Renewable Resources Report

RNRF’s Fall Meeting featured presentations on climate change action at local and state levels from three major coalitions formed in the wake of the Paris withdrawal: We’re Still In, America’s Pledge, and the U.S. Climate Alliance. Speaker presentations were followed by robust discussion from representatives of over 20 private sector, federal government, and non-profit organizations.…

While temperatures in the tropical forests of northeastern Puerto Rico have climbed two degrees Celsius since the mid-1970s, the biomass of arthropods – invertebrate animals such as insects, millipedes, and sowbugs – has declined by as much as 60-fold, according to new findings published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The finding supports…

The 48th session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 48) convened from 1-5 October 2018 in Incheon, Republic of Korea. Limiting global warming to 1.5ºC would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society, the IPCC said in a new assessment. With clear benefits to people and natural ecosystems, limiting…

As a young girl, Elizabeth Brabec [a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects] knew her mother’s garden was different. Where the neighbors grew lettuce and carrots and cucumbers in neat rows, her family’s garden featured mounded beds of currants, gooseberries, and celeriac interspersed with fruit and nut-bearing trees…

Conn Nugent, director of The Pew Charitable Trusts’ seabed mining project, hosted the RNRF Washington Round Table on Public Policy on September 6. He spoke about current preparations for international deep seabed mining and Pew’s work to advance responsible seabed mining regulatory frameworks. Pew seabed mining project officer Winnie Roberts also contributed to the round table with professional…

For more than 160 years there have been concerted efforts to recover salmon runs. During the past three decades, the number and cost of formal recovery efforts for wild salmon have substantially increased in large part in response to requirements of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). While using hatcheries to sustain relatively large salmon runs…

Climate change is a threat to people and the ecosystem services on which we depend.1 Extreme weather events are on the rise.2,3 Flooding, drought, and wildfires are more frequent and more severe.4 Higher temperatures are increasing community health risks.5 The changing climate is causing species dislocation and accelerating the rate of species extinction.6 Global agricultural…

L.J. Turner is a rancher who lost the freshwater his grandfather bequeathed him to the strip mines of big coal companies in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin. Bryan Latkanich can’t drink his well water anymore, and he is sure the fracking rigs he allowed on his property in rural Pennsylvania are to blame. Diane Eckhardt, a…

One year ago, President Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate accord, raising uncertainty about the future of the landmark agreement. On May 30th, 2018, the World Resources Institute (WRI) convened a panel of climate policy leaders to ask the question: Has the world moved on since President Trump’s announcement? In a panel moderated by WRI…

NOAA works to understand ocean acoustics through research and data, and through the Ocean Noise Strategy Plan. The plan was released in 2016, and identifies NOAA’s long-term ocean noise management goals, as well as science and policy mechanisms for NOAA to meet those goals over the next ten years. Two mapping tools, CetMap and SoundMap…