MAKE A PROMISE TO PROTECT CLEAN AIR.

Global cover of forest is well-known to be decreasing at an alarming rate. Assessing the current situation is always liable to leave the assessors bemoaning their state of out-of-datedness!. On 20th March, however, several prominent ecologists released their research on just how threatened and lacking in biodiversity our native woodland is becoming.

70% of the remaining forests are only 1km from the edge of the forest, meaning they must look mightily skinny. Over 5 continents and many different biomes over 35 years, that creates a crazy image of lost bits of habitat, isolated like sorry islands in a sea of human development. The smallest of these pieces of woodland are not alone, as they biodiversity has been reduced everywhere by between 13 and 75%, with increases in all cases as time passes.

Restoration and reconnection with wildlife corridors is urgent to prevent many extinctions such as tigers in India or much smaller species that rely on a tiny area to provide their needs in a habitat. If we wipe out one plant area or one ant, for example, we lose a butterfly species such as the large blue, Phengaris arion.

Using a brand-new high resolution map of global tree cover, the forest border figures were obtained. The Amazon and Congo Basins remain as the only pieces of contiguous forests in the world, despite their fast disappearance. SE Asia, New Guinea and the northern taiga forests are the only others left. The Brazilian Atlantic Forest is an object lesson, being now largely deforested, reduced from having 90% of the trees more than 1km from the forest edge to only 9%.

As fragmentation has a large role in reducing population sizes below any viable level, corridors have become essential for organisms that can actually use them. The edge of a forest is a very dangerous area for predation of all types, with fledgling birds an obvious example. This means bird species can be reduced in numbers so badly that extinction looms over their obvious lack of future breeding success. Fragmentation was shown in the study to cause species richness of most groups of organisms to decrease by between 20 and 75%. Effects could be immediate, or they could become greater over time. Bird species in some areas declined by 50% over either 5 years or 12 years, depending on the habitat fragment size. Arthropod species richness in another area declined by between 26 and 40 % after only 1 year.

As food webs lose members, they over-simplify and the whole ecosystem loses functions such as nutrient cycling or decomposition rates and actually reduces its biomass. New experiments are being used to determine how many more biotic and abiotic factors influence species under these stresses in their habitats. In France the 2011 Metatron assesses habitat isolation and abiotic factors that affect species, while SAFE in a Borneo rainforest will assess anthropogenic influences such as poaching around an agricultural plantation.

Fragmentation of habitats like forests produces consistently strong effects on the species within them. We cannot state how important the research here is to maintain the earth as a set of valid ecosystems. Nick M Haddad of North Carolina State University, US, and his many eminent colleagues produced this paper as

Read more at http://www.earthtimes.org/politics/rainforest-fragments-species-need/2878/#8m38YCt9ewSPQthL.99

early 37 million children live in areas with unhealthy polluted air, and many pollution- associated illnesses have been on the rise. Yet polluters and their allies in Congress have been fighting efforts to reduce toxic industrial pollution and are trying to weaken existing clean air protections.

That's why NRDC has joined other public health, advocacy and environmental organizations in the "Clean Air Promise," a national campaign to protect the health of children and families across the country from dangerous air pollution. As part of this campaign, we will Nbe asking elected officials, and later corporate and industry leaders, to promise to support clean air protection.

Since 1970, the Environmental Protection Agency has protected public health by setting and enforcing standards to protect the quality of the air we breathe and the water we drink.

But there is more to do. Many older power plants and industrial facilities enjoy loopholes that allow them to pollute at much higher levels than their cleaner counterparts. To protect public health from these dirty plants, we need the EPA to set standards that level the playing field by requiring all plants to meet the same cleaner standards. And since Congress failed to pass legislation to address global warming pollution, that job falls to the EPA.

However, polluters and some business organizations are pressuring members of Congress to stop the EPA from doing its job of protecting public health by rolling back existing public health laws like the Clean Air Act and blocking needed clean air and clean water protections.

Some key public health standards now under attack:

Standards to Reduce Toxic Power Plant Air Pollution

Establishing standards to reduce toxic pollution from the thousands of power plants nationwide could save as many as 17,000 lives a year, prevent respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, and reduce the exposure of children to mercury and lead.

Health Standards for Smog (Ground-Level Ozone)

We could save up to 12,000 lives per year and prevent tens of thousands of cases of respiratory and heart disease by tightening national smog pollution standards.

Standards to Reduce Toxic Industrial Air Pollution

We could save approximately 5,000 lives per year and prevent thousands of cases of respiratory and heart disease by reducing toxic air pollution from industrial plants.

Reducing Global Warming From Cars and Light Trucks

Improving emissions performance in cars and light trucks would reduce heat-trapping carbon pollution that causes global warming while saving consumers billions of dollars and cutting oil use.

Reducing Global Warming From Medium- and Heavy-Duty Trucks

The first-ever standards to cut carbon dioxide emissions and improve fuel efficiency in medium- and heavy-duty trucks would reduce global warming pollution, save 500 million barrels of oil over the lifetimes of the trucks sold during model years 2014 to 2018 and save truck operators $49 billion over the life of the vehicles.

Reducing Global Warming From Power Plants

Instituting standards to reduce global warming pollution from power plants would help reduce the pollution that is increasing deaths and illnesses from heat waves, air pollution, infectious diseases, and severe weather events.

Despite the EPA and the Clean Air Act’s success, the job isn’t finished. Air pollution continues to be a health problem, with many types of pollution and sources of pollution left unaddressed because of loopholes or political pressure or delays. But polluters and other special interests are once again asking Congress to put profits before public health.

Congress should let EPA do its job in order to ensure healthy air for all Americans.sction.