When we think about great freshwater ecosystems globally, most people don't think about the United Kingdom. The Yangtze of China is probably closer to most visions of a great river, or perhaps from a wild perspective Lake Baikal of Russia or the Colorado river as it passes through the Grand Canyon. But there is also great beauty and wonder in small places — streams and ponds — that may lack grandeur but are no less moving or important. The chalk streams of southern England and northern France are precisely such places.
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Tags: video, united kingdom, conservation, efficiency

Looking back across the last twenty years, there have been several notable climate change policy and science events. The 1992 Rio Convention helped define the shape of climate change policy for the next decade and created the IPCC as a science advisory board. The Ministerial Declaration of the Hague on Water Security in Twenty-First Century captured many key concepts on water and climate change, linking policy, water management, and the need for a new paradigm. And the Brisbane Convention on environmental flows in 2007 marked a major consensus between policymakers and ecologists and hydrologists that flow regime was the most important aspect of freshwater ecosystems to focus on for sustainable use. This is a good time for reflection on where we've come, and where freshwater conservation and development needs to go next. And fortunately, the Fuller Symposium on 3 and 4 November — titled Securing Water for People and Nature in a Changing Climate — is just in time.

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Tags: policy, conservation, Development

Lets take two scenarios.  On the 18th of December, the world walks away with a new global deal on climate change.  The agreement includes progressive emission targets for rich countries, nationally appropriate mitigation strategies for developing countries, financing for adaptation and a good institutional framework. Alternatively, on the 18th December the negotiations finally break down, no deal is struck and world leaders walk away with nothing.  In our second breakfast roundtable we tackle the implications of the UNFCCC negotiations on international water management policy.  Listen in here.  Read More...

Tags: podcasts, unfccc, climate adaptation, policy, Development, conservation

This video is a fair representation of the overview adaptation talk I've been giving for the past few months, describing how climate adaptation differs from much of the economic development and conservation work up to now and how climate adaptation has some special challenges and opportunities for the water sector. Filmed on 3 August 2009 in Brasilia, DF, Brazil, this is a long flick at 25 minutes, so brace yourself. Although I appear visually a few times in the stream, most of what you see are the presentation slides filling the screen with me (in English) and Martin Charles (my most excellent Portuguese translator) delivering the substance of the keynote talk to a live audience of leading policy and resource management staff from various government and civil society groups. The event was billed as a climate adaptation workshop, spanning two days at a place called the LBV (very interesting in itself) but hosted by WWF-Brazil. Filmed in August 2009. Read More...

Tags: brazil, climate adaptation, portuguese, policy, conservation, video, Development

I’ve just returned from a trip to Brazil, where most of my time was spent talking in Brasilia with colleagues and policymakers working on climate adaptation issues from a freshwater perspective. While I will soon post a video of a talk that I gave (and perhaps some other video content), I’ve just finished a short video from I trip I made to the beautiful savannah or cerrado of interior Brazil a few hundred kilometers from Brasilia. Hope you enjoy! — JM Read More...

Tags: video, brazil, conservation, Development

I’ve started teaching a distance learning course with Dr. Bruce Dugger at Oregon State University on wetlands. My contribution focuses on wetlands of the world and on climate impacts on wetlands, and includes making some short videos on wetlands I visit on my travels. The first installment is posted here. A new posting will be uploaded by early August for the cerrado of Brazil. Read More...

Tags: wetlands, video, conservation, travel, north america, louisiana

Those of us working in climate adaptation often work alone and in isolation within our organizations. It’s hard to find each other to learn and grow professionally. Moreover, we know we need support — emotional as well as professional, since climate adaptation is challenging and draining work whether you work in DRR, conservation, policy, or economic development. There have been a growing number of online communities that focus on climate adaptation. Here, we’re launching a new one called ClimateAdapt.Info. Read More...

Tags: climate adaptation, policy, conservation, Development, drr, community adaptation

World Water Forum must be one of the largest conferences on the planet. Occurring every three years, the venue shifts through the developing world. Two weeks ago, the fifth Forum occurred in Istanbul, Turkey, couched between Europe, Africa, and Asia. I heard estimates of between 20,000 and 30,000 attendees for the week. Though we were all there nominally in the name of “water,” I’m not sure how unified or clear the focus the meeting is or even can be. Our conservation booth was located near the massive and predictably colorful “Italy” booth but also near a cluster of dam builders. On one adaptation panel, I sat between the representative of professional organization for water engineering and policy consultants and a labor union representative for water supply and sanitation workers. The conference had the coherence of a river that has reached its floodplain, spreading out and slowing down. Nonetheless, there were some interesting trends in water with climate change and climate adaptation. Read More...

