News from the Earth — biological diversity

The biodiversity of plants, animals, and microorganisms is key to providing the stability and balance needed to create resilient agroecosystems to address climate change. The same food and agricultural systems that conserve and regenerate biodiversity also mitigate global warming and contribute to good health and increased livelihoods through living and regenerative economies. Agroecology is based on a wide range of principles and includes several methods to work in harmony with nature and regenerate biodiversity through living seeds and soils, local food communities, without using chemicals derived from fossil fuels. Agroecological systems are designed to mimic natural processes and regenerate biodiversity in order...

Veganuary’s mission is to make the world a kinder, safer, happier place for all. After COP26’s failure to address animal agriculture’s contribution to the climate crisis, Veganuary – the global pledge to try vegan for 31 days – is urging people to take climate action into their own hands and try vegan this January. Climate change is at the forefront of everyone’s mind, and one key solution is at everyone’s fingertips – their fork. A recent survey found that six months after completing their one-month Veganuary challenge, 82% of those participants who were not vegan when they signed-up had maintained a dramatic reduction...

As we welcome in the new year, many are thinking about resolutions – for ourselves, our families, our health, our lifestyle. Now more than ever, it’s important to include the planet in our plans. 13 million deaths annually and nearly 25% of disease worldwide are due to environmental causes. Climate challenges impact health issues like asthma, cardiovascular disease and stroke. 1. Food. Buying food locally will support your area and its workers and decrease costs and environmental impacts of production, processing, packaging and transportation. Meat production destroys our environment by using massive amounts of water, polluting the air, emitting greenhouse gases and pulverizing natural wild habitats. Seafood should be...

Plastic production, and plastic rafts, have increased exponentially since the 1950s. Yet, the addition of a novel permanent or semi-permanent coastal biota component in the open ocean appears to have been overlooked. This oversight might be due to the relatively low amounts of plastic marine debris until recent decades, along with relatively few formal studies over the past 50 years on the rafting biology of high seas debris. Greater frequency and amounts of plastics on land, coupled with climate change-induced increases in coastal storm frequency ejecting more plastics into the ocean, will provide both more rafting material and coastal species...

Secondary forests are forests that regrow on their own after a piece of land has been cleared for human use, usually to plant crops or raise cattle.  An international team of more than 90 researchers considered how 12 different forest attributes recover by looking at 77 landscapes and 2,275 forest plots in the American and West African tropics , using a process called chronosequencing.  Soil can recover to 90% of its old-growth status in less than 10 years, plant function in less than 25 years, structure and biodiversity in 25 to 60 years and biomass and species composition in little over a century. However, overall...