A “Practical” Ethic for Animals

![Figure][1] In August 2009, the International Union of Physiological Sciences (IUPS) held its 36th Congress in Kyoto in the same convention centre where the historic Kyoto Protocol was drawn up 12 years earlier. The symbolism of this coincidence was not missed by Malcolm Gordon, the Chair of

Extinction in the Anthropocene.

Cumulative human impacts across the world's oceans are considerable. We therefore examined a single model taxonomic group, the penguins (Spheniscidae), to explore how marine species and communities might be at risk of decline or extinction in the southern hemisphere. We sought to determine the most important threats to penguins and to suggest means to mitigate these threats. Our review has relevance to other taxonomic groups in the southern hemisphere and in northern latitudes, where human impacts are greater. Our review was based on an expert assessment and literature review of all 18 penguin species; 49 scientists contributed to the process. For each penguin species, we considered their range and distribution, population trends, and main anthropogenic threats over the past approximately 250 years. These threats were harvesting adults for oil, skin, and feathers and as bait for crab and rock lobster fisheries; harvesting of eggs; terrestrial habitat degradation; marine pollution; fisheries bycatch and resource competition; environmental variability and climate change; and toxic algal poisoning and disease. Habitat loss, pollution, and fishing, all factors humans can readily mitigate, remain the primary threats for penguin species. Their future resilience to further climate change impacts will almost certainly depend on addressing current threats to existing habitat degradation on land and at sea. We suggest protection of breeding habitat, linked to the designation of appropriately scaled marine reserves, including in the High Seas, will be critical for the future conservation of penguins. However, large-scale conservation zones are not always practical or politically feasible and other ecosystem-based management methods that include spatial zoning, bycatch mitigation, and robust harvest control must be developed to maintain marine biodiversity and ensure that ecosystem functioning is maintained across a variety of scales.

Mediterranean ecosystems are among the highest in species richness and endemism globally and are also among the most sensitive to climate and land-use change. Fire is an important driver of ecosystem processes in these systems; however, fire regimes have been substantially changed by human activities. Climate change is predicted to further alter fire regimes and species distributions, leading to habitat loss and threatening biodiversity. It is currently unknown what the population-level effects of these landscape-level changes will be. We linked a spatially explicit stochastic population model to dynamic bioclimate envelopes to investigate the effects of climate change, habitat loss and fragm entation and altered fire regime on population abundances of a long-lived obligate seeding shrub, Ceanothus verrucosus, a rare endemic species of southern California. We tested a range of fire return intervals under the present and two future climate scenarios. We also assessed the impact of potential anthropogenic land-use change by excluding land identified as developable by local governments. We found that the 35-50 year fire return interval resulted in the highest population abundances. Expected minimum population abundance (EMA) declined gradually as fire return interval increased, but declined dramatically for shorter fire intervals. Simulated future development resulted in a 33% decline in EMA, but relatively stable population trajectories over the time frame modeled. Relative changes in EMA for alternative fire intervals were similar for all climate and habitat loss scenarios, except under the more severe climate scenario which resulted in a change in the relative ranking of the fire scenarios. Our results show climate change to be the most serious threat facing obligate seeding shrubs embedded in urban landscapes, resulting in population decline and increased local extirpation, and that likely interactions with other threats increase risks to these species. Taking account of parameter uncertainty did not alter our conclusions.

In a world where changes in land cover and climate happen faster than ever due to the expansion of human activities, narrowly distributed species are predicted to be the first to go extinct. Studies projecting species extinction in tropical regions consider either habitat loss or climate change as drivers of biodiversity loss but rarely evaluate them together. Here, the contribution of these two factors to the extinction risk of narrowly distributed species (with ranges smaller than 10,000 km2) of seed plants endemic to a fifth-order watershed in Brazil (microendemics) is assessed. We estimated the Regional Climate Change Index (RCCI) of these watersheds (areas with microendemics) and projected three scenarios of land use up to the year 2100 based on the average annual rates of habitat loss in these watersheds from 2000 to 2014. These scenarios correspond to immediate conservation action (scenario 1), long-term conservation action (scenario 2), and no conservation action (scenario 3). In each scenario, areas with microendemics were classified into four classes: (1) areas with low risk, (2) areas threatened by habitat loss, (3) areas threatened by climate change, and (4) areas threatened by climate change and habitat loss. We found 2,354 microendemic species of seed plants in 776 areas that altogether cover 17.5% of Brazil. Almost 70% (1,597) of these species are projected to be under high extinction risk by the end of the century due to habitat loss, climate change, or both, assuming that these areas will not lose habitat in the future due to land use. However, if habitat loss in these areas continues at the prevailing annual rates, the number of threatened species is projected to increase to more than 85% (2,054). The importance of climate change and habitat loss as drivers of species extinction varies across phytogeographic domains, and this variation requires the adoption of retrospective and prospective conservation strategies that are context specific. We suggest that tropical countries, such as Brazil, should integrate biodiversity conservation and climate change policies (both mitigation and adaptation) to achieve win-win social and environmental gains while halting species extinction.

