Twenty years after the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, 17 ecologists are calling for renewed international efforts to curb the loss of Earth’s biological diversity. The loss is compromising nature’s ability to provide goods and services essential for human well-being, the scientists say. Over the past two decades, strong scientific evidence has emerged showing that decline of the world’s biological diversity reduces the productivity and sustainability of ecosystems, according to an international team led by the University of Michigan’s Bradley Cardinale.

It also decreases ecosystems’ ability to provide society with goods and services like food, wood, fodder, fertile soils and protection from pests and disease.

“Water purity, food production and air quality are easy to take for granted, but all are largely provided by communities of organisms,” said George Gilchrist, program director in the National Science Foundation’s Division of Environmental Biology, which funded the research.

“This paper demonstrates that it is not simply the quantity of living things, but their species, genetic and trait biodiversity, that influences the delivery of many essential ‘ecosystem services.”’

Human actions are dismantling ecosystems, resulting in species extinctions at rates several orders of magnitude faster than observed in the fossil record.

If the nations of the world make biodiversity an international priority, the scientists say, there’s still time to conserve much of the remaining variety of life–and possibly to restore much of what’s been lost.

The researchers present their findings in this week’s issue of the journal Nature.

The paper is a scientific consensus statement that summarizes evidence from more than 1,000 ecological studies over the last two decades.

“Much as consensus statements by doctors led to public warnings that tobacco use is harmful to your health, this is a consensus statement that loss of Earth’s wild species will be harmful to the world’s ecosystems and may harm society by reducing ecosystem services that are essential to human health and prosperity,” said Cardinale.

“We need to take biodiversity loss far more seriously–from individuals to international governing bodies–and take greater action to prevent further losses of species.”

An estimated nine million species of plants, animals, protists and fungi inhabit the Earth, sharing it with some seven billion people.

The call to action comes as international leaders prepare to gather in Rio de Janeiro on June 20-22 for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, known as the Rio+20 Conference.

The upcoming conference marks the 20th anniversary of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, which resulted in 193 nations supporting the Convention on Biological Diversity’s goals of biodiversity conservation and the sustainable use of natural resources.

The 1992 Earth Summit caused an explosion of interest in understanding how biodiversity loss might affect the dynamics and functioning of ecosystems, as well as the supply of goods and services of value to society.

In the Nature paper, the scientists review published studies on the topic and list six consensus statements, four emerging trends, and four “balance of evidence” statements.

The balance of evidence shows, for example, that genetic diversity increases the yield of commercial crops, enhances the production of wood in tree plantations, improves the production of fodder in grasslands, and increases the stability of yields in fisheries.

Increased plant diversity results in greater resistance to invasion by exotic plants, inhibits plant pathogens such as fungal and viral infections, increases above-ground carbon sequestration through enhanced biomass, and increases nutrient remineralization and soil organic matter.

“No one can agree on what exactly will happen when an ecosystem loses a species, but most of us agree that it’s not going to be good,” said Shahid Naeem of Columbia University, a co-author of the paper. “And we agree that if ecosystems lose most of their species, it will be a disaster.”

“Twenty years and a thousand studies later, what the world thought was true in Rio in 1992 has finally been proven: biodiversity underpins our ability to achieve sustainable development,” Naeem said.

Despite far-reaching support for the Convention on Biological Diversity, biodiversity loss has continued over the last two decades, often at increasing rates.

In response, a new set of diversity-preservation goals for 2020, known as the Aichi targets, was recently formulated.

And a new international body called the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services was formed in April 2012 to guide a global response toward sustainable management of the world’s biodiversity and ecosystems.

Significant gaps in the science behind biological diversity remain and must be addressed if the Aichi targets are to be met, the scientists write in their paper.

“This paper is important both because of what it shows we know, and what it shows we don’t know,” said David Hooper of Western Washington University, one of the co-authors.

“Several of the key questions we outline help point the way for the next generation of research on how changing biodiversity affects human well-being.”

Without an understanding of the fundamental ecological processes that link biodiversity, ecosystem functions and services, attempts to forecast the societal consequences of diversity loss, and to meet policy objectives, are likely to fail, the ecologists write.

“But with that fundamental understanding in hand, we may yet bring the modern era of biodiversity loss to a safe end for humanity,” they conclude.

In addition to Cardinale, Naeem and Hooper, co-authors of the Nature paper are: J. Emmett Duffy of The College of William and Mary; Andrew Gonzalez of McGill University; Charles Perrings and Ann P. Kinzig of Arizona State University; Patrick Venail and Anita Narwani of the University of Michigan; Georgina M. Mace of Imperial College London; David Tilman of the University of Minnesota; David A. Wardle of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences; Gretchen C. Daily of Stanford University; Michel Loreau of the National Centre for Scientific Research in Moulis, France; James B. Grace of the U.S. Geological Survey; Anne Larigauderie of the National Museum of Natural History in Rue Cuvier, France; and Diane Srivastava of the University of British Columbia.

I was given @17 gallons of 4 year old gas from a friend when we changed out his fuel pump. I filtered the gas for later use. I found some gasoline from 2004 that was forgotten about and I added it to my mower for testing at 10%..http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=rM6JJUxQlyQ

At least 1,000 people marched through Hong Kong on Sunday over the death of Chinese dissident Li Wangyang, who was jailed for more than 22 years after the 1989 Tiananmen democracy protests.

