Satellite observations identify the Mongolian steppes as a hotspot of global biomass reduction, the extent of which is comparable with tropical rainforest deforestation. To conserve or restore these grasslands, the relative contributions of climate and human activities to degradation need to be understood. Here we use a recently developed 21-year (1988-2008) record of satellite based vegetation...

Nations will reaffirm their commitment to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions during the 26th United Climate Change Conference (COP26; www.ukcop26.org), in Glasgow, Scotland, November 2021. Revision of national commitments play a key role defining future Earth’s climate. In past conferences, main target Amazonian nations was reduce resulting from land-use change and land management by commi...

Tropical deforestation is a significant cause of global carbon emissions and biodiversity loss. A new study shows that deforestation today leaves a carbon and biodiversity debt to be paid over subsequent years. This has potentially profound implications for forest conservation.

The course examines natural resource issues affecting developing countries, and explores the impacts on communities, households, their decisions, and their health. Key resource use issues include water use (drinking, sanitation, and irrigation), agriculture (intensification, pesticide use, and land degradation), fuel wood scarcity, deforestation, conservation, and mining. For each of these issu...

Tropical forests are undergoing land use change in many regions of the world, including the African continent. Human populations living close to forest margins fragmented and disturbed by deforestation may be particularly exposed to zoonotic infections because of the higher likelihood for humans to be in contact with disease reservoirs. Quantitative analysis of the nexus between deforestation a...

Deforestation causes habitat loss, fragmentation, degradation, and can ultimately cause extinction of the remnant species. Tropical montane birds face these threats with the added natural vulnerability of narrower elevational ranges and higher specialization than lowland species. Recent studies assess the impact of present and future global climate change on species' ranges, but only a few of t...

The forest soils are the key parts of the Earth system that are globally degraded through anthrop induced deforestation, mainly converting to other landuses. The present study was conducted in Gazafolya village located in Merek watershed, Kermanshah, Iran, in which the soil quality of the forest and converted forest (rainfed lands) with the same topographic and geologic conditions were compared...

Land-cover change is a major component of global change (Foley et al., 2005). Many forms of land-cover change, such as deforestation and urbanization, are directly associated with land use. Other land-cover changes, such as melting of permafrost, may be indirectly associated with human activity via anthropogenically induced climate change. Further changes in land cover, such as the expansion of...

Halving carbon emissions from tropical deforestation by 2020 could help bring the international community closer to the agreed goal of <2 degree increase in global average temperature change and is consistent with a target set last year by the governments, corporations, indigenous peoples' organizations and non-governmental organizations that signed the New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF). W...