World Environment News - Kilimanjaro's Ice May Disappear By 2033 - Planet Ark

 

Kilimanjaro's Ice May Disappear By 2033

Author: Katrina Manson

DAR ES SALAAM - The ice on Africa's highest mountain could vanish in 13 to 24 years, a fate also awaiting the continent's other glaciers, a study said Monday.

U.S.-based researchers Lonnie Thompson and colleagues said glaciers on Kilimanjaro, Tanzania's snow-capped volcano which attracts 40,000 visitors a year, could disappear.

"There is a strong likelihood that the ice fields will disappear within a decade or two if current conditions persist," said the study, published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal.

The research blames warmer temperatures due to climate change and drier, less cloudy conditions than in the past.

"The climatological conditions currently driving the loss of Kilimanjaro's ice fields are clearly unique within an 11,700-year perspective," said the study, adding that the mountain lost 26 percent of its ice cover between 2000 and 2007.

At 5,896 meters high, Mount Kilimanjaro is one of the east African country's top tourism draws, offering tourists a taste of the tropical and the glacial within a five-day climb.

It brings in an estimated $50 million a year. Tourism is the leading foreign exchange earner in the poor country, earning $1.22 billion in 2008.

"The loss of the ice fields will have a negative impact on tourism in tropical east Africa," said Thompson in an email to Reuters.

Home to elephant, leopard and buffalo, as well as expansive views of the Rift Valley, the mountain known as "the roof of Africa" was first scaled by a European, Hans Meyer, 120 years ago. While its Kibo peak rises above the clouds, it can be reached with little more than a walking stick and some puff.

"The loss of the glaciers is an indicator of climate change under way in this region which impacts not only the glaciers on the summit but the weather patterns that bring rainfall to the lower slopes," said Thompson.

World Environment News - Kilimanjaro's Ice May Disappear By 2033 - Planet Ark

The Associated Press: Bison industry recruits ranchers as prices rise

Now the U.S. bison industry is trying to encourage more people — be they veteran cattle ranchers or newcomers like the Popps — to start raising the animals to help meet growing demand nationwide.

"People understand the health benefits of bison. More people are trying it," said Susan Popp, 42. "It's not quite so exotic."

Since they began more than a decade ago, the Popps' Black Forest Bison ranch boasts a herd of about 60 buffalo, and their store in Colorado Springs is looking for more bison suppliers.

"If things keep going with the demand growing the way it is, we need to get some more people out there raising buffalo," said Dave Carter, executive director of the Denver-based National Bison Association.

The industry, which touts the meat as a healthier, leaner alternative to beef, is offering an online "Bison 101" course, evangelizing the benefits of bison to lenders and expanding mentoring opportunities for new ranchers.

The Associated Press: Bison industry recruits ranchers as prices rise

Consequences of Bushmeat Trade in Africa

 

In Africa, the slaughter of animals for bushmeat is taking an increasing toll on species long-term chance of survival. Concern has risen over dramatic declines in wildlife populations and the difficulty of achieving sustainable consumption in the face of over-hunting in sub-Saharan Africa.

Heather Eves, the director of the Bushmeat Crisis Task Force in Washington, gives an overview of the complex bushmeat issue. In this first of a five-part series, Eves covers the causes, trends, and effect on health of subsistence and international commercial trading. She told VOA English to Africa reporter Cole Mallard that bushmeat comes from wild animals -- anything in size from cane rats to elephants, with antelope as a common source. She says once the antelope and other large-bodied species are hunted to extinction, smaller species are targeted, including primates.

Eves says increased demand and unmanaged economic development, which increases access to animals, drives over-hunting to the point where many wildlife populations are threatened with extinction.

VOA News - Consequences of Bushmeat Trade in Africa

Print Story: Earth's "vital signs" in bad shape: report on

You see many trends in climate change, whether we are talking about grain production which is affected by droughts and flooding. Or meat production as livestock production makes up about 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions," he told Reuters in a telephone interview before the report's release.

Assadourian said the key message of the report was that unsustainable consumption patterns were responsible for climate change linked to carbon emissions and other ecological woes.