Can we avert marine mass extinctions?

Oceania is a diverse region encompassing Australia, Melanesia, Micronesia, New Zealand, and Polynesia, and it contains six of the world's 39 hotspots of diversity. It has a poor record for extinctions, particularly for birds on islands and mammals. Major causes include habitat loss and degradation, invasive species, and overexploitation. We identified six major threatening processes (habitat loss and degradation, invasive species, climate change, overexploitation, pollution, and disease) based on a comprehensive review of the literature and for each developed a set of conservation policies. Many policies reflect the urgent need to deal with the effects of burgeoning human populations (expected to increase significantly in the region) on biodiversity. There is considerable difference in resources for conservation, including people and available scientific information, which are heavily biased toward more developed countries in Oceania. Most scientific publications analyzed for four threats (habitat loss, invasive species, overexploitation, and pollution) are from developed countries: 88.6% of Web of Science publications were from Australia (53.7%), New Zealand (24.3%), and Hawaiian Islands (10.5%). Many island states have limited resources or expertise. Even countries that do (e.g., Australia, New Zealand) have ongoing and emerging significant challenges, particularly with the interactive effects of climate change. Oceania will require the implementation of effective policies for conservation if the region's poor record on extinctions is not to continue.

Climate change and habitat loss have influenced many species of organisms globally. Migratory birds are one of the most responsive animals towards climate change and habitat disruption, many species of migratory birds have a rapid decline in population in recent years because of these two factors. The aim of this article is to conclude information among the data available to achieve a better understanding of the challenges faced by migratory birds under the situation of climate change and suggest ways of preserving these species of migratory birds. This paper is mainly focused on the effects on migratory birds, especially from a perspective of a decline in population, caused by climate change and habitat loss caused by both natural and human factors. Causes such as frequent forest fires and early, warm springs are discussed in this paper. The effect on migratory birds by warm springs is causing a mismatch between food availability and breeding peak, causing inefficient breeding in many species of migratory birds, while the habitat loss caused by increasing forest fires is causing a decline in the population of migratory birds by not only decreasing their efficiency in breeding but also forced them to migrate to a less optimum habitat for reproduction.

Demographic processes such as international migration, internal rural–urban movements, and short‐range residential mobility are increasingly driven by economic cycles. To assess how economic downturns have influenced demographic dynamics across regions in Greece—perhaps the European country most affected by the 2007 recession—the present study investigates spatial patterns of population increase and decline (2002–2017) in 51 prefectures, evaluating the contribution of natural balance (births minus deaths) and migration to total population growth during economic expansion (2002–2009) and recession (2010–2017). Population increased during economic expansion in semicentral regions with medium‐size urban centres, upper economic functions (university and international airport), and road infrastructures. Although natural balance was positive in almost all prefectures, migration contributed the most to population growth during 2002–2009. A generalised population decline was observed during recession, except in coastal areas specialised in tourism, the only regions still attracting migratory flows and maintaining a slightly positive natural balance. The largest urban areas (Athens, Salonika) experienced the highest rate of population decline, thanks to accelerated emigration and a moderately negative natural balance. Population dynamics during economic expansion contributed to increase a traditional density gap between urban and rural areas. Conversely, population dynamics during recession led to a spatial redistribution of population, reducing the gap between urban areas and rural, tourism‐specialised coastal districts. Evidence in our study supports a need for further investigation into the role of economic downturns in future population redistribution processes, specifically “shrinking” regions.

