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Water contamination.

The main pollutants of water are toxic waste, these are thrown by the human being. It can go from a person who dirtied the water with large amounts of detergent or some other toxic substance. There are some of the most harmful companies and factories that dump tons of poison into rivers,lakes,valleys and oceans. Thats how people make water contamination.
- Cristal Garcia

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People waste to much water
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-Jose garcia

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Ks

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Bacteria are tiny, single celled prokaryotic organisms. They reproduce quickly so they evolve quickly, even within a few weeks. Bacteria in many types can be helpful to human and animal but some can cause diseases and infections. Thats why its important to wash your hands before eating so we know that the bacteria doesn't transfer to our food. Bacteria can cause tooth decay, strep throat, and ear infections.
https://www.windows2universe.org/cool_stuff/tour_evolution_9.html

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We use large amounts of water each day, as water serves many different purpose.We use water  to drink, to do the dishes, to take a shower, to flush the toilet, to cook diner and other purposes.Without water there would be no local business or industry. Fire-fighting, municipal parks, and public swimming pools all need lots of water for those jobs.  The scientist said that we will not ran out of water.  https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geophysics/run-out-of-water.htm

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Joel moreno
Our lives depend on plants, because without plants we wouldnt be where we are today. I think this because in an article that I found states "they are the major source of food, clothing, shelter and medicine. Our fossil fuels were formed by them. They clean our air and water, store carbon, and protect us from floods and drought". I also think we cant live without plants because the article also states "Our native flora and our gardens are a source of inspiration and enjoyment for many". So without plants people wouldnt have as much enjoyment.

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For humanity, all seven billion of us, they are the major source of food, clothing, shelter and medicine. Our fossil fuels were formed by them. They clean our air and water, store carbon, and protect us from floods and drought. Our native flora and our gardens are a source of inspiration and enjoyment for many. Society depends upon wise and responsible care of the botanical world around us.
This week we're talking plants - the foundation of life on Earth. The world's botanists are in Melbourne for the XVIII International Botanical Congress, opening tonight, closing Saturday.

We'll have stories on feeding the world, using eucalyptus to make fuels, using sunflowers as drug factories, putting nature reserves in the right place, and dozens of other yarns.

We start with the challenge of feeding the world; dinosaur era flowers; an embargoed Nature story, and a set-back for Latin.

But first an introduction from Tim Entwisle and Anna Koltunow, the co-chairs of the science committee - who also wrote the introduction above.
As botanical scientists we have a huge task ahead. We must continue to discover and document the vast diversity of life, making sure we know what is out there. We need to find out how these plants, algae and fungi function so we can protect and use our plant biodiversity responsibly. Only then can we use this information to improve living standards around the world and find ways to manage natural resources in the context of global change and environmental impacts. Only then can we save our plants and their habitats. The scientific program in this XVIII International Botanical Congress reflects the breadth, depth and critical importance of plant science in the 21st century. The program is rich and varied. Topics range from detailed studies of Australian eucalypts to the future of the world's rainforests, from testing traditional medicinal plants, and understanding how genes regulate plant function and growth, and enable plant cells to communicate, to developing crops to feed the world, and resolving the tree of life itself.
Tomorrow, Monday, we're releasing the following stories

1. A Nature paper on making conservation reserves work - embargoed to 3 am Monday morning. If you're on the embargo list for Nature or the AusSMC take a look. If you're not, call me for a password, or wait for the morning, it will go live on our site at 4 am. The work will be presented at the conference on Thursday by the Queensland-based team.

2. Science and religion agree - again. Botanists catch up with the Church, and agree that new species descriptions don't have to be in Latin. This will make a big difference to describing new species at a time when we need to understand how the world is changing.
This story's online now athttp://www.scienceinpublic.com.au/media-releases/latin.

3. How can we feed 9.5 billion people?
Kenneth Cassman from University of Nebraska will discuss food security as the human population reaches a climax of 9.5 billion.
Richard Richards, Chief Research Scientist and Program Leader 'High Performance Crops for Australia', CSIRO Plant Industry, can talk on where advances in genetic improvement of major crops will come from in the next 20 years. Genetic engineering is likely to make only a small contribution to improving yields and tolerance to environmental stress he says.
David Fischoff from Monsanto will discuss combining GM and non-GM technologies to improve our future food supply.

4. The first flowers - synchrotron light has revealed fossil flowers from the Cretaceous period. Else Marie Friis, Professor, Department of Palaeobotany, Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm, Sweden will reveal her studies and she and her colleagues will preview their new book about fossil flowers.