Tags: turkey, asia, europe, climate adaptation, policy, conservation, finance, Dams

There are three major global water-related meetings: the World Bank’s Water Week every February, World Water Week in Stockholm every August, and the World Water Forum, which occurs every three years (and is discussed in another recent entry). Last February, I was invited to speak about some work I was leading for a team at the Bank’s Water Week. Water Week occurs in Washington, DC, where the World Bank’s global headquarters is located. The World Bank was founded after World War II at the Bretton Woods Conference along with the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund to promote equitable economic development. Water is a critical element in the Bank’s strategy: reliable and sustainable water use and infrastructure development are critical to development in most (all?) parts of the world, so the Bank advises on and funds projects such as dams, irrigation programs, and even habitat restoration. But the World Bank is not a normal place to be for a conservation biologist. Either from the Bank’s perspective or from the biologist’s. We don’t really go to the same kinds of parties. Read More...

Tags: funding, conservation, Development, water management, travel

I’m a liberal (in the left-wing North American usage) and a conservationist by almost any standard definition. In fact, my commitment to obtain a conservation-oriented biology PhD is a searing indictment of how serious my intentions are. Given that my area of specialty is in aquatic/freshwater ecology, I might be expected to oppose all non-restoration human modifications of lakes, rivers, and wetlands under any circumstances. In truth, a year ago that was probably an accurate description. But I have recently drawn fire and ire for commenting positively on dams and the people who pay for them. I will attempt to explain myself here. Read More...

Tags: Dams, policy, conservation

A comment to a recent entry on this blog suggested that the single-most important environmental issue of our time was overpopulation. I’d like to take issue with that view here, which has been part of the mainstream of North American (or at least U.S.) conservation dogma for a few decades, though some of the old stalwarts are dying off. Paul Ehrlich put forward the argument most forcefully in books like The Population Bomb (1970): too many people were on the planet, populations were continuing to explode at ever-greater rates, and resources would soon be depleted. As humans reached some K carrying capacity (which we were just a few days or weeks away from), economic and population collapses would follow, mass starvation, warfare, and bad television would ensue. The last part came true, but somehow we’ve continued to struggle past the first two. This little idea is ethnocentric, simplistic, dangerous, and will result in policies that delay constructive action generally and foster North-South and East-West conflict in particular. Overpopulation as a global threat shows (at best) a lack of imagination and general knowledge. At worst, it is racist and forcefully ignores the real issues at stake in our time. There are more nuanced approaches (such as Jared Diamond’s Collapse). But they’re the exception, not the rule.
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Tags: conservation, policy, philosophy

One of my key hunches is that climate change alters the framework of economic development and conservation. My proprietary and parochial interest is in freshwater ecosystems, but the insight (if insight it be) extends more broadly. Here, I propose a list of some of the climate-related elements I think we should be debating in regard to freshwater management. It is not complete, but these cover many of the big points we should probably be resolving now and over the next few years. Read More...

Tags: policy, conservation, water management, climate adaptation, philosophy

The IPCC has recently put together a separate report on freshwater and climate change. Read More...

Tags: impacts, conservation, news

Saving water in daily practice is not a big issue in regions that are not drought stressed. The trendy term du jour about reducing clean water consumption is water footprint — something like the concept of a carbon footprint. Read More...

Tags: conservation, news

I'm just back from a rapid trip to meet with my funding sources in the western burbs of Chicago. Funding has always been a concern in the worlds of conservation and science, since neither area normally has direct services or products that people with money are willing to purchase on their own merits. At best we are investments with uncertain returns. More often we are some combination of guilt, ethical action, and provide an association with behaviors and people that are deemed virtuous. On this trip, however, I was struck by the personal transformations that many of this sponsor's employees have gone through as a result of the association of this company with three non-profits (including the one employing me) and one government-affiliated research institution. Read More...

Tags: travel, conservation

The hard rains of the past few days have kept me locked inside except for an almost aborted trail run along a muddy, hilly trail. I came back soaked from the rain and sweat, my tights brown on black from the mud, and hands numb from the cold. But I could hear and see lots of birds moving through, even a few varied thrush that aren't normally at lower altitudes. I also heard my first hermit thrush this morning -- another lovely song. To keep from going stir crazy form being stuck inside, I've turned to work and this blog. And a conference call this afternoon -- including North America, Asia, Australia, and Europe -- brought what has become a familiar issue back to the front.

I've visited probably over a dozen cities and several national WWF offices in my role as a "freshwater climate adaptation specialist." You're probably thinking, What does any of that mean? Truly, a most excellent question. A definition of "climate adaptation" and "freshwater climate adaptation" will have to wait for another entry. Instead, I'd rather talk about the confusion itself as a phenomenon.
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Tags: climate adaptation, conservation

A lot of people have a romantic vision of the life of a conservation biologist, certainly for those who do fieldwork in exotic places. Perhaps I still share this vision, at least occasionally. But one reader of the first three entries here called and said, Your site is very depressing. I assume he meant it wasn’t romantic and charming.

He’s right, of course. Even by the root of the term, “conservation” is about a stopping loss, an attempt to keep from losing too much and about holding on to some notion of what’s “left” in a place -- an attempt to keep a place from passing from threatened to a state of crisis, or from a crisis to something even worse. Read More...

Tags: conservation, species, policy