic value of tropical rainforests and their role in the world GDP. I knew that they accounted for some amount of wood production, but ~2% of the world's GDP? The world GDP now is about $87.6 trillion, ~2% of that is ~ $1.8 trillion, which is way more than what the value was in 2010 (when this book was published). It might not be the same percentage now, but my point is that ~2% is a significant contribution to the world GDP. So not only is saving the rainforests beneficial for biodiversity and carbon storage, it's also good to preserve a significant fraction of the world economy.

Reminds me of the destructive results of using road salts on icy roads and how they impeded natural growth off the sides of the roads. I also thought how this could be a positive feedback loop where road salts prevent vegetative growth, which in turn raises the groundwater level due to lack of vegetation, which brings stored salt to the surface, which then causes the cycle again.

This makes me think about how different western privatized and non-commercial farming techniques must be compared to farming techniques practiced in regions like South Africa. I say this because it could be that farmers in South Africa aren't aware of proper and sustainable farming techniques like livestock rotation. If this was practiced in that area, I feel as though that simple method could help preserve and protect grasslands.

https://rainforests.mongabay.com/primary_alpha.html This link will you bring you to a chart of forest lost by hectare, tree canopy cover, and tree cover lost for several different countries. The credibility of this website is questionable and also from early 2000's, but still an interesting perspective of forest loss.

I believe this is semi true. Ecosystems are always changing due to the constant evolution and adaptation that their inhabiting organisms and natural environment go through, as well as the changes imposed anthropogenically like global warming and deforestation, for example. Because they are always changing, beginnings and endings are infinitely occurring in habitats and ecosystems.

Would it be wrong then to say that the amount of genes in a living organism is directly correlated to its level of sophistication? Sophistication being the complexity of the inner workings of a homo sapien compared to a bacteria, for example.

Rachel Carson's Silent Spring is a fantastic read and to those who haven't read it yet I highly recommend, though I'm sure most of us have! Apparently the title came to fruition because of influence from John Keats poem "La Belle Dam sans Merci" where in it, a line states "the sedge is wither'd from the lake, and no birds sing". Fitting, but eerie.

This paragraph by Aldo Leopold I found so beautiful. He first acknowledges the search for utility in certain species that we have been continuing for centuries, and in doing so, we have just scratched the surface of understanding the unlimited extent of the natural world and the relationships woven through out it. I also love how he states that the magnitude of a species potential utility is only determined by tongue and cheek; how we rate them as related to that species or resource's desired use, and that their true usages are infinite. And that soil and water regimes play just as an important role.