5. Climate change and wine - Snow Barlow, The University of Melbourne, will discuss:

How has climate change altered the climate in well-known wine regions?

How will the global wine industry respond to these challenges to established regions particularly if we, as consumers, wish to continue to savour the 'grassiness' of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc or the 'white pepper' of cool climate Shiraz?

What sort of wines can we look forward to in the future?

Snow is giving a free public lecture on Monday 25 July, 6:30pm, Plenary Hall, Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre and there are public lectures every day.

Later in the week you'll hear about:

The eucalyptus invasion and what it means for biofuels

The Atlas of Living Australia

Plant identification on your iPhone

Drugs from sunflowers

And much more

For more information: call me on 0417 131 977, niall@scienceinpublic.com.au or AJ Epstein on 0433 339 141 or email aj@scienceinpublic.com.au. We'll be in the Media Room (214 from 8:30am Monday 25 July).

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Life on Earth depends on plants, algae and fungi. For humanity, all seven billion of us, they are the major source of food, clothing, shelter and medicine. Our fossil fuels were formed by them. They clean our air and water, store carbon, and protect us from floods and drought.

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We use oil everyday. Oil fuels up our cars, trucks, planes and other vehicles. Today's society has changed majorly. We rely on these types of things for transportation. Therefore to make sure they will run, we need oil. Making sure they will run causes people to get gas often. Our natural gas and oil has decreased quickly. We use oil and gas as an energy source. Without it cars, trucks, planes, and other transportation vehicles, would not be in use of anymore.
LINK
https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent-exhibitions/rose-center-for-earth-and-space/david-s.-and-ruth-l.-gottesman-hall-of-planet-earth/why-is-the-earth-habitable/earth-s-resources/dwindling-resources

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Water consumption                                                                                                     Anthony Adams 

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Water consumption                                                                                                     Anthony Adams 

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In the text it says, "Drinking enough water every day is good for overall health. As plain drinking water has zero calories, it can also help with managing body weight and reducing caloric intake when substituted for drinks with calories, like regular soda.1-3  Drinking water can prevent dehydration, a condition that can cause unclear thinking, result in mood change, cause your body to overheat, constipation, and kidney stones.4,5" and i beleive this fully. Drinking water is one of the most vital resources we need and we find outways to waiste it all the time. In the picture below you can see what we use water for and what persents of the water are used in. https://www.cdc.gov/nutrition/data-statistics/plain-water-the-healthier-choice.html

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Blue whales have reduced by 90%. There are fewer than 25,000 blue whales.This animal reamins at risk because of ship collisions and fishing nets. People that drive ships have to watch out for sea creatures because we don't want anything bad to happen to them. https://www.britannica.com/list/10-of-the-most-famous-endangered-species

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The Snow leopard is no longer an endangered species, but the animals population in the wild is at risk. It is at risk from poachers and hunters. There are said to be only 4,000 Snow leopards left in the wild. Reasearchers say that these number can decline 10 percent in the next generation. Another reason these animals are at risk is because of the deforestation of their homes.  https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/15/science/snow-leopard-endangered.html

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I got my information from https://www.scienceinschool.org/content/world-without-trees. I learned from the article that without trees there would be no life on earth. Humans will not exist if trees run out because there would be a lack of oxygen and that would cause sufficating which will kill living things. Also without trees there would be floods because there would be no trees to drink the water and if it didnt rain that often the earth will dry out.

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Alejandro Rayo
The Tasmanian Devil population is decreasing to a fatal cancer called devil facil tumor disease. The disease caused tumors to appear on the animal's body and as it became contagious the population decreased. Within six months the poor animals suffer a horrible death. The amount of Tasmanian Devil's being affected by these disease is alarming.

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Siddle believes the results may offer all the pieces needed to develop a vaccine against DFTD. One strategy would be to take devil tumor cells from the wild and turn on their MHC genes in the lab, making them recognizable to devils' immune systems. Then, with their evasion strategy disabled, those cells could be injected into healthy devils, whose immune systems could learn to mount a defense when they encounter the cancer in the wild.

"I think there's a good chance that this vaccine will work," Siddle says. "Whether we get something that's effective and cost-effective [enough] to be used in the field before DFTD moves through all of Tasmania is another question."

Even if researchers could protect large numbers of Tasmanian devils with a vaccine that was 100 percent effective, those animals' immunity would not be passed on to their offspring; any vaccination program would need to go on indefinitely, a formidable challenge.
Evolution in Fast-Forward
While Jones hopes Siddle and Belov succeed in developing a DFTD vaccine, she's not expecting the devils' salvation to be delivered through a needle. Instead, she looks to another strategy: helping the devil and the cancer evolve their way into peace.

