<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/" xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/" >

	<channel>
		<title>Conservation news</title>
		<atom:link href="https://news.mongabay.com/feed/?topic=anthropocene&#038;type=post" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
		<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/anthropocene/</link>
		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
		<lastBuildDate>Wed, 09 Sep 2026 19:49:22 +0000</lastBuildDate>
		<language>en-US</language>
		<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
		<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
		<generator>https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.4</generator>

<image>
	<url>https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/05/16160320/cropped-mongabay_icon-32x32.png</url>
	<title>News on Anthropocene</title>
	<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/anthropocene/</link>
	<width>32</width>
	<height>32</height>
</image> 
				<item>
					<title>Amid haze of war, Lebanese activists helped turtle hatchlings journey to sea</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/amid-haze-of-war-lebanese-activists-helped-turtle-hatchlings-journey-to-sea/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/amid-haze-of-war-lebanese-activists-helped-turtle-hatchlings-journey-to-sea/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 Sep 2024 14:15:50 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Amélie David]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rebecca Kessler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/09/25113802/loggerhead-turtle-hatchling-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=287832</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Lebanon, and Middle East]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Anthropocene, Biodiversity, Coastal Ecosystems, Conflict, Conservation, Conservation leadership, Endangered Species, Environment, Human-wildlife Conflict, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Oceans, Poaching, Reptiles, Sea Turtles, Social Conflict, Tourism, Turtles, War, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[BEIRUT — Baby loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) and green turtles (Chelonia mydas) made their way from their sandy nests in South Lebanon to the Mediterranean Sea, their flippers seemingly too large for their tiny bodies. Videos circulating on social media show these vulnerable creatures being carefully guided by a group of dedicated people to ensure [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[BEIRUT — Baby loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) and green turtles (Chelonia mydas) made their way from their sandy nests in South Lebanon to the Mediterranean Sea, their flippers seemingly too large for their tiny bodies. Videos circulating on social media show these vulnerable creatures being carefully guided by a group of dedicated people to ensure they reach the water safely. Between mid-June and mid-September, such scenes regularly occurred at Al-Mansouri Beach, south of the city of Tyre, even as war loomed audibly in the background. The people, part of a volunteer group that has been tending the beach and the turtle nests there for two decades, continued their work this nesting season undeterred by the violence around them. A series of cross-border attacks between Hezbollah, the pro-Iranian Shia party in Lebanon, and Israel have spiraled since the beginning of the war in Gaza in October 2023. In South Lebanon, more than 600 people had been killed, including at least 147 civilians, as of Sept. 20, and more than 111,000 had been displaced from their homes, according to the latest figures from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Numbers have risen sharply since the recent escalation in which Israel detonated pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah militants and struck hundreds of targets, killing more than 500 additional people across the country including many civilians as of Sept. 23, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. In northern Israel, conflict with Hezbollah has killed dozens and displaced tens of thousands, according&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/amid-haze-of-war-lebanese-activists-helped-turtle-hatchlings-journey-to-sea/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/amid-haze-of-war-lebanese-activists-helped-turtle-hatchlings-journey-to-sea/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-287832</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Human influence on tropics predates Anthropocene, holds clues to current crisis</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/10/human-influence-on-tropics-predates-anthropocene-holds-clues-to-current-crisis/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/10/human-influence-on-tropics-predates-anthropocene-holds-clues-to-current-crisis/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 Oct 2021 15:52:19 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Claire Alberts]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Elizabethalberts]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/10/13141304/35851917646_b8c84330a4_k-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=248158</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon and Tropics]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Anthropocene, Biodiversity, Conservation, Culture, Environment, Forestry, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Reserves, Indigenous Rights, Land Grabbing, Land Rights, Land Use Change, Rainforests, Tropical Conservation Science, Tropical Deforestation, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Ostrich-shaped but elephant-sized, a species known as the elephant bird once roamed Madagascar’s tropical forests. But close to a thousand years ago, these giant birds slipped into extinction. Now all that remains of elephant birds are their fossilized skeletons and shards of their hard-shelled eggs. While experts are still debating the exact reason for their [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Ostrich-shaped but elephant-sized, a species known as the elephant bird once roamed Madagascar’s tropical forests. But close to a thousand years ago, these giant birds slipped into extinction. Now all that