This is a great point, and one I have not thought much about. Conservation is a global problem, that requires global solutions. No one country can chance the course set out by oil factories for the last century, and to preserve the natural earth we must all come together. Having a set of universal rules/structures/setups can change the way people interact despite not speaking or reading the same language. Everyone understands that we must protect the Earth, even if we don't all speak the same language.

Implementation is just as important as awareness and education. The first step in solving problems is raising awareness, then educating the population on the issues and possible solutions, but I think implementation needs to happen a lot more often, and at lower levels. I think that when children and teens are taught about conservation, and other science (or even social problems) problems, they should also set out to complete a real world project, testing possible solutions to problems. These projects can range from keeping track of their carbon footprint, planting trees, or even as far as highschool students lobbying to their state representatives to fight for harsher laws against disrupting the environment, and more focus on green energy and conservation.

I think it's incredibly important to always keep the "big picture" in mind when practicing conservation biology. We all have the same goal of preserving diverse life on Earth, and preventing it's harm and extinction. When little things get in the way, it's important to remember why we work to persevere diverse life on this planet.

I think this is an interesting thing to point out, that the two major components to protection are identifying the causes of harm, and the places the protection needs to take place. But these two things are far from equal, it's easy enough to find the places animals or plants are going endangered, it's another thing to then identify, and combat the issues. Combating the causes of extinction and endangerment is something incredibly hard, and controversial to do.

I think this is an extremely important thing to focus on, and to educate about. People seem to have the wrong idea on what extinction truly means, especially for plants and pollinator species like bees. Loosing these food sources are permanent, and will change the face of the earth. I think it would be a good start to do as we have talked about in previous classes and start early with educating children on what extinction means, and why we must preserve natural habitats for both plants and animals. Yes, we talk about how our kids will not get to see Polar Bears, but we should also talk about how our kids may not have enough food to feed their families because of the way we are driving plant live and pollinators to dangerous levels of endangerment.

Bird's are super cool (and not at all controlled by the government)

everytime a wildfire is shown on the news I can't help but think about the Birds. It makes sense that due to their ability to fly, that they can persist and move easier than other species. A bear isn't going to out run a fire, but a bird may out fly it. Although birds do have an easier traveling ability, I still think it's wrong to over look them in terms of caring for and rescuing animals after habitat destruction. Yes, birds are able to fly away, but they are still meant for a specific habitat and just escaping does not ensure surviving and certainly does not ensure thriving.

It's not surprising to me that like most other things on Earth, fire moves in a predictable way. Satellite sensors are a great thing, and I hope that studying the way fire moves throughout a landscape can help us to put up preventative measures in high risk places, like out in California, where people are always devastated by wild fires. Perhaps with a deeper understanding of how fire moves, we can put in place systems to catch a wild fire right as it begins, and if it is unable to be put out, then to contain and redirect it. I know fire fighters already do this, but it would be cool if we eventually could develop ways to do this what were unlikely to fail, and that would ensure people living in high risk places did not have to fear for their homes or property.

I'd never considered before that the primary route of escape for animals from hot weather would be to move upwards. Like humans, many animals cannot just live at extremely high elevations. Tropical lowland biodiversity will have no choice but to adapt to climate change, or move, and if they cannot move upwards, where can they go?

I wonder if it is possible to control environment factors in remote areas, or capture species that are at risk for extinction and place them in man made biomes suited for them to combat extinction.Unlike a zoo though, these would focus on keeping the animals and plants placed their alive in the closest to their natural habitat as possible, rather than a viewing show.

It's crazy to think about all the species of plants that died off prior to botanists being able to record them. Goats especially are known to eat a lot, I can't imagine them ever being a good idea to place onto an Island ecosystem. It's not surprising the damage they did not St. Helena, considering they needed plants to eat, and those plants were not suitable to sustain the goats. I would imagine that mistakes like these wouldn't be made today, but it makes sense that in 1513, scientists didn't know enough to anticipate what would happen by introducing Goats.

I think that is an important lesson in Conservation: anticipate everything. We can know the way things on Earth are heading based on the past, and we can use that to make predictions for how to best support our environment.

