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Yesterday, House Natural Resources Committee Chair Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Vice Chair Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) sent a letter to Interior Secretary David Bernhardt urging him to close Grand Canyon National Park and other national parks and public lands at risk of spreading coronavirus due to continued crowding and high visitation levels. In the midst […]
Continue Reading 370 wordsAs Mother Nature Network reported, Ecuador has become the first country in the world to build a “quiet park,” a lush stretch of land straddling the Zabalo River where silence is protected like a natural resource. There are no transport routes here. Nor residential and commercial developments. You can’t even hear the hum of power […]
Continue Reading 135 wordsWith more states like ours — Maryland and Virginia — joining the “shelter-in-place” club, finding a way to get outdoors but maintain the appropriate social distance is increasingly difficult in urban areas and the stress of it all can be really draining. There is a wealth of resources to help you get outdoors — albeit virtually — if you cannot easily get to a secluded place to enjoy nature safely. If you want something bold or exotic, try a virtual expedition with a National Geographic Explorer. Even a one-minute “walk in the woods” in silence like the one above in Federica Park on St. Simons Island, Georgia can provide instant relief from our new relative captivity.
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Florida is (finally) closing its beaches. The National Park Service has waived all park entrance fees but closed some parks and most of the facilities in the parks that remain open (check each park’s web site for more details) — they are taking “extraordinary steps to implement the latest guidance from the White House, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), and local and state authorities to promote social distancing.”
Why This Matters: It is spring break for many people across the country and the warming weather may make outdoor activities tempting, but unless we maintain our distances we won’t flatten the curve of exposure.
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Last Friday, Mayor Pete Buttigieg revealed his presidential plan to protect public lands including a stated goal of protecting 30% of all U.S. lands and waters by 2030. Goals of the proposal include: Ensuring consistent and robust conservation funding for federal land management agencies, states, and tribes–including securing full, permanent funding for the Land and […]
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Rue Mapp is the Founder and CEO of Outdoor Afro, a national not-for-profit organization and social community reconnecting African Americans with natural spaces through outdoor recreational activities. She oversees a volunteer leadership team of 80 men and women who represent 30 of the United States. Through Outdoor Afro, Mapp shares opportunities to build a broader […]
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The rapid degradation of nature driven by human activity is forcing indigenous leaders and activists to push for nature having rights that are enshrined in law.
It’s not a new idea, but one that could be important for global conservation.
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A new report entitled “Nature Risk Rising: Why the Crisis Engulfing Nature Matters for Business and the Economy” that was just released to coincide with the start of the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum makes it clear that businesses are more dependent on nature than previously thought, with approximately $44 trillion of economic value generation moderately or highly dependent on nature.
Why This Matters: As if we needed more reasons why we should save nature, now the World Economic Forum’s experts make it clear that it is in the world’s financial interest to do so.
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By Kate Wall When one thinks of the western United States it’s hard not to conjure up images of wildlife and wilderness. But a coalition of “western” lawmakers wants to change that. Last week the Congressional Western Caucus formally announced a raft of legislation aimed squarely at the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The ESA has […]
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The study in Nature’s Scientific Reports surveyed people about how they felt and how much time they had spent out of doors, and the study’s authors found that the participants were more likely to report feeling well if they had spent more than 120 minutes out of doors over the past week, with little difference between key groups (such as the elderly) or how the outdoor time was spent (longer versus shorter outdoor activities). The benefits peaked between 3 and 5 hours, with no further reported well-being gain after that.
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The United Nations report on the extinction crisis that came out on Monday made a relatively big splash. ICYMI, a group of scientists called the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), determined that biodiversity is declining at the fastest rate in human history, and only “transformational changes” to the way society operates can save the planet from ruin.
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A major United Nations scientific report on biodiversity will be released later today, after a week of negotiations on the final text written by 400 leading scientists from 130 nations assessing the state of Nature — and its impact on humanity — across the globe, according to a draft obtained by Agence France-Presse (AFP).
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