Ecological restoration typically seeks to shift species composition toward that of existing reference sites. Yet, comparing the assemblages in restored and reference habitats assumes that similarity to the reference habitat is the optimal outcome of restoration and does not provide a perspective on regionally rare off-site species. When no such reference assemblages of species exist, an accurat...

The study on importance of traditional practices in conservation of medicinal plants in West Usambara Mountains, Tanzania was conducted by using focus group discussions, interviews, participant observation, and botanical survey. Nine traditional practices for conservation of wild plants were identified as domestication; beliefs in sacredness of trees; beliefs in sacred forests; respect of cultu...

The genus Calendula belongs to tribe Calenduleae, (Asteraceae family). Itmorphologically studied for the ongoing project of the flora of Iran. Based on the herbarium studies and field observation, this genus has been revised. The study was based on fresh material from field as well as herbarium specimens. All specimens existed in the herbarium of Research Institute of...

Are we cutting down tropical forests too rapidly and too extensively? If so, why? Answers to both questions are obscured in some ways by insufficient and unreliable data on the economic worth of forest ecosystem services. It is clear, however, that rapid, excessive cutting of forests can irreversibly and substantively impair ecosystem functions, thereby endangering the flow of several socially ...

In spite of the high importance of forests, global forest loss has remained alarmingly high during the last decades. Forest loss at a global scale has been unveiled with increasingly finer spatial resolution, but the forest extent and loss in protected areas (PAs) and in large intact forest landscapes (IFLs) have not so far been systematically assessed. Moreover, the impact of protection on pre...

lations disproportionately have environmental risks while the wealthy and better educated gain disproportionately from protecting unique ecosystems. We test this hypothesis in an analysis of the decline of southern Appalachian spruce-$r forests. We calculate willingness-to-pay measures for forest protection through a contingent valuation survey. Survey respondents consider spruce-fir forest pro...