Trees in a Kalahari landscape
The ELDIS Manuals and Toolkits site has alerted us to an online guide and software for the analysis of biodiversity. Tree diversity analysis: a manual and software for common statistical methods for ecological and biodiversity studies provides a practical foundation for training in statistical methods for ecological and biodiversity studies. Produced by the World...
Savannah lives : animal life and human evolution in Africa , an English translation of the book by Staffan Ulfstrand, explains the geology of the African continent and the climatic changes that have shaped its vegetation, and follows with a description of how the savannah is still being modified by fire, water, wildlife and people. Ulfstrand makes the point that understanding of animal behaviour...
Freshwater Ecoregions of the World, (FEOW) aims to provide a global biogeographic regionalization of the Earth's freshwater biodiversity. Covering virtually all freshwater habitats on Earth, this ecoregion map, with associated species data, is to be used for underpinning global and regional conservation planning efforts, particularly to identify outstanding and imperiled freshwater systems; for...
The Harry Oppenheimer Okavango Research Centre (HOORC) is growing. The University of Botswana is currently advertising the following academic positions for HOORC for both Botswana citizens and international candidates:
Vacancy No. HOORC1/2008 Associate Professor/Senior Research Fellow in Wildlife Ecology and ManagementVacancy No. HOORC2/2008 Associate Professor/Senior Research Fellow in...
The converging mortgage, financial, food, fuel and climate crises are all symptoms of a massive global ecological bubble
Excerpt from "Earth Meanders" personal essay by Ecological Ecological 's President, Dr. Glen Barry:
Ecological overshoot whereby humanity exceeds the Earth's carrying capacity is the mother of all "bubbles". Within the current sub-prime mortgage and financial bubbles, and food and energy price increases, we are witnessing the logical and inevitable economic consequences of over-population, resource scarcity, inequitable and unreasonable consumption, and unsustainable economic growth. Growth and livelihoods based upon unreasonable presumptions of continued resource outputs from dwindling ecosystems are a dangerous, unprecedented "ecological bubble" that...
The converging mortgage, financial, food, fuel and climate crises are all symptoms of a massive global ecological bubble
Excerpt from "Earth Meanders" personal essay by Ecological Ecological 's President, Dr. Glen Barry: Ecological overshoot whereby humanity exceeds the Earth's carrying capacity is the mother of all "bubbles". Within the current sub-prime mortgage and financial bubbles, and food and energy price increases, we are witnessing the logical and inevitable economic consequences of over-population, resource scarcity, inequitable and unreasonable consumption, and unsustainable economic growth. Growth and livelihoods based upon unreasonable presumptions of continued resource outputs from dwindling ecosystems are a dangerous, unprecedented "ecological bubble" that threatens...
The Ecological Madness of Biofuels, Take Two.
How cellulosic ethanol will fail, exacerbate the global forest and climate crises, and why it must be rejected along with other quick fixes in favor of an environmental sufficiency agenda.
If you thought burning food for fuel -- agrofuels -- has been an unmitigated disaster, just wait until we start chopping up our last natural forest habitats for cellulosic ethanol biofuel. Much heralded second generation biofuels, to be based largely upon woody biomass, will be a resounding ecological disaster, and must be stopped now. It is a myth that enough unused forest and agricultural waste, and a surplus of land to grow various grasses and wood, exists to base an industrial energy source.
Humanity must stop seeking easy answers to...
The Ecological Madness of Biofuels, Take Two.
How cellulosic ethanol will fail, exacerbate the global forest and climate crises, and why it must be rejected along with other quick fixes in favor of an environmental sufficiency agenda.
If you thought burning food for fuel -- agrofuels -- has been an unmitigated disaster, just wait until we start chopping up our last natural forest habitats for cellulosic ethanol biofuel. Much heralded second generation biofuels, to be based largely upon woody biomass, will be a resounding ecological disaster, and must be stopped now. It is a myth that enough unused forest and agricultural waste, and a surplus of land to grow various grasses and wood, exists to base an industrial energy source.
Humanity must stop seeking easy answers to perceived energy...
A workshop, Environmental Change in the Kalahari Region, will be held in Maun, Botswana on the 3rd – 6th March, 2008. There are four major themes for the workshop:
1) Monitoring for environmental change
2) Palaeo-environmental change in Africa
3) Environmental change and human well being
4) Transboundary range resource issues.
An objective of the workshop is to form a...