The Han River Basin, a critical water conservation and ecological barrier in Hubei Province, is intricately associated with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Research results show that vegetation cover changes are affected by multiple factors, and understanding the influences of climate change and human activities on vegetation is imperative for achieving sustainable development in the basin. Through quantitative assessment of vegetation changes in diverse landform regions, implementing adaptive ecological construction and environmental protection will foster the sustainable development of ecological civilization in the Han River Basin. This study utilizes MODIS13Q1 data and employs diverse analytical methods to investigate the characteristics of vegetation change and the interrelationships between climate change, meteorological factors, and vegetation cover in various geomorphological areas of the Han River Basin from 2000 to 2020. The results showed that (1) throughout the entire study period, the NDVI of the six types of geomorphological divisions in the Han River Basin exhibited a fluctuating upward trend, with the changes in the low-altitude hilly geomorphic regions being particularly noteworthy. (2) Within the study area, approximately 92.67% of vegetation coverage displayed an increasing trend, while 7.33% showed degradation, predominantly in plains and platforms. Notably, the area of continuous improvement (31.16%) outweighed the area of continuous degradation (3.05%), with low and middle-relief mountain areas demonstrating the most robust growth and sustainability. (3) Human agriculture activities and urbanization processes have emerged as the primary driving force behind vegetation changes in the Han River Basin. The responses of vegetation to climate change and human activities exhibited significant variations across diverse geomorphological regions. In areas characterized by vegetation improvement, the contribution rate of human activities to NDVI changes in different vegetation types surpassed 70%, with plain areas displaying the highest contribution rate at a remarkable 90%. In contrast, the plain and platform regions of the vegetation degradation area were significantly influenced by climate change. In future watershed ecological environment management, it is essential to not only recognize the dominant role of human activities in promoting the growth of mountain vegetation NDVI but also address the impact of climate change on the degradation of vegetation NDVI in plains and platforms. A comprehensive understanding of these factors is crucial for devising effective strategies to ensure sustainable development and ecological balance in the Han River Basin.

Previous studies show that conservation actions have prevented extinctions, recovered populations, and reduced declining trends in global biodiversity. However, all studies to date have substantially underestimated the difference conservation action makes because they failed to account fully for what would have happened in the absence thereof. We undertook a scenario-based thought experiment to better quantify the effect conservation actions have had on the extinction risk of the world's 235 recognized ungulate species. We did so by comparing species' observed conservation status in 2008 with their estimated status under counterfactual scenarios in which conservation efforts ceased in 1996. We estimated that without conservation at least 148 species would have deteriorated by one International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List category, including 6 species that now would be listed as extinct or extinct in the wild. The overall decline in the conservation status of ungulates would have been nearly 8 times worse than observed. This trend would have been greater still if not for conservation on private lands. While some species have benefited from highly targeted interventions, such as reintroduction, most benefited collaterally from conservation such as habitat protection. We found that the difference conservation action makes to the conservation status of the world's ungulate species is likely to be higher than previously estimated. Increased, and sustained, investment could help achieve further improvements.

Human activity and climate change are widely considered to be primarily responsible for the extinction of Galliformes birds. Due to a decline in population, the Reeves's pheasant (Syrmaticus reevesii), a member of the Galliformes family, was recently elevated to first-class national protected status in China. However, determining the causal factors of their extinction and carrying out protection measures appear to be challenging owing to a lack of long-term data with high spatial and temporal resolutions. Here, based on a national field survey, we used habitat suitability models and integrated data on geographical environment, road development, land use, and climate change to predict the potential changes in the distribution and connectivity of the habitat of Reeves's pheasant from 1995 to 2050. Furthermore, ecological corridors were identified using the minimum cumulative resistance (MCR) model. The prioritized areas for habitat restoration were determined by integrating the importance indices of ecological sources and corridors. Our results indicated that both land use and climate change were linked to the increased habitat loss for the Reeves's pheasant. In more recent decades, road construction and land use changes have been linked to a rise in habitat loss, and future climate change has been predicted to cause the habitat to become even more fragmented and lose 89.58% of its total area. The ecological corridor for Reeves's pheasant will continue to decline by 88.55%. To counteract the negative effects of human activity and climate change on the survivorship of Reeves's pheasant, we recommend taking immediate actions, including bolstering cooperation among provincial governments, restoring habitats, and creating ecological corridors among important habitats.

