Here is some impressive news forwarded by our Network member Marie-Eve Marchand of The Wild Foundation:

"Today the government of the province of Quebec, Canada announced that it will protect 50% of its northern area from all industrial activity. This means that an area of 500 000 sq km (193,000 sq miles or 123 million acres) will be protected for the benefit of nature and traditional aboriginal activities, such as subsistence hunting.
 
"This is a globally significant announcement" said Harvey Locke, Vice President for Conservation Strategy at the WILD Foundation in Boulder, Colorado. "The government of Quebec is now moving formally to join the global leaders who are responding to the scientific imperative to greatly increase the level of nature protection all over the world."
 
In 2007, 1500 scientists wrote a letter through the Canadian Boreal Initiative, a project of Pew Environment Group, to Canada's federal and provincial governments identifying the need to protect approximately half of Canada's vast boreal forest in an interconnected manner.
 
The WILD Foundation facilitates the global Nature Needs Half movement which calls for the protection of at least half the world, land and sea, in an interconnected manner. "Quebec is now the leader among francophone nations and part of a growing group of jurisdictions that are responding to the need to greatly increase the amount of the world dedicated to nature and its natural processes."
 
"We need to protect at least half the world to protect the natural processes on which all life depends, including our own" said Locke. "We are in the middle of a species extinction crisis, we are emptying the ocean of large fish and we are radically changing our climate. We must do better than this and Quebec is showing the way."
 
More information:
www.natureneedshalf.org 
1500 Scientist Letter 



A recent news release from US Geological Service contains very important information about how climate changes affect mountains. Their findings were surprising to them, and offer good guidance for mountain stakeholders.

“This study shows the possibility for successfully predicting specific ecosystem responses to climate change,” said USGS scientist Jim Grace. “We are not accustomed to predicting the behavior of complex ecological systems, yet this is exactly what our responsibilities to future generations require of us.”

"We were surprised to find such clear signals of climate change in these plant communities, given all the other ecological changes that may be going on in the region, such as logging and fire suppression,” said University of California at Davis professor Susan Harrison."

Here is a link to the full press release

One of the world’s most ambitious and visionary conservation plans — to establish a conservation corridor spanning 2,800 km of the Great Eastern Ranges — has been shown to be critical for the long term health of the nation in a major study by leading Australian researchers.

The report by Professor Brendan Mackey, Dr James Watson and Dr Graeme Worboys of ANU Enterprise, examines the scientific evidence for a continental scale, “conservation corridor” focused on the Great Eastern Ranges which runs the length of the eastern seaboard from the Australian Alps in Victoria as far north as the Atherton Tablelands in Queensland... [download full text of the Press Release]

To promote value of Transboundary Conservation and Connectivity Conservation, our energetic and undaunted Mountains Network member Kate Harris and her partner Mel Yule plan to cycle the length of Asia's Silk Route in 2011. Last year they cycled Marco Polo's route through western China. Along the route, Kate and Mel will pause to study these six existing or potential Transborder Protected Areas...

Click to read more ...

A product of the PACT 2020 partnership, called "Natural Solutions: Protected Areas helping people cope with Climate Change" was just released at a news conference at the Copenhagen Climate Summit...

Click to read more ...