Clik here to view.
Biodiversity needs more than just unwanted leftovers
The real measure of conservation progress, on land or in the sea, is how much biodiversity we save from threatening processes. – A new paper co-authored by Memorial University’s Dr Rodolphe Devillers...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Eye on the taiga
Dun! Dun, dun, dun! Dun, dun, dun! Dun, dun, daaaaah! I’ve waited nearly two years to do that, with possibly our best title yet for a peer-reviewed paper: Eye on the taiga: removing global policy...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Look at the whale (while we wipe out everything else)
Modified from Raeside (Victoria Times Colonist) I’ve tended to stay out of the ‘cetacean wars’ over the years because of the politics, emotions and vested interests involved, but I find it hard to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Western Australia’s moronic shark cull
A major media release today coordinated by Jessica Meeuwig in Western Australia makes the (obvious) point that there’s no biological justification to cull sharks. – 301 Australian and International...
View ArticleClik here to view.
It’s not all about cats
If you follow any of the environment news in Australia, you will most certainly have seen a lot about feral cats in the last few weeks. I’ve come across dozens of articles in the last week alone...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Using ecological theory to make more money
Let’s face it: Australia doesn’t have the best international reputation for good ecological management. We’ve been particularly loathsome in our protection of forests, we have an appalling record of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
When human society breaks down, wildlife suffers
Global human society is a massive, consumptive beast that on average degrades its life-support system. As we’ve recently reported, this will only continue to get worse in the decades to centuries to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Earth’s second lung has emphysema
Many consider forests as the ‘lungs’ of the planet – the idea that trees and other plants take up carbon and produce oxygen (the carbon and oxygen cycles). If we are to be fair though, the oceans store...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ice Age? No. Abrupt warmings and hunting together polished off Holarctic...
Did ice ages cause the Pleistocene megafauna to go extinct? Contrary to popular opinion, no, they didn’t. But climate change did have something to do with them, only it was global warming events...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Game bird madness
I just returned to Paris after a brief visit to the University of Aberdeen over the weekend. My hosts, Xavier Lambin and Beth Scott, were not only marvellously welcoming, I also learned a lot about the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Outright bans of trophy hunting could do more harm than good
In July 2015 an American dentist shot and killed a male lion called ‘Cecil’ with a hunting bow and arrow, an act that sparked a storm of social media outrage. Cecil was a favourite of tourists visiting...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Getting your conservation science to the right people
A perennial lament of nearly every conservation scientist — at least at some point (often later in one’s career) — is that the years of blood, sweat and tears spent to obtain those precious results...
View ArticleClik here to view.
No evidence climate change is to blame for Australian megafauna extinctions
Last July I wrote about a Science paper of ours demonstrating that there was a climate-change signal in the overall extinction pattern of megafauna across the Northern Hemisphere between about 50,000...
View ArticleClik here to view.
It’s not always best to be the big fish
Loosely following the theme of last week’s post, it’s now fairly well established that humans tend to pick on the big species first. From fewer big trees, declines of big carnivores, elephant &...
View ArticleClik here to view.
One-two carbon punch of defaunation
I’ve just read a well-planned and lateral-thinking paper in Nature Communications that I think readers of CB.com ought to appreciate. The study is a simulation of a complex ecosystem service that would...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Keeping India’s forests
I’ve just returned from a short trip to the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) in Bangalore, Karnataka, one of India’s elite biological research institutes. I was invited to give a series...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Inexorable rise of human population pressures in Africa
I’ve been a bit mad preparing for an upcoming conference, so I haven’t had a lot of time lately to blog about interesting developments in the conservation world. However, it struck me today that my...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Boreal forest on the edge of a climate-change tipping point
As some know, I dabble a bit in the carbon affairs of the boreal zone, and so when writer Christine Ottery interviewed me about the topic, I felt compelled to reproduce her article here (originally...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Two new postdoctoral positions in ecological network & vegetation modelling...
— With the official start of the new ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH) in July, I am pleased to announce two new CABAH-funded postdoctoral positions (a.k.a....
View ArticleGiving a monkey’s about primate conservation
Saving primates is a complicated business. Primates are intelligent, social animals that have complex needs. They come into conflict with humans when they raid rubbish bins and crops, chew power...
View Article