Currently, the devil cancer is far too deadly for its own good: By killing its host, the cancer is limiting its future prospects. That glaring evolutionary stumbling block should cause it to become less virulent, while also causing the devil to become more resistant over time.

CTVT, the infectious cancer that affects dogs, may point to the devil tumor's future. At perhaps 11,000 years old, CTVT is the oldest known line of mammalian cells on Earth, so it's no longer evolving much. Through random mutations in the past, it has already found the most advantageous arrangement of its DNA. In particular, it has evolved to show itself three to nine months after infection, allowing its own destruction by displaying antigens on its cell surfaces so the dog's immune system can destroy it. It's a smart evolutionary tactic, allowing infected dogs to survive and breed, thus continuing their own species and providing future hosts for the tumor.

With time, most parasites pick up similar tricks, killing their hosts more slowly or not at all. Left to its own devices, the devil tumor may likewise evolve to be less deadly. The problem is time. Because the devils are so geographically restricted and because there are so few of them, the cancer may kill them all before it has time to evolve in the ways CTVT has.

Jones' colleague Elizabeth Murchison, a geneticist at the University of Cambridge in the U.K. (and a Tasmanian expat), is working to understand the evolutionary process. The tumor is indeed evolving rapidly, she has found. Sequencing the cancer in 2007, she found that the tumor had picked up about 20,000 mutations. (By now, it undoubtedly has many more.) Most of those mutations are irrelevant, but a few of them are key, including those allowing the cancer to spread among devils. She has sequenced hundreds of tumor samples from across the island in an effort to understand how it evolves and how that affects the devils' survival rates.

Jones and Pearse hope that with this genetic knowledge in hand, it might be possible to nudge evolution along by selectively breeding devils that are particularly resistant to the cancer, or to cancers altogether. "I think there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but it's a very long tunnel," Pearse says.

Such insights could not only help rescue the devils, Murchison hopes they might help advance cancer biology more generally. A cell that evolves a mutation allowing it to divide endlessly will outgrow its neighbors. One of its progeny might pick up a mutation giving it the ability to gobble up nutrients faster; or to enslave other cells and force them to form blood vessels to feed it; or to hide from the immune system; or to resist a particular chemotherapy. Each of these mutations gives the cell an advantage over its brethren, which it then outcompetes.

The cells from that one, long-dead female devil somehow picked up another highly valuable evolutionary trick: the ability to survive in another devil's body. Researchers studying the devil tumor hope to learn what cancer does when the inconvenient obstacle of its host's death isn't enough to stop it. "Cancers are evolution in action," Murchison says. "Understanding the underlying evolutionary mechanisms that drive all cancers, not just the devil cancer, will help us understand and treat the disease."

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Fatal Cancer Threatens Tasmanian Devil Populations

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Siddle believes the results may offer all the pieces needed to develop a vaccine against DFTD. One strategy would be to take devil tumor cells from the wild and turn on their MHC genes in the lab, making them recognizable to devils' immune systems. Then, with their evasion strategy disabled, those cells could be injected into healthy devils, whose immune systems could learn to mount a defense when they encounter the cancer in the wild.

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I got my information from https://www.britannica.com/science/photosynthesis
If photosynthesis ceased, there would soon be little food or other organic matter on earth. Most organism would disappear. Green plants and small organism that fed on plants increased faster than they were consumed. The plant draws up water and minerals from the ground through roots. Sunlight gives chloroplasts energy to make food. These organic remains were slowly converted to fossil fuels.  Kaylee Rosales

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Global Warming Threatening Polar Bears; Erin Evans

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Global Warming Threatening Polar Bears; Erin Evans

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Due to humans using oils and machine they have cause the rest of the earth to heat up which have made polar ice caps melt. This has threatened many polar bears to move out of their natural habitat. But since these bears have physical qualities that help them in cold weather, they won't be able to adapt fast enough to survive through global warming and they will soon be extinct. Since no one wants to pay attention to the rise of temperature, the problem is getting bigger with no solutions. The polar ice caps have melted so much that it's beyond the point of repair.

https://www.nrdc.org/stories/global-warming-101
https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/population_and_sustainability/species.html

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I got my information from https://www.scienceinschool.org/content/world-without-trees. I learned from the article that without trees there would be no life on  Earth. Humans will not exist if trees run out because there would be a lack of oxygen and that would cause sufficating which will kill living things. Also without trees there would be floods because there would not be any trees to drink the water and if it didnt rain that often the earth will dry out.

