News

News

The region of the Tapajós basin is considered the new frontier of energy expansion in Brazil. Specifically the São Luiz do Tapajós hydroelectric project, the largest planned for the basin. If it is built, many ecosystem services will be impacted, influencing the well being of hundreds of local people who depend on them. In this perspective, CSF conducted a study that sought to understand the economic impacts on the services provided to local populations.
Our 17th annual International Economic Tools for Conservation course is underway at Stanford University! We have an amazing group of people from every corner of the globe sharing ideas about how to protect the ecosystems and human livelihoods of the world.
De cara al debate sobre las propuestas de interconexión entre las ciudades de Pucallpa (Perú) y Cruzeiro do Sul (Brasil), que atravesarían la Amazonía peruana, TNC y CSF realizaron en Lima el pasado 1ro de julio el Foro: “Retos para la interconexión sostenible de la región Ucayali”, en el marco del Consorcio Paisajes Indígenas de la Iniciativa para la Conservación en la Amazonía Andina de USAID.
Tapajós river basin, Pará State, Brazil © Camila Jericó-Daminello After an inventory of potential dams in the Tapajós river basin was released in 2008, the area has been hailed as the new frontier of energy development in Brazil. Due to the typically extensive environmental and social impacts of dam construction, governments and communities in the Amazon region have been engaged in discussions over the past few years on how to mitigate impacts on people and nature. Some dam projects are already underway with many more on the drawing board.
CSF International Course graduate Prakash Mani Sharma, Executive Director and Senior Advocate for Pro Public, wrote to us last month with some stunning news. On April 16th, 2015, the Supreme Court of Nepal set a precedent in the area of environment protection by ordering the closure of the mining company, Godawari Marble Industries. This decision is the result of over a decade of litigation by Pro Public to protect the 330 species of butterflies, 254 birds, 80 tree varieties, and 571 types of fruits in Godawari and the Phulchowki hills near the mine.
Photo credit: Fernanda Preto There’s no Wikipedia page so you can be forgiven for suspecting that I’m making it up. But Conservation Economics is actually being practiced by a bunch of serious people engaged in one of the most profound challenges of our time - averting massive losses in the diversity of Earth's life forms. So if it doesn’t exist, it’s time we brought it into being. Here goes:
Lone fishing boat, Jamaica Jamaica’s Goat Islands are the center of what has often been portrayed as a classic development-versus-environment conflict.
I remember noticing on a trip to Brazil in 2001 that compact-flourescent lightbulbs were colonizing the country's light sockets with startling speed. It hadn't been raining and the drought was idling hydroelectric dams that accounted for more than 90% of electricity. The resulting blackouts, referred to as "apagões," changed people's behavior. Consumers slashed their energy consumption and solved the crisis. The rains eventually came and the outages faded into memory.
CSF was recently awarded $100,000 to expand our trainings, analyses, collaborative field work in Africa, thanks to the generosity of the Handsel Foundation.