conservation
'Environmental pollution becoming threat'
Posted on: 9 February 2012 - 3:41pmDescribing the theme of the seminar, research associate, IGTPS, Avinash Kumar Srivastava said: The conflict between man and nature has reached a disastrous position. The scope of this crisis is especially destructive as far as its consequences for our developing world are concerned. Our endeavour should be to go in for comprehensive planning, eliminate pollutants of poverty, reconcile the requirement of development and conservation and use the natural resources for the greatest number for the greatest happiness.
Conserving wetlands–through green architecture
Posted on: 6 February 2012 - 1:46pmGREEN architecture has become a buzzword among property owners and developers.
True advocates of this movement equate green architecture with sustainability. For them, it involves construction designs that are energy efficient and environmentally sensitive.
In the Philippines, a group of university students are using the concept of green architecture in their campaign to promote wetlands conservation.
The Coral Triangle Book: A Photo Essay
Posted on: 3 November 2011 - 5:15pm
The Coral Triangle is a 272-page book that showcases the people, places, and marine ecosystems that make this region truly remarkable. Published by ADB and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the book documents an 18-month expedition by award-winning photographer Jürgen Freund and Stella-Chiu Freund.
Coral Triangle - The Amazon of the Seas - is at Risk
Posted on: 3 November 2011 - 5:08pmThe Coral Triangle covers 5.7 million square kilometers of ocean waters in Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea (PNG), Philippines, Solomon Islands, and Timor-Leste. The area is considered as the global center of tropical marine diversity, supporting the highest number of species of coral reef fishes, and turtles. The mangrove forests, coral reefs, and coastal and offshore waters are the most species-rich in the tropics.
These resources are at immediate risk from a range of factors, including the impacts of climate change, over-fishing, unsustainable fishing methods, and land-based sources of pollution.
Coral Triangle Communities Get Support for New Green Businesses
Posted on: 3 November 2011 - 5:00pmMANILA, PHILIPPINES – Coastal communities in remote areas of the Coral Triangle in Indonesia and the Philippines will receive Asian Development Bank (ADB) support to start small, green businesses that will help preserve one of the most diverse and threatened marine environments in the world.
A $2 million grant from the Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction, administered by ADB, will help poor fishing households in Berau District in East Kalimantan, Indonesia and Balabac in Palawan, the Philippines, identify, establish and operate eco-friendly businesses that could potentially include seaweed culture, fish processing, boat transport services and livestock rearing.
Habitat cleared in carbon sink forest
Posted on: 11 July 2011 - 2:50pmA forest in Oddar Meanchey province is facing environmental “disaster” after thousands of people destroyed up to 1,000 hectares of natural habitat, putting revenues from a carbon credit scheme worth tens of millions of dollars at risk.
Proceeds from a United Nations-backed Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation scheme are said to be in danger after waves of settlers destroyed parts of the forest in Samroang district, chief of the Romdoul Veasna community forest programme, Malis Hoeuth, said yesterday.
Vietnam faces difficulties in biodiversity conservation
Posted on: 11 July 2011 - 11:22amBiodiversity conservation in Vietnam is facing difficulties when the number of threatened species is increasing and their living environment worsening, according to Vietnam's latest National Environment Report 2010 released by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MNRE) Wednesday.
The report said in the 2007 national Red Data Book, 418 species of animals and 464 species of plants were categorized as threatened.
Center opens to protect rare turtle in Cambodia
Posted on: 10 June 2011 - 3:45pm
SAMBOUR, Cambodia – An extremely rare soft-shell turtle species has a new, protected home in Cambodia.
The critically endangered Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle is one of the rarest freshwater turtles in the world. Scientists last saw one in the Cambodian wild in 2003, and small numbers have been seen in neighboring Laos, while it appears to have disappeared from Vietnam and Thailand.
U.S.-based Conservation International said it opened the Mekong Turtle Conservation Center on Wednesday in Kratie province, 100 miles (160 kilometers) northeast of Phnom Penh.
The Last Stand of the Gorilla - Environmental Crime and Confict in the Congo Basin
Posted on: 6 June 2011 - 3:14pmGorillas, the largest of the great apes, are under renewed threat across the Congo Basin from Nigeria to the Albertine Rift: poaching for bushmeat, loss of habitat due to agricultural expansion, degradation of habitat from logging, mining and charcoal production are amongst these threats, in addition to natural epidemics such as ebola and the new risk of diseases passed from humans to gorillas.
Designing Payments for Watershed Protection Services of Philippine Upland Dwellers
Posted on: 2 June 2011 - 11:44amThe forest is home to a large, marginalized sector of Philippine society composed of both migrant and indigenous dwellers. They constitute about 20 million or 25% of total population and are generally considered the poorest of the poor. The attraction of the forests to the poor has partly to do with the lack of livelihood opportunities in the lowlands and partly with the numerous goods and services the forests provide for free. If properly managed by the upland dwellers, the forests can provide society with both use values such as timber and non-timber products, beautiful landscapes, recreation and hydrological services and non-use values like climate regulation, carbon sequestration and biodiversity. The offsite beneficiaries of these services are the downstream industries and residents who are normally better off in economic standing than the upland dwellers but who do not pay for the external benefits they derive.
In recent decades, there has been a growing interest among resource decision-makers in developing countries in market-based instruments (MBI) as a strategy to address the twin goals of resource management and poverty alleviation. This development is attributed to the poor performance of command and control policies in resource management in the absence of complementation from market-based instruments (MBI). A recent and innovative MBI that is gaining importance globally is payment or compensation for environmental services (PES). PES seeks to promote forest conservation activities by recognizing and compensating forest owners or dwellers for the environmental services they provide and making the beneficiaries of these services pay for them. The basic idea in PES is to create a market for environmental services by linking together the providers and users of these services and creating incentives to both groups to protect the integrity of the forests.