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Felix Guido
Oil is one of the most important natural resources in the world. We use about 96 million a day. We use oil for just about anything fuel, transportation, gasoline, powering up things, and a lot more.
http://www.cfact.org/2012/09/19/is-oil-a-renewable-resource/

https://www.wintershall.com/crude-oil-natural-gas/crude-oil.html

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"Humans activities contribute to climate change by causing changes in Earth's atmosphere in the amounts of greenhouse gases, aerosols (small particles), and cloudiness. The largest known contribution comes from the burning of fossil fuels, which releases carbon dioxide gas to the atmosphere."

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Cocoa beans are being used everyday for brands that sell chocolate like hershey's and many other things that use chocolate. But if all of the cocoa beans are used what will happen to our society? Well things that we eat in our everyday will not include chocolate and we would have to use more sugar and that means more people with health problems. This is bad because they are more likely to get a stroke. But some people need to eat sugar to get up in the morning. Also kids would get mad because they don't get to eat candy. Cocoa beans would be more expensive and only the rich could have it. If chocolate wasent here anymore people would get upset. http://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/2014/11/17/chocolate-makers-warn-that-world-is-running-out-chocolate.html

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Oxygen

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Phosphorus is very valuable, since it is esstential for life of all organisms.

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The Consumption of Water                                                                                           Anthony Adams

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The Consumption of Water                                                                                           Anthony Adams

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The natural resource I chose was drinking water. Without drinking water we would not be alive. I beleive that water is the number one natural resource.

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Gas is being used everyday in the lives of car owners. Over the course of years, natural gas is now being used in homes, factories, businesses, and power plants. This resulted in an excess of gas being used. About 8.8% of our natural gas was lost in a week with a 12% maximum for a month.  According to https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-energy/coal-and-other-fossil-fuels/ the United States consumed nearly 26 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. About 0.1% of it was used to power vehicles.

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The main reason for ground water depletion is excessive pumping

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Climate change.                                                    Jonathan Hernandez

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Climate change.                                                    Jonathan Hernandez

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Human activities contribute to climate change by causing changes in Earth’s atmosphere in the amounts of greenhouse gases, aerosols (small particles), and cloudiness. The largest known contribution comes from the burning of fossil fuels, which releases carbon dioxide gas to the atmosphere

https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/climate/faq/how-do-human-activities-contribute-to-climate-change-and-how-do-they-compare-with-natural-influences

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The consumption of crude oil crude oil.

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Human activities contribute to climate change by causing changes in Earth’s atmosphere in the amounts of greenhouse gases, aerosols (small particles), and cloudiness. The largest known contribution comes from the burning of fossil fuels, which releases carbon dioxide gas to the atmosphere.

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Oil is used to produce materials like plastic and petroleum products like gasoline. We used 7.21 billion barrels of peteoleum products in 2016.

https://www.americangeosciences.org/critical-issues/faq/how-much-oil-consumed-

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The title of my article is called "The Enviormental Disaster That is the Gold Industry" by Smithsonian.com informs us that gold is the source that people are wanting so much of because if its wealthy feel to it. Also that in order to make one ring takes down 20 tons of soil and rock that will be dislodged and discarded, along with all that wasted rock contains cynaide and mercury which is used to extract the gold from the rock. This tells us that because alot of people want a golden ring, it wastes other reasources that take care of other tasks. Also that gold mining lets deep earth get onto the surface which releases tons of sulfric acid and airborne elemental mercury every year. This tells us that when we ho gold mining that releases bad chemicals in the air.

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A global campaign to boycott what activists are calling "dirty gold" gained its 100th official follower three days before Valentine's Day.

The pledge was launched in 2004 by the environmental group Earthworks, which has asked retail companies not to carry gold that was produced through environmentally and socially destructive mining practices. Eight of the ten largest jewelry retailers in the United States have now made the pledge, including Tiffany & Co., Target and Helzberg Diamonds. The No Dirty Gold campaign is anchored in its " golden rules," a set of criteria encouraging the metal mining industry to respect human rights and the natural environment.

While the list of retailers aligned in their opposition to dirty gold continues to grow longer, most gold remains quite filthy. The majority of the world's gold is extracted from open pit mines, where huge volumes of earth are scoured away and processed for trace elements. Earthworks estimates that, to produce enough raw gold to make a single ring, 20 tons of rock and soil are dislodged and discarded. Much of this waste carries with it mercury and cyanide, which are used to extract the gold from the rock. The resulting erosion clogs streams and rivers and can eventually taint marine ecosystems far downstream of the mine site. Exposing the deep earth to air and water also causes chemical reactions that produce sulfuric acid, which can leak into drainage systems. Air quality is also compromised by gold mining, which releases hundreds of tons of airborne elemental mercury every year.

