Falk's Conservation Opinion Blog

About Falk's Conservation Opinion Blog

Some personal comments, opinions, first-hand examples and reasonings on effective conservation worldwide!

Publisher

Falk Huettmann

Category

science

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

4 Feb 2021

Latest episode

23 Dec 2023

Latest episodes

30 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   23 Dec 2023

   Neo-Colonial Flyway Conservation of Migratory Birds: An NGO example for the Afro‐Palaearctic ?

   Most migratory birds of the world's flyways are in decline, or in conservation troubles by now. The Old World flyway connecting Western Europe with Africa is no exception and hardly a surprise, while Africa features a tragic colonial legacy serving primarily the 'Global North' and a small group of wealthy or royal actors while the vast majority of people in Africa etc are ignored. Further, this Afro‐Palaearctic flyway is unique in the fact that it features deep science, done for over 100 years, by elite universities, institutions and NGOs. Still, bird numbers in UK, Germany, France, Spain, and Africa overall are in decline already for easily over a decade. It's a crisis of science-based conservation, as practiced by 'The West', in Europe and by Africa and its NGOs and governance. Here I assess a flyway conservation review by Vickery et al (2023) in the context of science bias, reality context, poverty and some ecological economics perspectives for conservation effectiveness. Reference is made to our own work, e.g. Walther and Huettmann (2021) and Chernetsov and Huettmann (2005), as well as to modern conservation practices, development aid and a future outlook involving climate change, modern methods as well as conflicts and warfare centered around resource extraction at avian conservation hotspots in Africa and the flyway. Selection of References used (in order of citation) Vickery, J. A., Mallord, J. W., Adams, W. M., Beresford, A. E., Both, C., Cresswell, W., ... & Hewson, C. M. (2023). The conservation of Afro‐Palaearctic migrants: What we are learning and what we need to know?. Ibis. https://doi.org/10.1111/ibi.13171 Walther, B. A., & Huettmann, F. (2021). Palearctic passerine migrant declines in African wintering grounds in the Anthropocene (1970–1990 and near future): A conservation assessment using publicly available GIS predictors and machine learning. Science of The Total Environment, 777, 146093. Chernetsov, N., & Huettmann, F. (2005). Linking global climate grid surfaces with local long-term migration monitoring data: spatial computations for the Pied Flycatcher to assess climate-related population dynamics on a continental scale. In International Conference on Computational Science and Its Applications (pp. 133-142). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg. Marcacci, G., Briedis, M., Diop, N., Diallo, A. Y., Kebede, F., & Jacot, A. (2023). A roadmap integrating research, policy, and actions to conserve Afro‐Palearctic migratory landbirds at a flyway scale. Conservation Letters, 16(1), e12933. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/falk-huettmann/support (https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/falk-huettmann/support)

2. 

   12 Dec 2023

   Urban Gulls: An Overlooked Management Issue for the Anthropocene ?