Mediterranean ecosystems are among the highest in species richness and endemism globally and are also among the most sensitive to climate and land‐use change. Fire is an important driver of ecosystem processes in these systems; however, fire regimes have been substantially changed by human activities. Climate change is predicted to further alter fire regimes and species distributions, leading to habitat loss and threatening biodiversity. It is currently unknown what the population‐level effects of these landscape‐level changes will be. We linked a spatially explicit stochastic population model to dynamic bioclimate envelopes to investigate the effects of climate change, habitat loss and fragm entation and altered fire regime on population abundances of a long‐lived obligate seeding shrub,Ceanothus verrucosus, a rare endemic species of southern California. We tested a range of fire return intervals under the present and two future climate scenarios. We also assessed the impact of potential anthropogenic land‐use change by excluding land identified as developable by local governments. We found that the 35–50 year fire return interval resulted in the highest population abundances. Expected minimum population abundance (EMA) declined gradually as fire return interval increased, but declined dramatically for shorter fire intervals. Simulated future development resulted in a 33% decline in EMA, but relatively stable population trajectories over the time frame modeled. Relative changes in EMA for alternative fire intervals were similar for all climate and habitat loss scenarios, except under the more severe climate scenario which resulted in a change in the relative ranking of the fire scenarios. Our results show climate change to be the most serious threat facing obligate seeding shrubs embedded in urban landscapes, resulting in population decline and increased local extirpation, and that likely interactions with other threats increase risks to these species. Taking account of parameter uncertainty did not alter our conclusions.

Climate change is one of today's biggest problems and a major concern and continues globally. Due to population growth, the increasing needs and industrial activities of people negatively affect most of the natural resources. Hydrology and water supply system; it is in close contact with industry, agriculture, city and economic areas, and water resources are exposed to the negative effects of climate change. The most important effect of the greenhouse effect and global warming caused by human activities and other reasons is the emergence of imbalances in the ecosystem by making the climate warmer and more variable. The negative effects of global climate change are mostly seen on water resources, agricultural activities, forest areas, sea level, soil characteristics, ecological balance, social life, energy, human health and biodiversity. Studies to examine the effects of climate change on hydrological and water resources have theoretical and realistic meanings. It is important to understand the problems in water resources, disturbances in the ecological balance and the causes of many problems caused by climate change and to know the effects of climate change on the ecosystem in order to solve them. Thus, it will be easier to develop strategies that can combat problems that may arise due to climate change today and in the future. Turkey also between in the risk group country in terms of climate change and its adverse effects. In this study, by analyzing climate change, the causes and effects of climate change, and especially the negative effects of climate change on water resources, solution suggestions are presented in order to eliminate or minimize the negative effects that occur. Key Words: Climate, Global warming, Climate change, Water resources. DOI: 10.7176/JSTR/6-11-07

Bernard Rollin’s newest volume compiles years of his work in the trenches undertaking the laudable duty of applied or practical philosophy. With the confidence of a mensh as comfortable with ranchers as with Hegel, the author speaks within his forte – animal ethics – and the immediacy of the rapidly changing ethics in this area informs and impels the entire motivation of the book. And the urgency gives the reader a sense of being a sleuth, trying to solve these cases oneself, so the book acquires a page-turning quality unusual for philosophy. The volume’s two parts cannot be extricated from one another – Part I, “Theory,” a lengthy introduction to veterinary ethics; and Part II, “Cases,” in which actual ethical problems and dilemmas encountered and asked by veterinarians themselves are presented and then analyzed by the author, primarily for exemplifying how to tackle such problems when the reader confronts them in real life. The introduction is rudimentary, beginning at ground zero, aimed at the uninitiated, although even veteran animal ethicists might benefit: Challenging the practitioner to learn this vital field, the author puts the ancient field of ethics into the contemporary frame of a rapidly changing social ethic about animals. If the veterinarian/reader does not give significant consideration to these ethical matters, the changing society itself will retrofit the profession – and possibly not to everyone’s benefit. Honed over years of speaking to rodeo hands and animal technicians, Rollin’s lucid and simple style can make some of the most abstruse concepts immediately accessible without demeaning those concepts’ integrity. Thus, he describes Kant’s Categorical Imperative by describing what would happen if not only you ran a red light in a small town at midnight but everyone everywhere had a comparable rationalization for running every red-light: Universalizing points to anarchy. With such simplicity, Rollin distinguishes Ethics1, or the set of rules the population lives by,