Doing more with less: ecosystem services in Massachusetts
Ecosystem services are the benefits that we receive from nature every day, both tangible, such as clean drinking water and recreational opportunities and some less visible, such as climactic regulation through the uptake of carbon by plants. These benefits are provided to people at both local to global scales. However, not all ecosystems are created equal in regard to their value to humans. Some ecosystems provide many more services to populations than others. Ecologists and conservation groups often single out these hardest working ecosystems – called “hotspots” – for their exceptional conservation value.
Our recent study in the state of Massachuestts in the United States sought to measure the provisioning of ecosystem services and quantify how hotspots have changed over the past 10 years. We used a series of models and spatial databases to quantify changes to eight different benefits that nature provide to the residents of Massachusetts and assigned any areas of the state that provided 5 or more high-value services, or 5 or more services that are producing in the top 20th percentile, as hotspots. We found that over the past decade, hotspots have increased in Massachusetts, particularly in urbanizing areas such as those Surrounding Boston.
However, more hotspots may not be a good thing.
Over the past ten years in Massachusetts, urban development has increased by more than six percent, at the expense of forests, grasslands, and agricultural lands. When we lose intact forests, we lose stable flows of clean water, climate regulation, recreational opportunities, and wildlife habitat, just to name a few, leaving the remaining forest to pick up the slack. The increasing number of hotspots reflects an ongoing division of the natural landscape into smaller units, which must still produce high amounts of services to meet demand, but now with less.
The scale at which these hotspots are defined, both in terms of the provisioning and delivery of services, is also important. For example, conserved lands in cities provide many local services to large amounts of people such as water filtration, recreational opportunities and a reduction of the urban “heat island” effect. However, large, intact forests in unpopulated areas offer resources to a broader regional to global community, such as climate regulation through the uptake of carbon, timber harvest for wood products, and high-quality habitat for many species.
Our study points to several important considerations for land managers and lawmakers when including ecosystem services and hotspots in their conservation plans. In order to meet the wide-array of goals that conservation plans often strive for, a cross-scale approach is required. Local entities must join forces with state to regional groups in order to define and implement conservation actions that benefit the greatest amount of people. Only then will we be able to maximize the diversity and magnitude of ecosystem services supported by the landscape.
How you can help save the bees, one hive at a time | Noah Wilson-Rich
Bees are dying off in record numbers, but ecologist Noah Wilson-Rich is interested in something else: Where are bees healthy and thriving? To find out, he recruited citizen scientists across the US to set up beehives in their backyards, gardens and rooftops. Learn how these little data factories are changing what we know about the habitats bees need to thrive -- and keep our future food systems stable.
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Oasis Rockport Scenic Photo Tours
Rockport is a wonderful little seaside village, steeped in history and loaded with beautiful vistas. Oasis Rockport offers you the opportunity to see this beautiful town by the sea in a unique and interesting way. Oasis Rockport's Scenic Walking Photo Tours show you some of the beautiful spots you might otherwise miss, sharing some local flavor and history along the way as you visit scenic vistas by the sea, the beautiful forests, the ponds, the quarries and more. Tours begin right at the Inns or at central locations in town.
Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling
Real men don't take guff from snotty kids. Neither does Disko Troop, skipper of the We're Here, a fishing schooner out of Gloucester, Massachusetts, when his crew fishes Harvey Cheyne out of the Atlantic. There's no place on the Grand Banks for bystanders, so Harvey is press-ganged into service as a replacement for a man lost overboard and drowned. Harvey is heir to a vast fortune, but his rescuers believe none of what he tells them of his background. Disko won't take the boat to port until it is full of fish, so Harvey must settle in for a season at sea. Hard, dangerous work and performing it alongside a grab-bag of characters in close quarters is a life-changing experience.
Chapter 1 - 00:00
Chapter 2 - 28:17
Chapter 3 - 1:06:04
Chapter 4 - 1:48:53
Chapter 5 - 2:22:53
Chapter 6 - 2:54:16
Chapter 7 - 3:13:36
Chapter 8 - 3:30:31
Chapter 9 - 4:15:26
Chapter 10 - 5:05:05
Read by Mark F. Smith (