   Urban gulls are a fascinating issue in recent times. Most people in the world now live in cities, where they are confronted with urban governance and its wildlife, such as cockroaches, squirrels, rats, pigeons and gulls, let's say. In the subarctic this issue is widely unstudied but matters equally while most people in the world do live in cities: The Anthropocene. Here I present on a recent study by us on gulls using urban habitat surveys, 'Big Data', GIS, machine learning and its inference (Huettmann et al. 2023). I present that short-billed gulls swap in summer an ecological niche space with ravens, driven by human factors like industrialization, rivers and gravel pits and food subsidies whereas 'natural forests' now get overruled. This work has implications how urban spaces are to be managed due to gulls being known as major disease reservoirs and perceived pests. Thus far, this scheme is poorly addressed while an effective and sustainable municipal management does rule in the absence, with amateur bird watchers and contractors often dominating. An effective urban wildlife management is certainly lacking for most arctic and polar regions where pandemics currently affect such avian populations and subsequently can result into massive population crashes. References (Selection) Baltensperger, A. P., Mullet, T. C., Schmid, M. S., Humphries, G. R. W., Kövér, L., & Huettmann, F. (2013). Seasonal observations and machine-learning-based spatial model predictions for the common raven (Corvus corax) in the urban, sub-arctic environment of Fairbanks, Alaska. Polar Biology, 36, 1587-1599. Benmazouz, I., Jokimäki, J., Juhasz, L., Kaisanlahti-Jokimäki, M. L., Paladi, P., Kardos, G., ... & Kövér, L. (2023). Morphological changes in hooded crows (Corvus cornix) related to urbanization. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 11(1196075). Forman, R. T. (2014). Urban ecology: science of cities. Cambridge University Press. Hansen, L., & Huettmann, F. (2020). Swallows and Sparrows in the Human Street-Market Interface of Urban Nepal: Towards a First Open Access GIS Data and Model Inference on the Role of Religion and Culture in Bird Distribution. Hindu Kush-Himalaya watersheds downhill: Landscape ecology and conservation perspectives, 361-399. Huettmann, F., Kövér, L., Robold, R., Spangler, M., & Steiner, M. (2023). Model-based prediction of a vacant summer niche in a subarctic urbanscape: A multi-year open access data analysis of a ‘niche swap’ by short-billed Gulls. Ecological Informatics, 102364. Kövér, L., Gyüre, P., Balogh, P., Huettmann, F., Lengyel, S., & Juhász, L. (2015). Recent colonization and nest site selection of the Hooded Crow (Corvus corone cornix L.) in an urban environment. Landscape and Urban Planning, 133, 78-86. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/falk-huettmann/support (https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/falk-huettmann/support)

3. 

   27 Jan 2023

   No Snow, Wow!

   When snow gets warmed up it melts; virtually every child will know that. However, on a policy and public level, those details are hardly acknowledged, certainly not the vast impacts that relate to lacking 'snow pack', e.g. seasonality, regional climate, and feeding water tables, rivers, estuaries and thus directly contributing to farming, global food security and warfare even - to name just a few. Here I share my first-hand experiences across years from observing snow and ice in winter for areas like Hindu Kush-Himalaya, Antarctica and Alaska, the mountains and ice sheet landscapes. Those 'coldspots' are traditionally known for major ice and snow - cooling areas - of the world as indicators of the global temperature. In this podcast I outline how this crucial subject for humanity -driven by man-made CO2 and Greenhouse Gas (GHGs) - received too little attention but hopefully can get addressed better now for future generations. (Photo credit: Author, Murphy Dome (interior Alaska) area showing a mountain top with a very thin snow layer in January) Additional references Ingels J., R. Aronson, C. Smith, A. Baco, H. Bik, J. Blake, A. Brandt,M .Cape, D. DeMaster, E. Dolan, E. Domack, S. FireH, H Geisz, M. Gigliotti, H. Griffiths, K. Halanych,C. Havermans, F. Huettmann, S.Ishman, S. Kranz,A. Leventer, A. Mahon,J. McClintock,M. McCormick, B.Mitchell, A. Murray, L. Peck, A. Rogers, B. Shoplock, K. Smith, B. Steffel, M. Stukel, A. Sweetman, M. Taylor,A. Thurber, M. Truffer, A. Van de Putte, A. Vanreusel, M. Zamora-Duran (2020). Antarctic Ecosystem Responses following Ice Shelf Collapse and Iceberg Calving: Science Review and Future Research. WIREs Clim Change. 2020;e682. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.682 (see also previous podcast in this series by FH) Regmi G.R. and F. Huettmann (2020) Hindu Kush-Himalaya Watersheds Downhill: Landscape Ecology and Conservation Perspectives. Springer Gland, Switzerland . 886 pages The Guardian (2023a) Alpine ski resorts struggle amid snow shortage – in pictures. 6th January 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/travel/gallery/2023/jan/06/alpine-ski-resorts-snow-shortage-in-pictures (accessed 25th January 2023) The Guardian (2023b) In stark contrast: the warming of Europe's ski resorts - photo essay. January 26th 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/26/warming-europe-ski-resorts-photo-essay-satellite-images-winter-lack-of-snow (accessed 26th January 2023) --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/falk-huettmann/support (https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/falk-huettmann/support)

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