Feature Article

In Chikkamagalur district of Karnataka, a high-end resort is coming up in the pristine shola-grassland ecosystem of the Bababudan mountains. This 120 room, five-star luxury resort is being built by Brigade Group of builders in the little-known village of Arasinaguppe. The venture is in association with international hotel chains, The Banyan Tree Hotels and Resorts and Angsana Resorts and Spa, Singapore. Fourteen hectares of prime habitat has been diverted for the construction. The argument–grasslands are not forest, and the land is not under protected status.

Extinction from habitat loss is the signature conservation problem of the twenty-first century. Despite its importance, estimating extinction rates is still highly uncertain because no proven direct methods or reliable data exist for verifying extinctions. The most widely used indirect method is to estimate extinction rates by reversing the species–area accumulation curve, extrapolating backwards to smaller areas to calculate expected species loss. Estimates of extinction rates based on this method are almost always much higher than those actually observed.

Mountain glaciers and ice caps are contributing significantly to present rates of sea level rise and will continue to do so over the next century and beyond. The Canadian Arctic Archipelago, located off the northwestern shore of Greenland, contains one-third of the global volume of land ice outside the ice sheets, but its contribution to sea-level change remains largely unknown. Here we show that the Canadian Arctic Archipelago has recently lost 61 ± 7 gigatonnes per year (Gt yr−1) of ice, contributing 0.17 ± 0.02 mm yr−1 to sea-level rise.

In October 1998, a hurricane visited death and destruction on Honduras, with flooding and mudslides. A case history of a rural community documents how recovery from that event produced socio-economic improvement.

Conservationists predict massive extinctions as a result of habitat loss. Habitat loss undoubtedly does drive extinctions, but dealing with an unmet assumption that underlies these predictions yields much lower estimates.

Models show that even a 'small' nuclear war would cause catastrophic climate change. Such findings must inform policy, says Alan Robock.

The United States has abandoned comprehensive greenhouse-gas curbs, but California is pressing ahead. Mary Nichols is leading the fight against emissions.

Staff have been cut, contractors laid off, offices closed and even furniture disposed of. But despite all its efforts to back away from plans to store spent nuclear fuel deep under Yucca Mountain, Nevada, the administration of US President Barack Obama just can't seem to bury the idea.

In the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster, power shortages have forced one of the world's most energy-efficient countries to make do with even less. That may become the norm after Prime Minister Naoto Kan last week shelved a 2010 goal to build 14 nuclear reactors over the next 20 years.