Environmental Impacts of the Emerging Digital Economy: The E-for-Environment E-Commerce?

The Internet-led digital economy is changing both the production and consumption patterns at the global scale. Although great potential exists to harness information technology in general and the Internet in particular and improve the environment, possible negative impacts of e-commerce on the environment should also be considered and dealt with. In this forum, we discuss both the potential positive and negative impacts of e-commerce. Drawing from insights gained from the complexity theory, we also delineate some broad contours for environmental policies in the information age. Given the paradoxical nature of technological innovations, we want to caution the scientific community and policymakers not to treat the Internet as the Holy Grail for environmental salvation.     

Effectiveness of a Regional Corridor in Connecting Two Florida Black Bear Populations

Abstract:  Corridors may mitigate the adverse effects of habitat fragmentation by restoring or maintaining connectivity between disjunct populations. The efficacy of corridors for large carnivores, however, has rarely been evaluated objectively. We used noninvasive sampling, microsatellite analysis, and population assignment tests to evaluate the effectiveness of a regional corridor in connecting two Florida black bear ( Ursus americanus floridanus ) populations (Osceola and Ocala). Bear movement was predominantly unidirectional, with a limited mixing of individuals from the two populations in one area of the corridor. We also documented bears in Osceola that were genetically assigned to Ocala and bears in Osceola that may be offspring from an Osceola-Ocala mating. Our results indicate that the Osceola-Ocala corridor is functional and provides a conduit for gene flow between these populations. Human development, however, may hinder the use of the Osceola-Ocala corridor by bears. The noninvasive sampling and genetic methods we used provide a means of evaluating corridor effectiveness that can help identify linkages necessary for maintaining metapopulation structure and population viability.     

Faunal Changes and Bottomland Hardwood Forest Loss in the Tensas Watershed, Louisiana

Intentamos asociar las diferencias entre las poblaclones de fauna en la cuenca de Tensas con las diferencias de extensión de áreas de bosques caducifolios de tierras bajas, usando datos existentes. La cuenca de Tensas era parte del area de distribución original de varias especies que actualmente están ausentes: lobo rojo, la puma de Florida, Pájaro Carpintero. El oso negro de Louisiana y Gorjeador de Bachman. también está en peligro de extinción. Los catastras de aves proporcionaron los mejores datos faunisticos Las comparaciones de poblaciones de aves (1) con la disminución del bosque caducifolio de tierras bajas al pasar del tiempo y (2) con áreas con diferentes superficies de este tipo de bosque apoyan la bipótesis de que el número de especies selvicolas y las densidades de población de especies del interior del bosque decrecieron junto con la disminución acumulativa en el área de bosques. Hemos señalado el deterioro de las poblaciones de fauna autoctona utilizando encuestas existentes de aves y datos cualitativos, demostrando la utilidad del enfoque del impacto acumulativo a una escala de cuencas hidrográfica Asegurando la conservación de los habitats necesarioq un plan de munejo de impacto acumulativo reducería extinciones adicionales en esta cuenca hidrográfica.     

Social Capital in Biodiversity Conservation and Management

Abstract:  The knowledge and values of local communities are now being acknowledged as valuable for biodiversity conservation. Relationships of trust, reciprocity and exchange, common rules, norms and sanctions, and connectedness in groups are what make up social capital, which is a necessary resource for shaping individual action to achieve positive biodiversity outcomes. Agricultural and rural conservation programs address biodiversity at three levels: agrobiodiversity on farms, nearby nature in landscapes, and protected areas. Recent initiatives that have sought to build social capital have shown that rural people can improve their understanding of biodiversity and agroecological relationships at the same time as they develop new social rules, norms, and institutions. This process of social learning helps new ideas to spread and can lead to positive biodiversity outcomes over large areas. New ideas spread more rapidly where there is high social capital. There remain many practical and policy difficulties, however, not least regarding the need to invest in social capital formation and the many unresolved questions of how the state views communities empowered to make their own decisions. Nonetheless, attention to the value of social relations, in the form of trust, reciprocal arrangements, locally developed rules, norms and sanctions, and emergent institutions, has clearly been shown to deliver a biodiversity dividend in many contexts. This suggests a need to blend both the biological and social elements of conservation.     

The Consistency of Extinction Risk Classification Protocols

Abstract:  Systematic protocols that use decision rules or scores are seen to improve consistency and transparency in classifying the conservation status of species. When applying these protocols, assessors are typically required to decide on estimates for attributes that are inherently uncertain. Input data and resulting classifications are usually treated as though they are exact and hence without operator error. We investigated the impact of data interpretation on the consistency of protocols of extinction risk classifications and diagnosed causes of discrepancies when they occurred. We tested three widely used systematic classification protocols employed by the World Conservation Union, NatureServe, and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. We provided 18 assessors with identical information for 13 different species to infer estimates for each of the required parameters for the three protocols. The threat classification of several of the species varied from low risk to high risk, depending on who did the assessment. This occurred across the three protocols investigated. Assessors tended to agree on their placement of species in the highest (50–70%) and lowest risk categories (20–40%), but there was poor agreement on which species should be placed in the intermediate categories. Furthermore, the correspondence between the three classification methods was unpredictable, with large variation among assessors. These results highlight the importance of peer review and consensus among multiple assessors in species classifications and the need to be cautious with assessments carried out by a single assessor. Greater consistency among assessors requires wide use of training manuals and formal methods for estimating parameters that allow uncertainties to be represented, carried through chains of calculations, and reported transparently.