conservation

The next time you turn on the tap, chances are the water came from a local National Forest. National Forests provide drinking water for about 60 million Americans nationwide and about 15 percent of the nation’s freshwater runoff. This clean water is worth an estimated net value of $27 billion annually.

Recognizing that forests can contribute to sustainable development, poverty eradication and internationally agreed upon development goals, the United Nations declared this year—"International Year of Forests." The United Nations is set to meet in New York City later this month to announce why forests matter. And meet they should, as forests face off against the double whammy of humanity’s insatiable demand for wood products coupled with climate dis

My extended family tells me they're getting a little depressed about hearing all the bad things that might happen from global warming. So I guess it's time to point out that maybe it's not as bleak as it seems. Here's the good news. We live in a world that, despite the unwitting impacts of humanity, is still in pretty good shape.

As mentioned in last week's blog post, in Peru's Parque de la Papa-the Potato Park-, the Quechuan farmers maintain some 1200 varieties of potatoes named in their own language. Farmers are particularly attentive to the effects of climate change on the micro-habitats where each potato variety can be planted. Quechuan Ricardo Paco Chipa says his father constantly reminds him that the elevation distributions of potatoes today are far different than those that were common when he first farmed a half century ago.