I find this statement pretty interesting. Obviously we will never have a full picture of biodiversity levels probably ever at a single time period as there still much to explore. We have only explored 10 percent of the ocean for example. One thing I did not really remember being mentioned is the role that fossils can have in seeing the biodiversity of the past.

I think it is pretty awesome to think about all the collaboration that takes place in the conservation world, people from all walks of life take part. Without the knowledge and skill set of one of these fields conservation biology would not be complete.

if you want to learn more about their current projects, their website is very insightful. They are still an active leader in biodiversity conservation to this day.

https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/biodiversity#1

This study is a pretty interesting one. Study like these promote more urban planning when it comes to green areas.

I think this very interesting. I kind of agree that we should focus more on where the main population is but the loss of genetic diversity, especially to an endangered species, but in this situation the species is not endangered. The only reason maryland is considering it endangered is because of human made borders.

Why over half of the flagship species birds? Meanwhile all the other ones are such a small percentage that they are just briefly mentioned.

I find this figure pretty interesting. You can see many of sites are are on islands or coast lines. Very few sites inland.

always comes down to the economics. I was interested in conservations role in different global agreements and found this.

"Article 5 of the Paris Climate Agreement calls on governments to take action to conserve and enhance forests. The agreement explicitly recognizes “REDD+” as part of the final package (REDD means Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, with the “+” referring to the role of forest conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks). The REDD+ accords, which had been previously agreed among the Parties (see Warsaw below), are designed to incentivize developing countries to leave their forests standing. The inclusion of REDD+ in the Paris Agreement provides a powerful political and economic signal that forests are a part of the solution"

We can come together as a global and agree to these standards but cannot "police" them into happening. governments do not want to spend the money into conservation especially when it is their main economic source

I think a good thing to take note of from this diagram is how many of these templates include the amazon yet we are destroying it at such a fast rate. Sad to see.

interesting related article that talks about how the amazon ecosystem could collapse within our lifetime

https://www.ecowatch.com/amazon-rainforest-collapse-2649776959.html#:~:text=The%20study's%20models%20predict%20that,open%20savanna%2C%20Science%20Alert%20reported.

imagine how much of the frontier forest will be left at the rate we are destroying the amazon

In Climate, Risk and Adaptation we recently talked about albedo and the effect it is having on the climate. I think it is a pretty interesting and key concept to understand when it comes to climate change. https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Albedo#:~:text=Climate%20Change,-The%20Earth's%20climate&text=As%20the%20world%20warms%20the,and%20more%20to%20be%20absorbed.

Important key point. Kind of curious if there has ever been an invasive species that has lead to no impacts on the habitat. "can lead to" makes me think that there has been but you really never hear about them if they do exist

is fish farming more sustainable than regular fishing? I have not really explored much about fish farming in any of my other classes

I was curious to see how much national parks conserve in area compared to the general US. Many articles have various answers but I found this statement interesting, "this area is 14% of the total land area of the US and a tenth of the world’s protected land area." That statistic count NP as well as state and local conservation areas.

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-percentage-of-the-area-of-the-united-states-is-protected-land.html

This reminds me with what happened with the native wolves of isle royale national park in UP of Michigan. Due to such low numbers in population it lead to loss of genetic variation.

I think this an important thing to remember and think about.

what are the negative effects of the wind energy farms?

I find this statement to pretty exciting as it seems conservation is a pretty new field of science with lots to explore and learn about.