An Asian grass helps Mexican farmers build resilience to climate change

SAN ANDRES TUXTLA, Mexico —­­­­ “There are not many regions in Mexico that have been used for agriculture for about 4,000 years,” says environmentalist Antonio Carrillo as he walks along a dusty dirt road. It’s early morning in the Matacapan Valley in the state of Veracruz. The regular tropical rainfall and the fertile volcanic soil […]

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Overlooked and underfoot, mosses play a mighty role for climate and soil

It’s easy to miss the mosses, the ubiquitous green, silver and brown carpets that drape across nature’s surfaces, from forest to fen. It’s also easy to underestimate just how big a role these small but mighty organisms play in maintaining ecosystems and countering climate change. A recent study in the journal Nature Geoscience looked into […]

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Deforestation is pushing Amazon to ‘point of no return’: WWF report

river forestDeforestation is pushing the Amazon rainforest dangerously close to its tipping point, and the effects could soon be felt across the globe. A new report from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), called the Living Amazon Report, warns that threats to the Amazon have worsened in recent years, and could result in the disappearance of the […]

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Community-based seed banks in Nepal help conserve native species

Nepal seed bankMARAMCHE, NEPAL— The monsoon clouds that arrive in Nepal in the first week of June herald the start of the rice-planting season. The country’s hills, valleys and plains turn green as farmers take to their muddy fields to start sowing the crop that will feed them for the whole year. As most farmers turn to […]

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New restoration “Playbook” calls for political, economic, and social change

Toco toucan (Ramphastos toco). Photo credit: Rhett A. ButlerInternational forest and climate experts have released a “playbook” for ecosystem restoration with a set of 10 principles that they say, if followed, could be a game-changer. The Political Ecology Playbook, published in the journal Global Environmental Change, recognizes that issues such as climate change and forest loss are not just biophysical and environmental problems, […]

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