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New Perspectives In Ecosystem Services Science As Instruments To Understand Environmental Securities, Ferdinando Villa, Brian Voigt, Jon D. Erickson
New Perspectives In Ecosystem Services Science As Instruments To Understand Environmental Securities, Ferdinando Villa, Brian Voigt, Jon D. Erickson
Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications
As societal demand for food, water and other life-sustaining resources grows, the science of ecosystem services (ES) is seen as a promising tool to improve our understanding, and ultimately the management, of increasingly uncertain supplies of critical goods provided or supported by natural ecosystems. This promise, however, is tempered by a relatively primitive understanding of the complex systems supporting ES, which as a result are often quantified as static resources rather than as the dynamic expression of human-natural systems. This article attempts to pinpoint the minimum level of detail that ES science needs to achieve in order to usefully inform …
Shade Coffee: Update On A Disappearing Refuge For Biodiversity, Shalene Jha, Christopher M. Bacon, Stacy M. Philpott, V. Ernesto Méndez, Peter Läderach, Robert A. Rice
Shade Coffee: Update On A Disappearing Refuge For Biodiversity, Shalene Jha, Christopher M. Bacon, Stacy M. Philpott, V. Ernesto Méndez, Peter Läderach, Robert A. Rice
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications
In the past three decades, coffee cultivation has gained widespread attention for its crucial role in supporting local and global biodiversity. In this synthetic Overview, we present newly gathered data that summarize how global patterns in coffee distribution and shade vegetation have changed and discuss implications for biodiversity, ecosystem services, and livelihoods. Although overall cultivated coffee area has decreased by 8% since 1990, coffee production and agricultural intensification have increased in many places and shifted globally, with production expanding in Asia while contracting in Africa. Ecosystem services such as pollination, pest control, climate regulation, and nutrient sequestration are generally greater …
Sustainability Policy’S Inherent Dilemmas – Exemplified Via Critical Examination Of The Las Vegas Metropolitan Sustainability Campaign, Kathryn A. Zimmerman
Sustainability Policy’S Inherent Dilemmas – Exemplified Via Critical Examination Of The Las Vegas Metropolitan Sustainability Campaign, Kathryn A. Zimmerman
All Master's Theses
In response to a dual problem of critical water scarcity and rapid population growth, leaders of metropolitan Las Vegas implemented a region-wide, internationally marketed sustainability campaign. Preliminary studies found that, while sustainability policy attains its rhetorical goals, solutions initiated not only perpetuate but also purposefully expand the original dual problem to justify continuous water resource acquisitions. To examine this sustainability conundrum constructed by leadership—problem-perpetuation rather than problem-resolution—a critical examination in resource management asked two basic questions: what is being sustained and by what means? Via this inquiry, specific processes by which leaders perpetuate problems can be identified; and, so-informed, new …