remains of elephant birds are their fossilized skeletons and shards of their hard-shelled eggs. While experts are still debating the exact reason for their disappearance, humans most likely played a role. The disappearance of elephant birds in Madagascar is just one example of how humans modified the composition of tropical forests well before the advent of the so-called Anthropocene, the proposed epoch defined by human modification such as large-scale land clearing, pollution, and biodiversity loss. Generally, the tropics tend to be overlooked as sites of human activity, say the editors of a recently published volume in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Instead, these regions tend to be viewed as “blanks” on the map, partly because the tropics have previously been viewed as inhospitable places for human beings. The nine studies in the volume challenge this view by showing that humans not only lived in tropical habitats, but used their resources — and as a result, humanity had a substantial impact on tropical biodiversity, landscape structure, and even climate. The studies also challenge the concept of the Anthropocene, which has become popular yet controversial. Patrick Roberts, an archaeologist at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany and lead editor of the volume, says that looking at the wide breadth of history of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/10/human-influence-on-tropics-predates-anthropocene-holds-clues-to-current-crisis/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/10/human-influence-on-tropics-predates-anthropocene-holds-clues-to-current-crisis/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-248158</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>‘Pristine wilderness’ without human presence is a flawed construct, study says</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/10/pristine-wilderness-without-human-presence-is-a-flawed-construct-study-says/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/10/pristine-wilderness-without-human-presence-is-a-flawed-construct-study-says/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>12 Oct 2021 19:45:31 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/10/12153153/amazon_203064-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=248113</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Indigenous Peoples and Conservation]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[30x30 conservation target, Activism, Anthropocene, Biodiversity, Conservation, Environment, Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Politics, Protected Areas, Rainforests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The idea of a “pristine wilderness” in conservation efforts — a natural zone free of people — is an erroneous construct that doesn’t reflect the reality of how many high-value biodiverse landscapes have operated for millennia, a new study says. According to the paper, enforcing this concept can cause environmental degradation of these areas when [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The idea of a “pristine wilderness” in conservation efforts — a natural zone free of people — is an erroneous construct that doesn’t reflect the reality of how many high-value biodiverse landscapes have operated for millennia, a new study says. According to the paper, enforcing this concept can cause environmental degradation of these areas when their human inhabitants, such as Indigenous peoples and local communities who have adapted to living sustainably in these zones, are displaced from them. In their paper published Oct. 5 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the authors make the case that a “pristine wilderness” where rich biodiverse forests continue to thrive without humans present is a Eurocentric construct. It emerged during the Enlightenment period in the West and was later imposed on Indigenous peoples and local communities the world over as they were displaced from their ancestral lands. This idea gained particular traction during European colonial and conservation efforts in the 19th and 20th centuries across the Americas, Africa, Asia Pacific and Australia, and may be experiencing a particular resurgence today among large international conservation organizations, philanthropists, foundations, and certain governments. Wildlife rangers in Cambodia. Image courtesy of Rhett Butler/Mongabay. A high-profile case that may be giving renewed salience to this idea is the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework’s draft target 3, which highlights the importance of preserving at least 30% of Earth’s land and ocean by the year 2030. Historically such territorial preservation has been achieved by establishing exclusionary conservation areas, notably&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/10/pristine-wilderness-without-human-presence-is-a-flawed-construct-study-says/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/10/pristine-wilderness-without-human-presence-is-a-flawed-construct-study-says/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-248113</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Saving sea turtles in the ‘Anthropause’: Successes and challenges on the beach</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/saving-sea-turtles-in-the-anthropause-successes-and-challenges-on-the-beach/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/saving-sea-turtles-in-the-anthropause-successes-and-challenges-on-the-beach/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 Sep 2021 16:27:11 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Fitt]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/09/03143744/Tyre-Lebanon-July-2021.-85-Loggerhead-turtle-hatchlings-arrive-at-the-beach-in-a-picnic-boxx-ready-to-be-released-to-the-sea.