He said of the 44 trends tracked by the report, 28 were "pronouncedly bad" and only six were positive.

The trends range from the spread of avian flu to the rise of carbon emissions to the number of violent conflicts. The growing use of wind power is among the few trends seen as positive.

Some of the points highlighted in the report include:

- Meat production hit a record 276 million metric tons (43 kilograms or 95 pounds per person) in 2006.

- Meat consumption is one of several factors driving rising soybean demand. Rapid expansion of soybean plantations in South America could displace 22 million hectares (54 million acres) of tropical forest and savanna in the next 20 years.

- The rise in global seafood consumption comes as many fish species become scarcer. In 2004, people ate 156 million metric tons of seafood, the equivalent of three times as much seafood per person than in 1950.

- While U.S. carbon emissions continue to grow, the fastest rise is occurring in Asia, particularly China and India.

Other analysts and think tanks have focused on different trends they say mean less cause for alarm. For example, they point out that while wood is being removed from forests on a global scale, many parts of Europe and North America have experienced reforestation in recent decades.

Print Story: Earth's "vital signs" in bad shape: report on Yahoo! News

National Post Digital

Cattle graze on the TK Ranch, northeast of Hanna. Such grassland could be taken over
by greenhouse gas-boosted woody plants cattle don’t eat, a new study says.

Greenhouse gases threat to prairie pastures

Rising carbon dioxide levels boost growth of woody shrubs cattle won’t eat, study finds

TOM S P EARS

The gases that cause global warming threaten to turn the Prairies from grasslands into an area covered by woody shrubs that cattle can’t eat, a new study says.

But it’s not the warmer temperatures that are to blame.

The main greenhouse gas causing global warming is carbon dioxide, and rising carbon dioxide levels favour the growth of woody plants — but not grasses.

“Encroachment of shrubs into grasslands is an important problem facing rangeland managers and ranchers,” says the study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“This process replaces grasses, the preferred forage of domestic livestock, with species that are unsuitable for domestic livestock grazing.”

The Department of Agriculture scientists in Colorado got their results by blowing extra CO2 gas into greenhouses in Colorado, simulating the future atmosphere as we keep burning coal, oil and gas.

The scientists knew ranchers have been saying for years tough little shrubs are taking over some grasslands. But they needed proof.

They set up six greenhouses on shortgrass prairie typical of large areas in Canada’s Prairie provinces. Three greenhouses had normal air. The other three had increased carbon dioxide levels.

The greenhouses with extra CO2 produced 40 times more than the normal amount of fringed sage, a woody plant that grows from 10 to 60 centimetres high. The change took place over five years.

“A40-fold increase in biomass (amount of the plant material) is huge,” said lead researcher Jack Morgan of the USDA.

Elk and antelope will eat this plant, but cattle won’t. And other experiments suggest other types of sage and small shrubs may also invade grasslands as the atmosphere changes.

This is more than a North American problem, the scientists say. It’s likely to affect grasslands used for grazing by all kinds of livestock in many parts of the world.

These are mostly lands too dry for most farming, but good for grazing.

Morgan says the slow invasion of woody shrubs has been happening for as much as 100 to 200 years, and has been reported in many parts of the world.

“That’s one of the major points in this paper. Most people, when they hear climate change discussed, think it’s always about the future,” he said.

“CO2 has been going up for the past couple of hundred years, so this relates to changes that are already underway.”

Past analysis has blamed these changes on overgrazing and bad land management, he said. The sage is more common in degraded grasslands.

The new study is published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a science journal.

“We are embarking on a period in which plant community dynamics in many of Earth’s ecosystems may be subject to relatively rapid changes due to increased atmospheric CO2 levels and altered climate,” it says.

“These changes may affect not only the traditional goods and services we have come to expect from these lands, but may alter their biodiversity as well. “Our report has implications for other rangelands around the world,” it adds.

“Rangelands are important not only for the plant and animal products they provide, but also as regions in which distinct pastoral cultures and societies have developed.”

National Post Digital