Posts tagged society
Climate change early warning system called for
Dec 3rd
Climate change has increased concern over possible large and rapid changes in the physical climate system, including Earth’s atmosphere, land surfaces and oceans, said Professor James White of CU-Boulder’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research and the chair of the National Research Council committee. Some abrupt changes and impacts already underway – including the loss of Arctic sea ice and increases in the extinction rates of marine and terrestrial species – and others could occur within a few decades or even years, said the committee.
“Research has helped us begin to distinguish more imminent threats from those that are less likely to happen this century,” said White, also a CU-Boulder professor in geological sciences. “Evaluating climate changes and impacts in terms of their potential magnitude and the likelihood they will occur will help policymakers and communities make informed decisions about how to prepare for or adapt to them.”
Other scenarios, such as the destabilization of the west Antarctic ice sheet, have potentially major consequences, but the probability of these changes occurring within the next century is not well understood, highlighting the need for more research, according to the committee.
In some cases, scientific understanding has progressed enough to determine whether certain high-impact climate changes are likely to happen within the next century. The report notes that a shutdown in the Atlantic Ocean circulation patterns or a rapid release of methane from high-latitude permafrost or undersea ice are now known to be unlikely this century, although these potential abrupt changes are still worrisome over longer time horizons.
But even changes in the physical climate system that happen gradually over many decades or centuries can cause abrupt ecological or socio-economic change once a “tipping point” is reached, the report adds. Relatively slow global sea-level rise could directly affect local infrastructure such as roads, airports, pipelines or subway systems if a sea wall or levee is breached. And slight increases in ocean acidity or surface temperatures could cross thresholds beyond which many species cannot survive, leading to rapid and irreversible changes in ecosystems that contribute to extinction events.
Further scientific research and enhanced monitoring of the climate, ecosystems and social systems may be able to provide information that a tipping point is imminent, allowing time for adaptation or possibly mitigation, or that a tipping point has recently occurred, the report says.
“Right now we don’t know what many of these thresholds are,” White said. “But with better information, we will be able to anticipate some major changes before they occur and help reduce the potential consequences.” The report identifies several research needs, such as identifying keystone species whose population decline due to an abrupt change would have cascading effects on ecosystems and ultimately on human provisions such as food supply.
If society hopes to anticipate tipping points in natural and human systems, an early warning system for abrupt changes needs to be developed, the report says. An effective system would need to include careful and vigilant monitoring, taking advantage of existing land and satellite systems and modifying them if necessary, or designing and implementing new systems when feasible. It would also need to be flexible and adaptive, regularly conducting and alternating between data collection, model testing and model predictions that suggest future data needs.
The study was sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Science Foundation, U.S. intelligence community, and the National Academies. The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council make up the National Academies. They are private, independent nonprofit institutions that provide science, technology, and health policy advice under a congressional charter granted to NAS in 1863. The National Research Council is the principal operating agency of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.
For more information and a copy of the report visit http://national-academies.org. For more information on INSTAAR visithttp://instaar.colorado.edu.
CU study: Conservation efforts might encourage some to hunt lions
Aug 26th
Further, some conservation initiatives including those designed to save lions from being hunted have either failed to work or in some cases appear to have incited Maasai to hunt more lions as a form of political protest, the researchers report.
Such nuances are important, because it’s harder to control the hunting of lions unless society knows precisely why lions are hunted, the researchers contend.
Many populations of Panthera leo—African lions—are falling, and the species is classified as “vulnerable” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources’ Red List.
Lion hunting is outlawed in Kenya and in Tanzania is limited to mostly tourists hunting with permits, unless the hunt is to eliminate a lion in defense of life or livestock. Still, lion hunting regularly occurs in both countries, usually without the hunters’ following the law.
“We saw an inaccurate representation of the exact reasons for why Maasai hunt lions, and we had a lot of ethnographic background to correct that,” said Mara J. Goldman, the assistant professor of geography at CU-Boulder who led the study.
Goldman collaborated with Joana Roque de Pinho, a postdoctoral researcher at the Instituto Superior de Ciencias Sociais e Politicas (Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, Portugal), and Jennifer Perry, a CU-Boulder geography alumna now studying law at the university.
Goldman and her fellow researchers conducted 246 in-depth interviews of Tanzanian and Kenyan Maasai between 2004 and 2008. They found that Maasai hunt lions for multiple overlapping reasons, some relating to predation on livestock and some not.
In some cases, Maasai said they hunted lions to prevent the potential killing of livestock, especially by lions that had killed livestock before, rather than just as retaliation.
And while Maasai still celebrate successful lion hunts and the prowess of the warriors who hunt, that cultural tradition can be less of a motivation to hunt than political discontent.
In Kenya, for instance, conservation programs aim to curb Maasai lion hunting by financially compensating Maasai for livestock killed by lions. In Tanzania, suggestions have been made by some to start such ‘compensation’ programs, but the Maasai themselves explain why this strategy has limitations:
“We cannot agree (to compensation) because we do not have cattle to be killed every day,” an elder Maasai told the researchers. “If they pay money today, then tomorrow, they will pay every day because the lion will keep coming back to eat cattle until all the cattle are gone. And then what will we do with the money?”
These sentiments were expressed in a village bordering the Manyara Ranch, a Tanzanian conservation trust on which hunting is prohibited but over which Maasai from neighboring villages are meant to share governance. In the beginning, the elders kept the warriors from hunting lions, the researchers found.
But after Maasai representation in ranch governance was diminished, the Maasai felt disenfranchised. Lion hunting increased in frequency and severity and was no longer discouraged by elders, the researchers said.
“We have no reason to follow the rules,” one elder told the researchers.
Goldman researches human-environment relations with the Tanzanian and Kenyan Maasai, one of the most recognizable ethnic groups in Africa, known for their distinctive, colorful dress and social customs, and most recently for their lion-hunting practices.
Although the primary motivations for lion hunting differed somewhat between Tanzania and Kenya, the researchers emphasize that Maasai have multiple, overlapping reasons to hunt lions: to reaffirm the protective role of young warriors, to help select brave leaders among warrior groups, to allow individual warriors to gain prestige, to eliminate lions that prey on livestock and to prevent lions from becoming habituated to eating livestock and sometimes harming people.
The multiple reasons illustrate the limitations of explaining Maasai lion hunting “as either a cultural manhood ritual or a retaliatory act,” the researchers write.
“Participatory conservation interventions that respect Maasai knowledge and promote full engagement with management processes are likely to have far better success in persuading Maasai to change or moderate such behaviors themselves,” the research team states, adding that “lion conservation projects rarely address such complex politics.”
Goldman, also a faculty research associate at CU-Boulder’s Institute of Behavioral Science, is the first author on the study that was recently published online in the journal Oryx and is scheduled to appear in the journal’s October print edition. The study is available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0030605312000907.
For more on this story, see Colorado Arts & Sciences Magazine at http://artsandsciences.colorado.edu/magazine.
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