-Credit-Elizabeth-Fitt-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=246726</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Evolving Conservation]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Borneo, Europe, Greece, Lebanon, Malaysia, and Middle East]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Anthropocene, Biodiversity, Coastal Ecosystems, Conservation, Conservation leadership, Conservation Philosophy, Conservation Solutions, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Critically Endangered Species, data, Endangered Species, Environment, Human-wildlife Conflict, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Oceans, Poaching, Pollution, Reptiles, Sea Turtles, Solutions, Tourism, Turtles, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[BEIRUT, Lebanon — Beaches across the planet emptied as COVID-19 spread in 2020, with the first full lockdowns in many places coinciding with sea turtle nesting season. With less noise, less tourist boat traffic, less fishing, less beach furniture clutter and less light pollution, the hazards and challenges for sea turtles nesting appeared to decline. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[BEIRUT, Lebanon — Beaches across the planet emptied as COVID-19 spread in 2020, with the first full lockdowns in many places coinciding with sea turtle nesting season. With less noise, less tourist boat traffic, less fishing, less beach furniture clutter and less light pollution, the hazards and challenges for sea turtles nesting appeared to decline. Nesting figures increased in 2020, according to many turtle conservation organizations across the globe. Initially, conservationists ascribed this uptick to populations “thriving” because humans were in lockdown. But researchers and conservationists say the truth is more nuanced. There were “huge challenges” across the conservation world, according to an IUCN report about the pandemic’s effect on protected areas in 90 countries. The unprecedented reduction in human activity during 2020 could shed light on otherwise impossible-to-measure human-wildlife interactions, according to scientists calling this window for crucial data collection the “Anthropause.” But for some conservationists, dealing with new pandemic challenges in human-wildlife interactions is proving a struggle, including those working with sea turtles. A female turtle crawls back to water, TRACC, Pom Pom Island, East Malaysia. Image courtesy of Jeethvendra Krishnamoorthi. Nesting in peace Turtles frequenting the Greek island of Zakynthos in 2020 found the relative peace and quiet appealing, according to a paper by scientists at Queen Mary University, U.K., and Deakin University, Australia. Loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) here usually share their nesting habitat with around 850,000 human visitors each summer. Before the pandemic, researchers thought that turtles shifting to deeper water from nearshore shallows in late&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/saving-sea-turtles-in-the-anthropause-successes-and-challenges-on-the-beach/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/saving-sea-turtles-in-the-anthropause-successes-and-challenges-on-the-beach/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-246726</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Rapid expansion of protected areas around the world failing to reduce human pressures on land</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/rapid-expansion-of-protected-areas-around-the-world-failing-to-reduce-human-pressures-on-land/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/rapid-expansion-of-protected-areas-around-the-world-failing-to-reduce-human-pressures-on-land/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>14 Nov 2019 18:14:15 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay.com]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mike Gaworecki]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/11/14180221/yosemite_1210px-768x451.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=224429</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Anthropocene, Conservation, Deforestation, Encroachment, Environment, Land Use Change, Protected Areas, and Research]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[As the world races to meet the goal of protecting 17 percent of Earth’s land surface, a new study looks at how effective protected areas are at reducing human pressures — and finds that there is considerable room for improvement. According to the World Database on Protected Areas, 241,368 protected areas (PAs) have been designated [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[As the world races to meet the goal of protecting 17 percent of Earth’s land surface, a new study looks at how effective protected areas are at reducing human pressures — and finds that there is considerable room for improvement. According to the World Database on Protected Areas, 241,368 protected areas (PAs) have been designated around the world, mostly on land. A little over 20 million square kilometers, or about 15 percent, of Earth’s terrestrial surface is currently protected. It is likely the world will achieve the goal set out in Aichi Biodiversity Target 11 of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2010-2020 to set aside “at least 17 per cent of terrestrial and inland water areas” by 2020. But a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) last month finds that the emphasis on rapidly scaling up protected area coverage to meet Aichi Biodiversity Target 11 has led to the establishment of many PAs that are not successfully reducing anthropogenic pressures on the land. Researchers at the University of Cambridge in the UK compiled data from 12,315 PAs in 152 countries to examine how well they reduce pressures from human activities. The researchers used satellite data to assess agricultural expansion and the number of lights visible at night in protected areas, together with census and crop yield data, to determine the extent of human encroachment into the study areas between 1995 and 2010. They then compared the findings for each PA with comparable areas of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/rapid-expansion-of-protected-areas-around-the-world-failing-to-reduce-human-pressures-on-land/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/rapid-expansion-of-protected-areas-around-the-world-failing-to-reduce-human-pressures-on-land/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-224429</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>E.O. Wilson on Half-Earth, Donald Trump, and hope</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2017/01/e-o-wilson-on-half-earth-donald-trump-and-hope/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2017/01/e-o-wilson-on-half-earth-donald-trump-and-hope/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Jan 2017 17:34:48 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2017/01/17152328/mezzanine_263.jpg.resize.800x450-768x432.