Archive for the ‘restoration projects’ Tag

Growing a moss conservation conversation

I’ve been looking into our options for helping with moss conservation and, honestly, the list is about as long as moss is tall, which suggests that moss conservation really isn’t on many people’s radars at this point. Here’s what I did find- the Irish Peatland Conservation Council recommends gardening without using peat moss the Lancashire […]

If you give a moss a forestry rotation

As I mentioned in my previous post, mosses are very sensitive to changes in microclimate. Forestry practices can, therefore, have a big impact on moss diversity and persistence in any one location. Over the last few years we’ve gotten a better sense of the scale at which those management decisions affect local mosses. Researchers in […]

Go (help a reef) fish!

Over the last few weeks, I’ve described some of the big challenges facing reef fish and the coral reefs they inhabit- some of those issues are very big, such as the scale of climate change and ocean acidification, and some of those issues occur on a much smaller scale, such as when fishermen use cyanide […]

Regenerating a coral reef

In my last post I mentioned some of the challenges facing reefs and reef fish, particularly overexploitation and habitat degradation. Although these issues affect reef fish in different ways, they can work in tandem to intensify conservation problems. The good news is that we have better insight into how to lessen or even remove some […]

Combating the swamp of sadness

We know that wetlands around the world face big challenges: fragmentation, pollution, conversion, climate change, etc. But we also know that there are ways to combat these issues, and some of those options give us the chance to get directly involved in wetlands conservation. If you are looking for a way to participate, you’ve got […]

Getting the water just right

As I have mentioned in previous posts, wetlands around the world are disappearing, in part because of land use changes and climate change. We should all be concerned about these losses because wetlands provide a number of ecosystem services that benefit us all, services like water filtration, vital wildlife habitat, carbon sequestration (in the peat), […]

Carving out a piece of the pie

I started looking into research on wetland loss around the world and quickly discovered that a large portion of what’s been published is about the Gulf Coast, specifically Louisiana. I could write for days about the situation all around me, but I know that wetlands in many locations are in trouble, so I kept digging […]

Putting otters in the clear

I spent some time this week looking into ways to get involved in otter conservation, and I’ve found a number of activities which run the gamut from pressing a few buttons on your computer to spending some time hanging out in a stream. I’ve divided them up into several categories- hopefully you find something that […]

Removing obstacles for colonial seabirds

In my post last week I talked about three of the big challenges facing colonial seabirds: habitat loss, invasive species, and changing food resources. I spent the last few days reading about ways to combat these problems, plus gaining insight on other issues related to seabird survival. The good news is that we are continually […]

Getting our hands dirty

Although some plant species are doing very well around the world (sometimes to the point of becoming invasive), other species are losing ground. In some cases there are focused recovery plans, but oftentimes the issue of habitat loss trumps our best efforts to sustain these populations. So how can we contribute to both habitat availability […]