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What Fabi Learned Today
Jan. 12th, 2009 09:41 pmMy reward for finally getting registered for unemployment benefits (I needed to wait until after the first of the year so they weren't calculating it based on the terrible pay I was getting in California rather than the better pay I got in Massachusetts and Virginia) was to attend part of a symposium on the Tropical Rain Forest at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.
Apparently, the symposium had not been advertised within the government correctly, so they admitted Resident Associates for free in order to get bums on seats.
Among the things I learned:
The best Brazilian Cacao beans are grown in the shade of old growth Capruca (sic?) trees. Most of this old growth canopy has been stripped in Bahia, so it's important to encourage the chocolate growers in order to prevent the remaining area from being deforested.
Baird Auditorium is roughly circular and sits right under the Rotunda. Occasionally, we could hear the elephant trumpet recording through the speakers.
Statistically, mammals are a tiny part of the world's fauna.
For every insect species that goes extinct, 7.1 bird species reach extinction. It sounds wrong to me, but the speaker had graphs. I will look up the information and see if I misunderstood.
Regrown and secondary forests will repopulate most quickly with birds and bats. The longer they are allowed to exist, the closer their biodiversity comes to resembling primary growth forest. 90% of the biodiversity of a primary old growth forest can be seen in secondary growth forests within 20 years, although many of the species are saplings or smaller.
Protecting secondary growth forests will help preserve biodiversity.
The palms for palm oil are not secondary growth and limit biodiversity tremendously.
Biodiversity seems to be better served in countries subscribing to the UN-REDD than those encouraging biofuels. This is because the primary biofuel used is made from palm oil, so old growth forests are being destroyed to put up palm oil plantations. REDD allows the oxygen preservation of the old growth forest to be counted toward a country's total emission profile.
The bushmeat trade is thriving in North America as well as Asia. Most mammals who are endangered in Africa and Asia are victims of the rise in the demand for bushmeat in foreign urban centers.
Indigenous human populations tend to hunt smaller game in lower numbers and rarely go after endangered species.
Successful programs to counteract the bushmeat trade have been implemented in the Congo by educating the local population and strict enforcement of an export ban, in Cameroon by monitoring the supply line and enforcing existing laws, and in Malaysia by educating the urban consumers of bushmeat.
Many of the rainforests have been more denuded than we thought. Only recently has satellite imagery allowed scientists to distinguish features in the canopy sufficiently to tell that "select logging" has created small gaps in what used to look like unbroken canopy. In some areas of the Amazon basin, as much as 20% more forest is gone than previously thought.
One logging road opened through an old growth area can drive local mammal species to extinction because the ease of getting the meat out encourages larger kills both in terms of the animal's size and the number of animals killed.
Technically, a forest is 10% of a hectare land covered by trees over two meters tall. By that standard, parts of DC are forest. Many conservationists are trying to get the UN definition changed to 30%.
Among the upgrades to hunting, more animals are being killed with shotguns than rifles. Automatic weaponry is also popular. The one that disgusted me is people are now hunting tigers by putting a monkey out as bait next to a landmine. Yes, landmines are being used to hunt.
Please understand, I'm not against hunting. I have relatives who wouldn't have survived the Great Depression without a garden and a rifle to provide them with food. I also understand that some large animals, the big cats especially, may become man-eaters. In that case, take them out any way you can. But the fact is, most people don't eat tiger. If you want the pretty pelt, a landmine seems like a bad choice, too. Hunting just for the sake of killing baffles me.
Apparently, the symposium had not been advertised within the government correctly, so they admitted Resident Associates for free in order to get bums on seats.
Among the things I learned:
The best Brazilian Cacao beans are grown in the shade of old growth Capruca (sic?) trees. Most of this old growth canopy has been stripped in Bahia, so it's important to encourage the chocolate growers in order to prevent the remaining area from being deforested.
Baird Auditorium is roughly circular and sits right under the Rotunda. Occasionally, we could hear the elephant trumpet recording through the speakers.
Statistically, mammals are a tiny part of the world's fauna.
For every insect species that goes extinct, 7.1 bird species reach extinction. It sounds wrong to me, but the speaker had graphs. I will look up the information and see if I misunderstood.
Regrown and secondary forests will repopulate most quickly with birds and bats. The longer they are allowed to exist, the closer their biodiversity comes to resembling primary growth forest. 90% of the biodiversity of a primary old growth forest can be seen in secondary growth forests within 20 years, although many of the species are saplings or smaller.
Protecting secondary growth forests will help preserve biodiversity.
The palms for palm oil are not secondary growth and limit biodiversity tremendously.
Biodiversity seems to be better served in countries subscribing to the UN-REDD than those encouraging biofuels. This is because the primary biofuel used is made from palm oil, so old growth forests are being destroyed to put up palm oil plantations. REDD allows the oxygen preservation of the old growth forest to be counted toward a country's total emission profile.
The bushmeat trade is thriving in North America as well as Asia. Most mammals who are endangered in Africa and Asia are victims of the rise in the demand for bushmeat in foreign urban centers.
Indigenous human populations tend to hunt smaller game in lower numbers and rarely go after endangered species.
Successful programs to counteract the bushmeat trade have been implemented in the Congo by educating the local population and strict enforcement of an export ban, in Cameroon by monitoring the supply line and enforcing existing laws, and in Malaysia by educating the urban consumers of bushmeat.
Many of the rainforests have been more denuded than we thought. Only recently has satellite imagery allowed scientists to distinguish features in the canopy sufficiently to tell that "select logging" has created small gaps in what used to look like unbroken canopy. In some areas of the Amazon basin, as much as 20% more forest is gone than previously thought.
One logging road opened through an old growth area can drive local mammal species to extinction because the ease of getting the meat out encourages larger kills both in terms of the animal's size and the number of animals killed.
Technically, a forest is 10% of a hectare land covered by trees over two meters tall. By that standard, parts of DC are forest. Many conservationists are trying to get the UN definition changed to 30%.
Among the upgrades to hunting, more animals are being killed with shotguns than rifles. Automatic weaponry is also popular. The one that disgusted me is people are now hunting tigers by putting a monkey out as bait next to a landmine. Yes, landmines are being used to hunt.
Please understand, I'm not against hunting. I have relatives who wouldn't have survived the Great Depression without a garden and a rifle to provide them with food. I also understand that some large animals, the big cats especially, may become man-eaters. In that case, take them out any way you can. But the fact is, most people don't eat tiger. If you want the pretty pelt, a landmine seems like a bad choice, too. Hunting just for the sake of killing baffles me.