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=192481</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Global, Mozambique, and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Anthropocene, Biodiversity, Conservation, Environmental Heroes, Extinction, Forests, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Interviews, Interviews with conservation players, Overpopulation, Politics, Rainforests, Religions, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[At 87, E.O. Wilson has lost none of his intellectual rigor. His sentences are long, rolling, full of enough parentheticals to make Proust smile, and delivered in a wonderfully soothing, southern voice. He has an incredible ability to jump from subject to subject, to provide detailed context and endless lines of proofs for every argument. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[At 87, E.O. Wilson has lost none of his intellectual rigor. His sentences are long, rolling, full of enough parentheticals to make Proust smile, and delivered in a wonderfully soothing, southern voice. He has an incredible ability to jump from subject to subject, to provide detailed context and endless lines of proofs for every argument. He can spout data like fertility statistics or findings from the latest research on the fly. But, for all his accomplishments, he has retained a politeness that is pleasantly disarming and a humility that is astounding. When you speak with him – even as I did over the phone – you feel like you’re talking to a grandparent (who just happens to be a genius) and not one of the foremost scientists of the last hundred years. It’s not hyperbole to contend that E.O. Wilson is the greatest biologist since Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace sailed the Earth armed with butterfly nets, microscopes and piles of notebooks. In a career that spans six-plus decades (and ongoing) Wilson aided in developing the concept of biodiversity, biophilia, and uncovered – along with partner Robert McArthur – the theory of island biogeography, all of which overturned how conservationists, ecologists and, yes even, world leaders looked at the natural world. But these revolutionary discoveries were actually a tad outside Wilson’s main expertise. Wilson is regarded as the world’s leading expert on that taxonomic family that outweighs collectively all others: ants. Wilson was instrumental in discovering how ants communicate&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2017/01/e-o-wilson-on-half-earth-donald-trump-and-hope/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2017/01/e-o-wilson-on-half-earth-donald-trump-and-hope/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-192481</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>New study argues the Anthropocene began in 1610</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2015/03/new-study-argues-the-anthropocene-began-in-1610/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2015/03/new-study-argues-the-anthropocene-began-in-1610/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Mar 2015 19:50:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">http://news.mongabaydev.co.uk/2015/03/new-study-argues-the-anthropocene-began-in-1610/</guid>

					
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Anthropocene, Carbon Dioxide, Climate Change, Environment, Geology, Global Environmental Crisis, Global Warming, Green, History, Science, and Strange]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A dramatic painting of Christopher Columbus on the Santa Maria. Columbus&#8217; arrival and subsequent colonizing forces in the New World led to million of deaths due to disease. Painting by: Emanuel Leutze. In 1610, William Shakespeare began penning one of his greatest plays, The Tempest, which some critics view as a commentary on European colonization [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A dramatic painting of Christopher Columbus on the Santa Maria. Columbus&#8217; arrival and subsequent colonizing forces in the New World led to million of deaths due to disease. Painting by: Emanuel Leutze. In 1610, William Shakespeare began penning one of his greatest plays, The Tempest, which some critics view as a commentary on European colonization of far-away islands and continents. Along those lines, a study today in Nature&#8212;that&#8217;s likely to prove contentious&#8212;argues that 1610 is the first year of the human-dominated epoch, known as the Anthropocene, due to the upheavals caused by the &#8216;discovery&#8217; of the New World. &#8220;Historically, the collision of the Old and New Worlds marks the beginning of the modern world,&#8221; said lead author, Simon Lewis, with the University College London and the University of Leeds, whose paper now argues that historical marker also has epochal significance. The idea of the Anthropocene has been gaining steam in recent years, though not yet accepted formally. Epochs are usually designated due to some massive planetary event, such as a meteor strike, rapid climate change, or a barrage of volcanic eruptions that makes its mark in the natural record. Proponents of defining the Anthropocene, however, contend that humans over our short history have made just as large an impact as any of these so-called natural&#8212;or cosmic&#8212;disasters. &#8220;A more wide-spread recognition that human actions are driving far-reaching changes to the life-supporting infrastructure of Earth will have implications for our philosophical, social, economic and political views of our environment,&#8221; said co-author of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2015/03/new-study-argues-the-anthropocene-began-in-1610/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2015/03/new-study-argues-the-anthropocene-began-in-1610/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-24003</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Human impacts are &#8216;decoupling&#8217; coral reef ecosystems</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2015/03/human-impacts-are-decoupling-coral-reef-ecosystems/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2015/03/human-impacts-are-decoupling-coral-reef-ecosystems/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>09 Mar 2015 