Gold has traditionally been a gift of love, and, not surprisingly, jewelry sales spike around Valentine's Day. According to a recent survey released by National Jeweler, about 20 percent of Americans who planned to give a Valentine's Day gift this year said they would be buying jewelry-sales estimated to total about $4 billion. Thus, activists see Valentine's Day as a prime opportunity to educate consumers and stifle the trade of dirty gold. Payal Sampat, Earthworks' director of the No Dirty Gold campaign, wants consumers to understand the back story of the gold industry. This, she believes, would spur an improvement in mining practices.

"We believe gold and metal mining can be done much more responsibly," Sampat says. "It's feasible, but consumers need to think about the impacts they have when they buy jewelry."

But the demand for gold is tremendous now. Several months ago, gold's value hit $1,800 an ounce. It has since dropped to roughly $1,300-though that's still five times its price in the late 1990s. The money to be made at all levels of the industry, from l aborers knee-deep in mud to executive officers reaping thousands of dollars a day, creates powerful incentive to find gold -even though doing so may now be harder than ever. Alan Septoff, communications manager for the No Dirty Gold campaign, says that easily accessible gold has become scarcer and scarcer through time. "What we have left in most mines is very low-quality ore, with a greater ratio of rock to gold," Septoff said.

This, he explains, makes the energy required to mine that gold-and the waste and pollution produced in the process-proportionally greater and greater. In other words, dirty gold is only getting dirtier. What's more, gold that cannot be traced back to some level of deforestation, air and watershed pollution, and human injury and death is virtually nonexistent, according to Septoff.

"There is no such thing as clean gold, unless it's recycled or vintage," he says.

But James Webster, the curator of mineral deposits at the American Museum of Natural History, says the story is not as dark and one-sided as some may spin it. A clean gold mining industry is indeed possible, he says. Moreover, the industry is not as destructive at it may seem. Some states have strict-and effective-regulations on the handling of mine waste and runoff, Webster says.

"Cyanide is not as nasty/scary as it may sound," he wrote in an email. "Its half-life is brief in the presence of sunlight."

Yet the Environmental Protection Agency has reported that 40 percent of watershed headwaters in the western United States have been contaminated by mining operations. Many of these are tiny sites, and there are, overall, roughly 500,000 defunct metal mines in 32 western states that the EPA has plans to clean up. Remediation of these sites may cost more than $35 billion.

One of the largest open pit mines is located near Salt Lake City-the Bingham Canyon Mine. The deepest mine in the world, it is about 4,000 vertical feet from its rim to the bottom. Bingham Canyon is known as a copper mine, but the site yields gold, too. More than 600 tons of gold have come out of the mine since its opening in 1906, and every year, $1.8 billion worth of metals are produced here.

Another infamous American mine is the Berkeley Pit, in Montana. This mine made the nearby town of Butte rich and prosperous for a time, but the site was eventually exhausted of riches-including copper and gold-and retired. In the decades since, water has seeped into the Berkeley Pit and filled the mine, and today it contains one of the most lethally polluted lakes in the world. The toxic, acidic water killed 342 snow geese that landed here in 1995. The water, many people fear, will eventually taint the region's groundwater supply.

The Grasberg Mine, in Indonesia, is one of the largest gold mines in the world and is owned by American company Freeport McMoRan. The Grasberg Mine is also located smack in the middle of Lorentz National Park, creating such a huge scar on the Earth that can be seen from space. The mine dumps about 80 million tons of waste debris into the Ajkwa river system every year, according to Sampat at Earthworks. Another American company, Newmont, owns the Batu Hijau mine, also in Indonesia. This operation dumps its waste into the ocean near the island of Sumbawa.

While the EPA struggles to remediate and restore almost countless mine sites in the United States, and while activists work to stem the tide of demand on the gold industry, efforts are underway to develop more open pit mines. Among the most controversial is the Pebble Mine, proposed for Alaska's Bristol Bay region. The project, critics say, could destroy or seriously damage unspoiled wilderness, wildlife habitat, indigenous cultures and the region's sockeye salmon fishery. Of the Pebble Mine, Septoff at Earthworks said, "There could not be a clearer example of a short-term profit gained at a long-term loss."

The road ahead for the Pebble Mine's proponents will not likely be a smooth one. A major investor in the project backed out late last year, and the jewelry industry-which uses about half of all gold mined each year -has expressed opposition to the project. Several days ago, Tiffany & Co.'s chairman and CEO Michael Kowalski told JCK Magazine that developing the Pebble Mine site will almost certainly do more damage than it's worth to the environment, the region's salmon-based economy and the face of the gold industry itself.

