Aoraki Mount Cook: Environmental Change on an Iconic Mountaineering Route

Cherry trees in Mount Cook National Park

Climate change fears mount over target disappointments

A US-led six-nation pact to develop clean energy technologies and combat global warming was launched last month with its members denying it was designed to undermine the Kyoto protocol on emission reductions. But without targets for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, many researchers were disappointed. And the announcement came as new evidence suggests several species of north Atlantic bir...

Extreme temperatures, foundation species, and abrupt ecosystem change: an example from an iconic seagrass ecosystem.

Extreme climatic events can trigger abrupt and often lasting change in ecosystems via the reduction or elimination of foundation (i.e., habitat-forming) species. However, while the frequency/intensity of extreme events is predicted to increase under climate change, the impact of these events on many foundation species and the ecosystems they support remains poorly understood. Here, we use the i...

First approaches towards modelling glacial hazards in the Mount Cook region of New Zealand’s Southern Alps

Flood and mass movements originating from glacial environments are particularly devastating in populated mountain regions of the world, but in the remote Mount Cook region of New Zealand’s Southern Alps minimal attention has been given to these processes. Glacial environments are characterized by high mass turnover and combined with changing climatic conditions, potential problems and process i...

10 Years of Environmental Change on the Slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro and Its Associated Shift in Malaria Vector Distributions

INTRODUCTION Malaria prevalence has declined in the Kilimanjaro region of Tanzania over the past 10 years, particularly at lower altitudes. While this decline has been related to the scale-up of long-lasting insecticidal nets to achieve universal coverage targets, it has also been attributed to changes in environmental factors that are important for enabling and sustaining malaria transmission....