This is not shocking. A forest isn't destroyed in one night. I think having this knowledge is important, because many people will see a ruined, or torn down forest, and see the atrocity of it, yet they turned a blind eye to said forest just weeks ago when the animals were being hunted to endangerment, and where the ecosystem is already suffering. People won't just cut down a forest without first stealing all of it's resources.

I think there should be transparency when it comes to the impact people are having on ecosystems like forests. Like, for instance, if it is permitted that humans harvest trees or hunt specific animals in a region, they should have to also provide metrics (perhaps monthly) of what they have take from the land, what remains, and if they have a plan for replanting trees, or protecting animals from over hunting and plants from over harvesting.

I'm curious about this part. Is there a reason most habitat fragmentation studies have been happening at the fragment level, and not at the whole level?

If it is necessary to compare "whole" landscapes, what are the barriers presenting more of these comparison studies from happening? and what fixes can we make to easily study these landscapes.

We know so little about life at the depths of the ocean. It is sad to me that people see the ocean as inexhaustible due to its vast size. Overfishing is a serious problem, not to mention that we are doing more than just overfishing: we're polluting and destroying habitats and ecosystems as we fish.

Combating climate change needs to house solutions to problems such as over fishing and plastic pollution as well. Losing the health of our oceans will cost far more damage and hard ship and cutting the production of plastic bottles will.

This is staggering to me. Nearly half of the forests on Earth are gone. This is an important number for people to hear, especially those who aren't aware of the detrimental issue of deforestation.

Sometimes I like to think about what my local area may look like had it not been stripped of its natural habitat.

I often hear the argument against man made climate change in the form of "the earth goes through cycles, and will eventually cool off and lead to another ice age." To this, I think things such as deforestation can be used as evidence for man made changes to the climate.

Yes, the Earth will enter a cooling cycle again, yet no one would be cutting down the trees and forests if it weren't for humans, and no one would be burning fossil fuels at an alarming rate if it weren't for humans.

I think the United States, and the rest of the world, has a responsibility to preserve the remaining natural lands on Earth. Yes, the United States has established many National Parks, but there are still so many areas that need protecting, and habitats that are at risk of human destruction. I feel like deforestation can be used to educate people on the human impact to our climate, and as a way to battle climate change by protecting our remaining lands and instead funding clean energy, and construction projects that can coexist with nature.

This is something I've known for ever, but I have never, ever thought of. It's very cool to me how intricate and intertwined the Earth is, to the point where if decomposition did not happen, we would be littered with dead bodies and garbage. When decomposition was first introduced to me as a child, I never fully understood that bodies didn't just decompose because they were dead, but because of small organisms that do the job for us, so we can have a healthy planet. Things like that, that function to keep the earth clean and free of bacteria from dead bodies littering the streets is amazing to me.

I have always wondered how scientists could accurately tell how many extinct forms of life wandered the earth before us. I knew that we used fossils to understand the anatomy of creatures before us, but I have always been curious how scientists could figure out other parts of an old species, such as their fur, or behaviors or lifespan.

It's pretty interesting to me that one of the ways we can tell how related a species is to one another (and in turn, discover secrets to how their evolutionary process took place) but the make up of their genetic composition. It's evidence of evolution like this that should be more widely taught to non-science based people, maybe if people had a deeper understanding of these processes from an early age, evolution wouldn't be such a debate.

This feels like the bare minimum we can do for indigenous people in North America. They've suffered genocide, and the loss of their natural land. Conserving it and protecting the remaining land from further development is a moral responsibility

This stuck out to me. I agree, that those who are knowledgeable and aware of what is happening in the world have the responsibility to speak up and help to preserve the natural diversity of the world, and to educate the population. Nothing would help if those who were educated on biodiversity didn't share the knowledge, and take it upon themselves to help shape the future of the earth.

I think this is an important quote from the reading. Biological processes like evolution always include diversity. This is an easy way to explain to someone why preserving biodiversity across the planet is so important: without diversity, the processes that make up the world as we know it can't operate as well as they should, or will falter.

This sticks out, because it feels true: people today find paper and pencil obsolete, and having a platform to express their thoughts like a blog can hep academic productivity.

This puts into perspective what a modern day student needs in terms of resources: the ability to learn how to control their Digital identity.