• Argentina, Paraguay join Brazil in pledging to preserve the Atlantic Forest (the “most endangered” tropical forest, down from an estimated 500,000 sq. kms to about 35,000 sq. kms. today).
• Columbia University will not be accepting applications for its 2 year program in environmental journalism, due to falling employment in the field, rising costs of education and lack of financial aid for students.
• This one’s being picked up all over the place: forests in the NW might increase in the next century due to climate change. Although the net effects will be positive (in a value neutral sort of way), there will be a decline in growth at lower elevations, and an increase in growth at higher elevations (= more difficult to log). At, least, that’s what the model says.
• This is kind of awesome. Communities in the Andes are using large nets to collect fog drip to use for irrigation. Although it only rains about 1.5 inches / year in the area, it’s foggy for almost 9 months.

• A bunch of groups have signed on to a letter supporting Rep. Raul Grijalva for Interior Secretary.
• The UN has released an atlas of carbon-wildlife hotspots, where protection would save biodiversity and carbon sinks. (Atlas PDF)
• More species downgraded (upgraded? So confusing being a conservation biologist) on the IUCN Red List.
• In terms of carbon reduction, palm oil plantations do better planted in grasslands than forest. Meanwhile, HSBC is cutting ties with palm oil companies in Indonesia and Malaysia. Also, Sime Darby (big palm oil co.) is devoting some cash to protecting orangutan habitat.
• Some thoughts on science reporting in the Washington Post.
• It might seem like I’m sharing this story (thanks, Em) because it’s got a money quote from our fearless leader. No, it’s because I can relate this anecdote: at the Lawrence Berkeley campus up in the hills, they have cops on Segways. They also have aggressive turkeys. I have a source who has seen the turkeys chasing the cops on Segways. Just FYI, they have almost identical land speeds.
• This story came up in my feed reader of conservation news. Not really sure why, but it really is a huge potato. 2008 is the Year of the Potato, apparently, which makes this whole thing smell kind of fishy. Or, potato-y.

I have a secret hobby of obsessing over the reprehensible state of the media in my country, though until now had no particular reason to foist it upon unsuspecting conservationists. No reason no longer! On ConservationBytes today, Corey laments the reprehensible state of the media in his country, and around the world, in covering climate change and other environmental problems: “Indeed, for some of the most important issues facing humanity today (loss of biodiversity and the ecosystem services they provide), should not the best people be put onto the job? Finally, whatever happened to journalism?”

Have I got a piece of journalism for you! David Simon, former crime beat reporter for the Baltimore Sun and creator of one of the finest television shows megamovies of all time (the Wire) wrote a piece for the  Guardian on the modern American city, and how the failure of journalism is failing us all. [Note: the Guardian appears to have incorrectly identified their own author as a different David Simon]. Although his interest lies in crime, the drug wars, and justice, his arguments are equally applicable — and important — for journalists covering conservation:

The why is it. The why is what makes journalism an adult game. The why is what makes policy coherent and useful. The why is what transforms bureaucrats and foot soldiers and political leaders into viable instruments of rational and affirmative change. The why is everything and without it, the very suggestion of human progress becomes a cosmic joke…And in the American city, at the millennium, the why has ceased to exist.

A daily newspaper that had no stomach for addressing the why a decade ago when it had 400 editors and reporters, a newspaper more consumed with prize submissions and gotcha stories than with complex analysis of its city’s problems, now has 220 bodies in its newsroom and is even less capable of the task. And nothing, of course, changes.

I got to see David Simon basically present this article as a talk a few weeks ago, but he spent more time highlighting exactly why the newspaper went from 400 “bodies” to 220, and the answer’s a pretty simple buzzword: de-regulation. With media de-regulation in the 90s (nineties) and early 00s (naught-ies), huge conglomerates were able to buy out local outlets and “cut costs” by buying out older reporters. Well, in cutting costs they ended up shredding the heart and soul of the news room. That’s what happened, and it’s (in Simon’s view) why newspapers are really struggling, internet not-withstanding. As he pointed out, whether news is printed on a dead tree or on the internet is irrelevant; it’s the content that will let it thrive, and we’re in a pretty much contentless world at this point. There are, obviously, exceptions, and there are some examples of internet sites beginning to fill the void. It would be nice if we could back-track on some of that media de-regulation, though, and see if we could bail-out some of the local press.

In case you’re wondering where we’re heading, Chuck Klosterman lays it out in his brief history of the 21st century:

JUNE 11, 2041: In a matter of weeks, the entire Internet is replaced by “news blow,” a granular microbe that allows information to be snorted, injected, or smoked. Data can now be synthesized into a water-soluble powder and absorbed directly into the cranial bloodstream, providing users with an instantaneous visual portrait of whatever information they are interested in consuming. (Sadly, this tends to be slow-motion images of minor celebrities going to the bathroom.) Now irrelevant, an ocean of Web pioneers lament the evolution. “What about the craft?” they ask no one in particular. “What about the inherent human pleasure of moving one’s mouse across a hyperlink, not knowing what a simple click might teach you? Whatever happened to ironic thirty-word capsule reviews about marginally popular TV shows? Have we lost this forever?” “You just don’t get new media,” respond the news-blowers. “You just don’t get it.”

Oh, and good news for conservationists:

JUNE 5, 2070: Wolves in Canada begin hunting humans at an alarming rate. Shark attacks increase 40 percent. Jungle animals begin successfully infiltrating urban areas; a panther kills at least nine people in downtown Dallas. “I don’t know why the animals are getting smarter,” says zoologist Eli Sperle-Cho, “but it’s definitely happening.”

OCT. 19, 2071: An army of panda bears attacks Beijing, killing twelve hundred people and wounding thousands more during a bloody four-day onslaught.

…

2074 TO 2078: Robot vs. Animal War.

MAY 4, 2079: The Robot vs. Animal War concludes with the Kenya Peace Accords. The animals get Africa, Asia, North and South America, and Australia. Europe and Greenland are conceded to humans and nonhuman mechanical life. Antarctica is a free zone. The majority of remaining Earth people migrate to the moon, where overpopulation becomes an immediate problem. [And, I should add, IUCN downgrades Homo sapiens to "vulnerable" --ed]