"The possibility of this ending in disaster is so high, it's hard to see how any mining company could go forward," Kowalski told JCK.

The EPA released a report in January in which the agency said development of the mine would carry many risks of damage to the ecology and culture of the region.

There is an activist slogan that says, "The more you know, the less gold glows."

But ethical, responsibly mined gold may actually be possible. It has been estimated that about 165,000 metric tons of gold have been mined in all of human history. Most of this gold is still in circulation -and a growing number of jewelers are making use of this material. Brilliant Earth, Leber Jeweler and Toby Pomeroy are three companies that have abandoned new gold and opted,instead, to only deal in recycled and second-hand material, thereby cutting mining out of the equation.

Beth Gerstein, co-founder of Brilliant Earth, based in San Francisco, says there have long been "inconsistencies" between the traditional perceived value of gold as a romantic symbol and the realities of extracting raw gold from the Earth.

"Jewelry is a symbol of commitment and values and we want this to be true inside and out," Gerstein said.

Gerstein, along with her business partner, launched Brilliant Earth in 2005, and she says demand for recycled gold has grown since the beginning.

"Consumers want to know that the product they're buying hasn't had a negative impact on the world," Gerstein said. The gesture of recycled precious metals seems a virtuous one, and public interest in supporting the effort seems to reflect goodwill. But Webster, at the American Museum of Natural History, says that recycling gold has so far done little to offset the destruction of mining.

"Unfortunately, the demand for gold, annually, far exceeds the amount recycled," he wrote.

He even feels that applying any symbolic or superficial value to gold, whether recycled or fresh from an open pit mine, is ultimately only furthering the problems linked to much of the mining industry:

"To me, it is interesting that because the majority of gold that is mined and extracted from ores is directed to the jewelry industry (an enterprise that societies might be able to survive with less of), we could run societies on Earth with much less gold mining."

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The Environmental Disaster That is the Gold Industry

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The mining industry has had a devastating impact on ecosystems worldwide. Is there any hope in sight?

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African Congo Deforestation may be on the decline...

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African Congo Deforestation may be on the decline...

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This article describes the decline of deforestation and rainforest clear-cutting since 2000. Mr. Isaacson.

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Deforestation has fallen in Congo Basin countries over the past decade despite a sharp increase in the rate of forest clearing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to a new study published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B as part of a set of 18 papers on the region's tropical forests.

The special issue, which was put together by Yadvinder Malhi, Stephen Adu-Bredu, Rebecca Asare, Simon Lewis and Philippe Mayaux, covers a range of issues relating to the rainforests of the Congo Basin, including deforestation, the impacts of global change, the history and key characteristics of the region's forests, and resource extraction, among others.

With 178 million hectares of rainforests, the Congo Basin is second only to the Amazon in terms of tropical forest cover. Overall the region accounts for 89 percent of Africa's tropical rainforests and stores 39 billion tons of carbon, accounting for 79 percent of the continent's terrestrial carbon.
Congo deforestation on the decline
Analysis of satellite data by Philippe Mayaux and colleagues shows the Congo Basin - at 0.3 percent annual forest loss - has the lowest deforestation rate of the planet's major tropical forest regions, both in proportional and absolute terms. The region's deforestation rate is also declining, falling 36 percent from 285,400 hectares a year in the 1990s to 181,500 ha per year in the 2000s. Africa's overall rate of rainforest loss is outpacing that of the Congo, falling more than half from 592,000 ha in the 1990s to 288,000 ha per year during the past decade.

The special issue notes that Africa's relative low rate of forest loss is a product of its circumstances, including "the almost complete absence of agro-industrial scale clearing", which globally accounts for more than half of tropical forest loss. Thomas Rudel of Rutgers University analyses drivers of deforestation in the region and finds that oil and mineral wealth seem to be acting as a deterrent to deforestation by triggering urban migration away from forest areas. But at the same time, this shift appears to weakening food security by increasing countries' dependence on food importance.

"The wetter Congo basin countries had lower rates of deforestation, in part because tax receipts from oil and mineral industries in this region spurred rural to urban migration, declines in agriculture and increased imports of cereals from abroad," writes Rudel. "In this respect, the Congo basin countries may be experiencing an oil and mineral fueled forest transition."

The research found most deforestation is "found around transport networks and close to cities, including areas suitable for agriculture within 5 hours travel time to major markets, and wood fuel and charcoal provisioning within 12 hours from a city."