In the company of crows and ravens by John M. Marzluff and Tony Angell examines evidence that crows and ravens influence human culture and that, in return, people influence crow culture, ecology, and evolution. Beautifully illustrated with drawings, the book identifies species of corvids known in Africa and encourages interaction with the reader by recommending further study of co-evolution and...
Seeking nature's limits : ecologists in the field offers an accessible view of the world of working ecology through stories from first hand experience of field researchers. Originally published as an academic festschrift, the content is grouped by ecological function: under Carrying Capacity we find Utopia for Waterbirds, or is the bonanza over already?: Wetlands Under Pressure, and under Sex...
White Rhinoceros from Botswana Tourism site
The Africa Science weblog has a fascinating story about Gyrostigma rhinocerontis -- the rhinoceros bot fly -- and its place in the ecology of southern African rhinoceros. David A. Barraclough, an investigator in Biological and Conservation Sciences at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, describes the difficulty for researchers in collecting...
HOORC hydrologist Dr Piotr Wolski has just returned from the Seventh World Congress of the International Association for Landscape Ecology, held in Wageningen, Netherlands at the beginning of July, where he presented Using multiple models to elucidate the effects of climate change on floodplain ecology in the Okavango Delta, Botswana, prepared with HOORC colleague Mike Murray-Hudson. Also...
HOORC ecologist Dr Casper Bonyongo attended the annual meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB) in Port Elizabeth from July 1st to 5th 2007, participating in the symposium, Declining Populations Of Large Mammals In African Protected Areas: Establishing The Causes, chaired by Professor Norman Owen-Smith. Dr Bonyongo’s presentation, Changes in Large Herbivore Populations in a...
A preliminary survey and analysis of the spatial distribution of aquatic invertebrates in the Okavango Delta by Dr Helen F. Dallas and HOORC researcher and BIOKAVANGO team member Dr Belda Mosepele, has been published in a recent issue of the African Journal of Aquatic Science. Differences in macroinvertebrate assemblages were observed amongst different habitat types, with differences most...
Here is an excerpt and link to the full text of my most recent Earth Meanders personal essay:
Ecology is the study of how organisms interact with each other and their physical environment. Sounds deceptively simple and non-threatening to the status quo, but I contend that growing ecological knowledge and re-understanding of humanity's place within the web of life is one of the most radical and potentially transformative notions ever. Awareness of humanity's utter dependence upon ecosystems and the biosphere, found in the relatively new discipline of modern ecology, has coincided with a period of unprecedented ecological destruction. Ecology may provide the only truthful answers regarding how to save the Earth and ourselves.
Ecology is a radical science that calls into question the...
Ecological literacy: educating our children for a sustainable world, edited by Micheal Stone and Zenobia Bralow from the Center for Ecoliteracy, points out that efforts to build sustainable communities cannot succeed unless future generations learn how to partner with natural systems to their mutual benefit; to become "ecologically literate." Reports and essays offer examples of place-based,...
HOORC BIOKAVANGO project leader Dr Nkobi Moleele, with colleagues Anne Lillian Nakafeero and Mark S. Reed, has published results of a study of five species of tree currently promoted for agroforestry in Botswana. The trees, Acacia erubescens, Acacia tortilis, Combretum imberbe, Sclerocarya birrea and Terminalia sericea, were shown to produce chemical substances that could inhibit the growth of...
HOORC governance researchers Dr Lapo Magole and Dr Rachel Demotts attended meetings at the University of the Western Cape and the University of Massachusetts in late April. The Cape Town session was the first meeting for HOORC's Cross Sectoral Commons Governance in Southern Africa (CROSCOG) project, funded by the European Union, and with partners including the Institute for Fisheries Management...
HOORC's Library had a visit today from Professor Hank Shugart from the University of Virginia. Professor Shugart and graduate students Thoralf Meyer and Virginia Seamster are visiting to discuss collaborative research projects in the area of riparian forests and vegetation dynamics of the Okavango Delta. In HOORC's Library, you can find Professor Shugart's Terrestrial ecosystems in changing...
Zooplankton diversity and successions in the Okavango Delta, Botswana : diversity and ecosystem interactions in land/water ecotones, a PhD thesis by Markus Lindholm of the University of Oslo, is a collection of six of the writer’s studies of Okavango floodplain ecology.
The comparative biodiversity of seven globally important wetlands : an initiative from the Global Wetland Consortium (GWC), a...
A key component of OVF's Sustainable Development strategy is to design Unity Centers as the vehicles to promote sustainable approaches and technologies to the grassroots in emerging markets. Our research has led us to the pioneering work of Prof...