15:06:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">http://news.mongabaydev.co.uk/2015/03/human-impacts-are-decoupling-coral-reef-ecosystems/</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Pacific Islands and Pacific Ocean]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Anthropocene, Climate Change, Conservation, Coral Reefs, Ecology, Economics, Ecosystems, Environment, Fish, Fishing, Global Environmental Crisis, Global Warming, Green, Impact Of Climate Change, Invertebrates, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Oceans, Overfishing, Overpopulation, Population, Science, Solutions, Strange, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Researchers argue that predictability of ecosystem could be sign of health A largely pristine coral reef in the remote Pacific on an island largely unpopulated by humans. Photo by: Brian J. Zgliczynski. There is a growing consensus among scientists of all stripes that we have entered the age of the Anthropocene, or the epoch of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Researchers argue that predictability of ecosystem could be sign of health A largely pristine coral reef in the remote Pacific on an island largely unpopulated by humans. Photo by: Brian J. Zgliczynski. There is a growing consensus among scientists of all stripes that we have entered the age of the Anthropocene, or the epoch of humans. In other words, at some point between the 12,000 years separating the beginning of agriculture and the Industrial Revolution, humans became the dominant source of change on the planet, shaping everything from the land to the atmosphere to even the geologic record where we etch our reign. Scientists are only now beginning to catalog the many ways in which the Anthropocene has upended the usual course of nature, and a new, ground-breaking paper in Ecography highlights this. According to the researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography and NOAA&#8217;s Coral Reef Ecosystem Division (CRED), human impacts are causing biophysical decoupling in many of the world&#8217;s coral reefs. But, that begs the question: what&#8217;s biophysical decoupling? Meet biophysical decoupling Lead author of the study Gareth Williams said his team coined the term &#8220;biophysical decoupling&#8221; to describe what they were seeing in coral reef islands with dense human populations versus remote reefs. According to Williams, the workings of ecological communities in human-dominated coral reefs have essentially &#8220;decoupled from their surrounding environment and instead echo chronic human-induced change.&#8221; &#8220;Humans have effectively altered the natural rules of nature,&#8221; Williams, with the Sandin Lab in the Center for Marine Biodiversity&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2015/03/human-impacts-are-decoupling-coral-reef-ecosystems/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2015/03/human-impacts-are-decoupling-coral-reef-ecosystems/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-24017</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Hitchhiking Caribbean lizard upends island biogeography theory</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2014/09/hitchhiking-caribbean-lizard-upends-island-biogeography-theory/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2014/09/hitchhiking-caribbean-lizard-upends-island-biogeography-theory/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>26 Sep 2014 03:15:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Loren Bell]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">http://news.mongabaydev.co.uk/2014/09/hitchhiking-caribbean-lizard-upends-island-biogeography-theory/</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Caribbean]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Anthropocene, Biodiversity, Environment, Green, Herps, Lizards, Reptiles, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[An anole lizard silhouetted on a rainforest leaf. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. The biggest factor determining species diversity and distribution on islands is not size and isolation, as traditional island biogeography theory states, but economics. Simply put, the more trade an island is engaged in, the more boats visit it, and with more boats [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[An anole lizard silhouetted on a rainforest leaf. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. The biggest factor determining species diversity and distribution on islands is not size and isolation, as traditional island biogeography theory states, but economics. Simply put, the more trade an island is engaged in, the more boats visit it, and with more boats comes more hitchhikers. A study published in Nature this week examines the species distribution of Anolis lizards throughout the Caribbean islands, finding that their pattern of colonization is exactly the opposite of what traditional island biogeography theory would predict. &#8220;When I was first looking through the results, one of the most striking patterns was the complete reversal of the direction of the relationship between the number of new colonists and island geographic isolation,&#8221; lead author Matthew Helmus of VU University in Amsterdam told Mongabay, &#8220;The relationship is strongly positive, the most geographically isolated islands are those gaining the most exotics.&#8221; The reason for this, Helmus believes, is the ease of travel in today&#8217;s modern world. Throughout history, the only way an adventurous lizards could get to outlying islands would be to catch rides on the flotsam and jetsam drifting in the ocean until they randomly happened to make landfall. Those islands farther away were harder to reach, and therefore got fewer recruits inhabiting them. As a result, more isolated islands would be colonized less frequently. &#8220;The problem was, colonists barely, if ever, arrived because over-water dispersal is so dangerous and random,&#8221; Helmus explains, &#8220;Now over-water&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2014/09/hitchhiking-caribbean-lizard-upends-island-biogeography-theory/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2014/09/hitchhiking-caribbean-lizard-upends-island-biogeography-theory/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-24641</doi>				</item>
			</channel>
</rss>