But unlike other parts of the world, research published in the special issue suggests that commercial logging does not appear to be a major driver of deforestation in the Congo Basin. Instead it drives forest degradation and is associated with the burgeoning bushmeat trade by granting access via logging roads to hunters.

"In the high diversity African tropics, there are typically only one to two timber trees harvested per hectare, and it makes little economic sense to clear cut forests remote from markets," write Malhi and colleagues. "This contrasts with Southeast Asia, where the dipterocarp-rich forests yield many more timber species, and are much more intensively logged (around 10-20 trees per hectare) and heavily damaged by logging."

"Mayaux et al and Rudel explore the possible linkages between logging and subsequent deforestation. They find little evidence of logging leading to deforestation, either at national or local scales. One key difference from Amazonia is the lack of an active colonization frontier with pressure to clear logged forest. The loose network of logging tracks, owing to the light exploitation density, combined with the low population density, does not provoke the critical conditions for deforestation, except around a few concessions in the DRC."

Another paper in the special issue looks specifically at the effects of logging on the structure and dynamics of the forest. Sylvie Gourlet-Fleury and colleagues found that while biomass and forest function rebounds quickly from logging within 25 years, commercial trees take "much longer" to recovery. Meanwhile, a review by Kate Abernethy reveals that "defaunation" from unsustainable hunting can have persistent, long-term impacts on forest structure by reducing the abundance of key seed dispersers and "forest architects" like elephants.
Elephants may have an outsized role in Congo Basin forests. As noted by Simon Lewis and others, elephants may be partly responsible for the region's tall trees and high biomass, by crushing and eating small trees.

"The extremely low stem density in African forests may relate to the very high large animal biomass: elephants ( Loxodonta africana cyclotis), gorillas ( Gorilla gorilla gorilla) and other large herbivores such as bongos ( Tragelaphus eurycerus) may keep the density of small trees very low," Lewis and colleagues write. "This view is reinforced by a recent paper from Southeast Asia showing a large increase in sapling density when the large animal fauna is extirpated."

Lewis and co-authors note that, on average, Congo forests are taller and less diverse than Asia or the Amazon. But they store nearly as much carbon as the great Dipterocarp forests of Borneo.
The great unknown for Congo forests: climate change
While Congo Basin forests appear to be absorbing more carbon at present, the science on the impact of climate change in the region is far from settled. Climate models agree that the Congo basin will see a sharp rise in temperatures - up to 4°C this century, but it is uncertain how vegetation and wildlife will respond to the new conditions. Furthermore, parts of the basin may see shifts in precipitation patterns, including "wetting of the eastern regions" and "intensified dry seasons in the western Congo Basin". Reconstructions of past vegetation cover in the region shows that Congo forests have waxed and waned with climate change, including a "substantial" retreat 3,000 years ago.

Richard Washington and colleagues note that part of the problem in predicting the effects of climate change in the Congo Basin is lack of understanding of current conditions.

"The Congo Basin is poorly studied because of the dearth of available ground-based climate observations from the region, particularly in the past few decades," write Malhi and colleagues. "This deficiency is of global significance, because the Congo Basin is the second most important convective 'engine' of the global atmospheric circulation after the Maritime Continent (insular Southeast Asia and the surrounding waters) and is also the region of highest lightning strike frequencies on the planet [57]. In transition seasons (March-May and September-November), the Congo Basin dominates global tropical rainfall."

Comparison of the satellite images and forest-cover maps over the region of Lisala-Bumba (DR Congo). (a) MODIS color composite; (b) Landsat color composite; (c) MODIS-derived map (Mayaux et al 2013 study); (d ) Landsat-derived map; (e) GlobCover map and ( f ) synthesis map.

Planning for the future
Given the importance of Congo forests, the special issue includes papers on conservation options in the region. Unsurprisingly, a big focus is the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) mechanism, a program that aims to provide performance-based compensation to tropical countries for protecting their forests. REDD+ could potentially trigger the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars a year to Congo Basin countries, but has yet to overcome significant technical, economic, and political challenges. Nonetheless, some $550 million has already been committed to REDD+ in the region, which the issue suggests "may already be having an impact on slowing down deforestation and degradation activities in the region."

Malhi and colleagues note that there may be a limited window for consolidating conservation gains in the region given rising interest in industrial agriculture, especially oil palm plantations.

"A major threat to the forest biome is the potential of a shift to commercial agro-plantations, the write. "If poorly planned, then these industrial croplands could lead to extensive loss of forests as witnessed in Southeast Asia, and in soya bean regions of Amazonia, especially when combined with poor governance."

Rainforest logs in Gabon
Need for more research
The special section ends with a call to better understand Congo Basin forests.

