Wangari Maathari and Kenya’s Green Belt Movement

1. Wangari Maathari and Kenya’s Green Belt Movement • Green Belt Movement: 1977 • Self-help group of women in Kenya • Success of tree planting • Nobel Peace Prize: 2004

2. How Should We Manage and Sustain Grasslands • Important ecological services of grasslands • Soil formation • Erosion control • Nutrient cycling • Storage of atmospheric carbon dioxide in biomass • Maintenance of diversity • Overgrazing of rangelands (unfenced grassland) • Reduces grass cover • Leads to erosion of soil by water and wind • Soil becomes compacted • Enhances invasion of plant species that cattle won’t eat • MalapiBorderlands- Management success story • Overgrazing and fire suppression degraded area, now Controlled burns and return of native grasses

3. We Can Manage Rangelands More Sustainably • Rotational grazing • Portable fencing • Suppress growth of invasive species • Herbicides • Mechanical removal • Controlled burning • Controlled, short-term trampling

4. How Should We Manage and Sustain Parks and Natural Reserves • Worldwide: 1100 major national parks • Parks in developing countries • Greatest biodiversity • 1% protected against • Illegal animal poaching • Illegal logging and mining

5. STRESSES ON THE NATIONAL PARKS • 1872- Yellowstone- first national park, but the park system was established in 1912 • 58 major national parks • 333 monuments and historic sites • Too many visitors? • Traffic, eroded trails, noise, cell phone towers • Native species are killed or removed • Expensive to maintain • Great Smokey Mountains Nat’l Park- most visited

6. Yellowstone National Park

8. Sierra Club- founded by John Muir in 1892 and was leader of the preservationist movement, protect large areas of wilderness from human exploitation) • Theodore Roosevelt - “the country’s best environmental president” the Golden Age of Conservation (1901-1909) • Established first federal refuge at Pelican Island in Florida to protect the brown pelican • Tripled the size of national forest reserves • US Forest Service established in 1905 to manage and protect reserves • Gifford Pinchot - first chief of US Forest Service • Woodrow Wilson- oversaw the creation of the National Park Service in 1916 • FDR- Formed the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1933

9. Wise-use (conservationist)- Roosevelt and Pinchot believed all public lands should be managed wisely and scientifically to provided needed resources • Preservationists- Muir (1838-1914) believed lands should be left undisturbed- -helped establish Yosemite National Park in 1890)

10. Nature Reserves Occupy Only a Small Part of the Earth’s Land • Conservationists’ goal: protect 20% of the earth’s land • Cooperation between government and private groups • Nature Conservancy – created largest system of private natural areas and wildlife sanctuaries in 30 countries • Have protected land, waterways and wetlands • Eco-philanthropists- buy wilderness areas and donate to the country • Developers and resource extractors opposition

11. Costa Rica • Smaller than west Virginia • 1963-1983- much of the forests were cleared for cattle to graze • Rich in biodiversity, over 500,000 plant and animal species • Nature reserves/parks established in 1970s. Now devotes more land to biodiversity than any other country • 8 megareserves with an inner core and 2 buffer zones for the local people • Government has eliminated subsidies for converting forest into rangeland and pays land owners to restore tree coverage, and planted nearly 14 million trees. • Forest cover has grown from 26% to 51% • Has one of the lowest deforestation rates

12. We Can Use a Four-Point Strategy to Protect Ecosystems • Map global ecosystems; identify species • Locate and protect most endangered species • Restore degraded ecosystems • Development must be biodiversity-friendly • Are new laws needed?

13. Protecting Global Biodiversity Hot Spots Is an Urgent Priority • 1988: Norman Myers • Identify biodiversity hot spots rich in plantspecies • Not sufficient public support and funding • Drawbacks of this approach • May be rich in plant diversity, but not in animal diversity • People may be displaced and/or lose access to important resources

14. HOTSPOTS • Cover about 2% of land surface • 86% of the habitat has been destroyed • Contain an estimated 50% of world’s flowering plants and 42% or terrestrial vertebrates • Home to most endangered/critically endangered species. • Spider tortoise (Madagascar)

15. THERE ARE 34 HOT SPOTS THAT OCCUPY 2% OF THE WORLD’S LAND AREA THE HOTTEST OF THESE HOT SPOTS ARE TROPICAL ISLANDS SUCH AS MADAGASCAR, INDONESIA AND THE PHILIPINES WHERE GEOGRAPHIC ISOLATION HAS RESULTED IN LARGE NUMBERS OF UNIQUE PLANTS AND ANIMALS

16. U.N. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: 2005 • Identify key ecosystem services • Human activities degrade or overuse 62% of the earth’s natural services • Identify highly stressed life raft ecosystems • (where people live in poverty, depend on the ecosytem services that are being degraded) • Study how natural ecosystems recover- some of the damage done by humans can be reversed- • Restoration • Rehabilitation • Replacement • Creating artificial ecosystems • How to carry out most forms of ecological restoration and rehabilitation • Identify what caused the degradation • Stop the abuse • Reintroduce species, if possible • Protect from further degradation

17. Preventing ecosystem damage is cheaper than restoration • About 5% of the earth’s land is preserved from the effects of human activities

18. We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect. • Aldo Leopold