Satellites are tracing Europe's forest fire scars
...ar for forest fires, with more than half a million hectares of woodland destroyed across Mediterranean Europe. So far this year fresh fires have occurred across Portugal, Spain and southern France, with 2500 people evacuated from blazes in foothills north of Marseille. According to the European Commission, ea...Eastern lowland gorilla population plummets 70 percent since 1994
...ill increase the protection of more than 3 million hectares in the region, which contains roughly 97 percent of the distribution and population of the eastern lowland gorilla. The region, known as the Maiko Tayna Kahuzi-Biega Landscape, contains a high degree of biological richness and species endemism. Altho...New Seascape initiative stretches from Costa Rica to Ecuador and protects key marine habitats
...tern Tropical Pacific Seascape, covers 211 million hectares (521 million acres) and extends from Costa Rica's Cocos Island National Park to Ecuador's Galapagos Island National Park and Marine Reserve. Along the way, the Seascape helps link marine protected areas in Panama and Colombia, safeguards an important...Philippines: Park expansion creates nation's largest contiguous protected area
...oyo signed a decree expanding Peablanca from 4,136 hectares to more than 118,000 hectares. The decree connects...rea larger than Switzerland that stretches 476,588 hectares (1.2 million acres). The combined reserves are home to 28 Threatened vertebrate species including t...Madagascar to triple areas under protection
...network of areas under protection from 1.7 million hectares to 6 million hectares over the next five years. Under the plan, the government will expand its terrestrial coverage from ...State of Amazonas safeguards world's richest biodiversity with six new protected areas
...on of six new protected areas covering 3.8 million hectares of the world's most biodiversity-rich territory. The new areas cover a region the size of Belgium or Costa Rica and bring the state's overall protected area coverage to more than 40 percent. Amazona's Secretary of Sustainable Development and the Envi......vacuated and roads closed. So far this week 4,500 hectares of trees and scrubland have been destroyed and on ...rea. The French Interior Ministry estimates 54,000 hectares of woodland have been destroyed nationwide this year, the worst record for 15 years. The CHRIS sens...Forest preservation work turns to Carolina hemlock
...ment agencies, the cooperative has more than 2,500 hectares of conservation banks and field trials, and maintains the largest database in the world on tropical and subtropical pines. Since its founding, CAMCORE has worked with 38 different forest species, and collected seed in nearly 400 locations and from m...Burning forests speedily space-mapped for fire fighters
...tart across Europe every year, with half a million hectares of woodland lost in the Mediterranean region alone. The European Commission estimates the cost of every hectare burnt equals between a thousand and 5000 Euros. Satellite data are used for compiling forest fire risk indices as well as damage mapping, ...New owl species discovered in Brazil
...than 1,400 parcels most of which are less than 100 hectares (247 acres) and are surrounded by agricultural and urban development. "Pernambuco Center is the most critical bio-geographical region in all of the Atlantic Forest," said Luiz Paulo Pinto, Conservation International's Director for the Atlantic Fores...Indonesia pledges to double marine protected areas to 10-million hectares
...reas over the next three years to cover 10-million hectares of some the most biodiversity-rich sea on the planet, the countrys Minister of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, Dr. Rokhmin Dahuri, said this week. The announcement came at the conclusion of Defying Oceans End, an international marine conservation con...Potato-related plant species exhaust potato cyst nematode
...he plant is only being cultivated on a few hundred hectares on a trial basis. Potato growers will only be able to use the crop on a large scale once the growing conditions under which this Latin-American plant is most effective have been determined. Research must also demonstrate that the plant will not affec...Science picksLeads, feeds and story seeds (December 2002)
...ldings and around 8 miles of highway and added 220 hectares (544 acres) to the island's southern shore. Kilauea is Hawaii's youngest volcano and one of the most active. USGS scientists keep a watchful eye on this incredibly active volcano 24 hours a day. Vivid color images and current information are availa...US government commits $36 million to protect Congo's forests
...that aims to support a network of up to 10 million hectares (24,710,000 acres) of effectively managed national parks and protected areas and up to 20 million hectares (49,420,000 acres) of well-managed multiple use forests, while promoting economic development, pover...Plant detectives seek sources of invasive trees
...ant invasion that has taken over more than 600,000 hectares of U.S. wetlands and riparian areas, report the au...o spread across the U.S. at a rate of about 18,000 hectares per year, displacing other species and altering the hydrology of watercourses in fragile, arid envir...Ecology and conservation of fragmented tropical forests
...ll fragments may be rapid, larger fragments of 100 hectares or more retain their diversity much longer, enabling us to take steps towards restoration before losses become irreversible. William Laurance described the rapid changes in forest composition that take place in small forest fragments, based on data c...Guyana establishes its first conservation concession
... gives CI the right to manage approximately 81,000 hectares (200,000 acres) of pristine forests in the southern Guyana region, in order to maintain the area in a pristine state and secure the environmental services it provides. Guyana's President Bharrat Jagdeo endorsed the agreement, after CI President Russ...New witchweed-fighting method, presented by CIMMYT and Weizmann Institute scientist
...re the weed infests approximately 20 to 40 million hectares of farmland cultivated by poor farmers and is resp...asite. In Kenya alone it severely infests 150,000 hectares of land (76 percent of the farmland in Western Kenya), causing an estimated annual crop loss valued ...Sea level rise threatens marshes in Chesapeake and Delaware Bays
...ast. Georgia and South Carolina alone have 300,000 hectares [1,000 square miles] of coastal marshes. Widesprea...the potential collapse of hundreds of thousands of hectares [thousands of square miles] of coastal marshes in the coming decades could have a significant effect...