"This short synthesis has highlighted many surprising aspects of the African rainforest biome, and how different it is in many aspects from other, perhaps better understood, rainforest regions. It has also highlighted how little we know and how much there is still to discover," write Malhi and colleagues. "There are reasons for concern, such has the heavy levels of defaunation and the potential impacts of climate change, and reasons for hope, such as the low rates of deforestation and the possible resilience of rainforest species to climate change."

"We call on the research and policy communities to redouble efforts to give this fascinating rainforest continent the attention it so richly deserves."

Young gorilla in Gabon

PAPERS IN THE SPECIAL ISSUE:

Malhi, Yadvinder; Adu-Bredu, Stephen; Asare, Rebecca; Lewis, Simon; Mayaux, Philippe. Introduction: The past, present and future of Africa's rainforests

Mayaux, Philippe; Pekel, Jean-François; Desclée, Baudouin; Donnay, François; Lupi, Andrea; Achard, Frédéric; Clerici, Marco; Bodart, Catherine; Brink, Andreas; Nasi, Robert; Belward, Alan. State and evolution of the African rainforests between 1990 and 2010

Lewis, Simon et al. Aboveground biomass and structure of 260 African tropical forests

Mitchard, Edward; Flintrop, Clara. Assessing the relative magnitude of woody encroachment and deforestation in sub-Saharan Africa's woodlands and savannas 1982-2006

Rudel, Thomas. The National Determinants of Deforestation in Sub-Saharan Africa

Oslisly, Richard; White, Lee; Bentaleb, Ilham; Favier, Charly; Fontugne, Michel; Gillet, Jean François; Sebag, David. Climatic and cultural changes in the West Congo Basin forests over the past 5000 years

Willis, Katherine; Bennett, Keith; Burrough, Sallie; Macias-Fauria, Marc; Tovar, Carolina. Determining the response of African biota to climate change: using the past to model the future

Abernethy, Kate; Coad, Lauren; Taylor, Gemma; Lee, Michelle; Maisels, Fiona. Extent and ecological consequences of hunting in Central African rainforests in the 21st Century

Gourlet-Fleury, Sylvie; Mortier, Frédéric; Fayolle, Adeline; Baya, Fidèle; Ouedraogo, Dakis; Benedet, Fabrice; Picard, Nicolas. Tropical forest recovery from logging: a 24 year silvicultural experiment from Central Africa

Fisher, Joshua; Sikka, Munish; Sitch, Stephen; Ciais, Philippe; Poulter, Benjamin; Galbraith, David; Lee, Jung-Eun; Huntingford, Chris; Viovy, Nicolas; Zeng, Ning; Ahlström, Anders; Lomas, Mark; Levy, Peter; Frankenberg, Christian; Saatchi, Sassan; Malhi, Yadvinder. African tropical rainforest net CO2 fluxes in the 20th century
James, Rachel; Washington, Richard; Rowell, David. Implications of global warming for the climate of African rainforests

Washington, Richard; James, Rachel; Pearce, Helen; Pokam, Wilfried; Moufouma-Okia, Wilfran. Congo Basin rainfall climatology: can we believe the climate models?

Otto, Friederike; Jones, Richard; Halladay, Kate; Allen, Myles. Attribution of changes in precipitation patterns in African rainforests

Asefi-Najafabady, Salvi; Saatchi, Sassan. Response of African humid tropical forests to recent rainfall anomalies

Maniatis, Danae; Gaugris, Jerome; Mollicone, Danilo; Scriven, Joel; Corblin, Alexis; Ndikumagenge, Cleto; Aquino, André; Crete, Philippe; Sanz-Sanchez, Maria-José. Financing and current capacity for REDD+ readiness and monitoring, measurement, reporting and verification in the Congo Basin

Asare, Rebecca. The Community Resource Management Area Mechanism: A strategy to manage African forest resources for REDD+

Gond, Valery; Fayolle, Adeline; Pennec, Alexandre; Cornu, Guillaume; Mayaux, Philippe; Camberlin, Pierre; Doumenge, Charles; Fauvet, Nicolas; Gourlet-Fleury, Sylvie. Vegetation structure and greenness in central Africa from modis multi-temporal data

Malhi, Yadvinder; Adu-Bredu, Stephen; Asare, Rebecca; Lewis, Simon; Mayaux, Philippe. African rainforests: past, presents and future

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Deforestation rate falls in Congo Basin countries

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Deforestation has fallen in Congo Basin countries over the past decade despite a sharp increase in the rate of forest clearing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to a new study published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B as part of a set of 18 papers on the region's tropical forests.