The demonstrators shouted slogans calling for justice for Li and condemning the “butcher regime” in Beijing, after the 62-year-old dissident died at a hospital in central China.

The protesters marched from central Hong Kong to the Chinese government’s liaison office, where they laid flowers and made insulting gestures.

According to the New York-based Human Rights in China, two of Li’s relatives found him on Wednesday morning strung up to a ward windowsill by a bandage wrapped around his neck, with his feet on the ground.

Li was under round-the-clock police surveillance in the hospital at the time, the group said.

He had been sentenced to 13 years in prison for “counter-revolutionary” crimes for organising workers in Shaoyang into an autonomous union during the 1989 Tiananmen protests, HRIC said.

He served 11 years and was released, but was given another 10 years’ jail in 2001 for “inciting subversion” after he tried to sue the authorities over prison mistreatment that left him disabled.

Thousands of people from China and around the world have signed an online petition calling on China to launch a public investigation into Li’s death.

University starts fund to honor slain Chinese student
Montreal (AFP) June 8, 2012 – Montreal’s Concordia University set up a fund Friday to honor a Chinese student whose appalling murder has sent shock waves across Canada and the world.

Lin Jun, a 33-year-old Chinese national studying in Montreal, was allegedly murdered, dismembered and filmed by Luka Rocco Magnotta, who was arrested this week in Germany and awaits extradition.

“This has been a very emotional and heartbreaking journey for the Lin family,” the university said.

The fund, which is open to the public for donations, would help Chinese students at Concordia as well as defray the expenses of the victim’s family, who have traveled from China to Montreal.

“Concordia is pleased to announce that we are establishing the Jun Lin Family Fund to provide financial assistance for the immediate needs of the Lin family. We are also creating the Jun Lin Award to benefit Chinese students studying at the university,” the administration said.

Concordia’s Chinese Students Association, which had already been collecting money to help the family, was pleased with the announcement.

“The university has good ways to help people donate. We’re happy about this,” Yan Shi, head of Concordia’s Chinese Students Association told AFP.

Yan Shi was part of a delegation that met Lin’s mother, father, sister and at the airport when they arrived late Tuesday.

Lin’s mother was stricken with grief and could barely contain her emotion upon her arrival, Yan Shi said.

“We have come to take you home,” his mother said of her son, sobbing.

Yan Shi told AFP that “the family is strong but his mother is still very emotional.”

“We don’t know how they feel inside. We can only imagine,” adding that the mother stayed in the hotel yesterday while the father and uncle met with authorities.

Donations to the fund can be made at http://www.concordia.ca/alumni-giving/giving/areas-to-support/in-memory-of-jun-lin/

Monkeys swinging from branch to branch, a special gardening section for children and stunning sea views.

This green oasis finds its home in an unlikely place: a former landfill for a Rio de Janeiro slum that has been turned into a park thanks to a group of dedicated volunteers.

The six-year-old project will be showcased at this month’s Rio+20 development conference, expected to draw thousands of delegates from around the world, including government officials and representatives from civil society, to this bustling Brazilian metropolis.

“People came here to get rid of old refrigerators, stoves, tires and even their dead dogs,” said Mauro Quintanilha, a musician and craftsman who started the initiative at the Vidigal favela. “There was a lot of trash and it stank.”

The 52-year-old recounted how, 300 years ago, three houses were built in this forested area that was technically considered a protected zone. At one point, city officials expelled the inhabitants.

But that did little to diminish the mountain of garbage that had a tendency of spreading to nearby residential areas. As in other Brazilian slums, dumpsters don’t do the rounds in Vidigal. And the area lacks other public services.

That’s when Quintanilha, who lived close by, stepped in.

Together with a group of 20 volunteers, he spent a year cleaning up the area, picking up each and every discarded scrap that could be recycled or repaired.

“With the help of friends, we started cleaning up until we got a garden with flowers and a kitchen garden,” Quintanilha said proudly.

“It was tough convincing people that this was no longer a dump,” he told AFP. “We really had to talk to them about it but now they’re helping us.”

The effort certainly paid off.

Today, monkeys swing from trees in the park where milk bottles serve as flower pots.

A special section nearby is dedicated to teaching children how to garden — although it hasn’t made six-year-old Joao Vitor reconsider his dream of becoming a soccer star.

International delegations to the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development are expected to visit the park, reachable via a narrow staircase of old tires filled with rubble, on June 18.

Volunteers, such as Manoel Silvestre de Jesus, hope the attention will turn into funding that will help the group keep up the endeavor — and entice others to follow in their footsteps.

“I hope that Rio+20 will bring us partnerships to continue the work we started six years ago,” he said. “The favelas have so much hope in Rio+20… I hope the delegations who come will support us.”

The 58-year-old has converted 120,000 plastic bottles fished from the tons of trash that once rotted here.

Working out of his recycling studio, he has used some to decorate benches in the park. He turned others into an array of creations that he sells to slum residents for a little extra cash.

Vitor Alves de Souza shares the same passion for transforming trash into treasures.

“There’s wealth in our waste,” said the volunteer, 38.

There is certainly a lot of trash to sift through — and it is unlikely to dwindle any time soon.

In Brazil, less than 26 percent of the population recycle, although 86 percent consider it a personal duty, according to the IBOPE public opinion institute.