Criteria
The World's Most Endangered Forests
The most critically endangered rain forests in the world are compiled in the chart below. In a class discussion post please choose ONE of these endanger regions and compile a brief summary on the discussion page that contains answers to all of the following questions:
Essential Question(s)
Slash and Burn Agriculture-Watch Balancing Costa Rica's Farming With Preservation with Nature on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.
Forest Canopy Studies and Barbie- How to do Science and Involve Girls
Green Belt Movement and Wangari Maathai
The World's Most Endangered Forests
Table source:[128]
Fish Canons and Restoration of River Valleys
From World Wildlife Federation
The Rio Grande/Rio Bravo River, on the border of the U.S. and Mexico, often fails to reach the Gulf of Mexico. Its strength sapped by dams and irrigation works diverting water to farmers’ fields and city water supplies.
The Indus, the Nile, the Murray-Darling, the Colorado... these are once mighty rivers that now struggle to touch their oceans and seas.
In fact, water extraction is only one of the daunting challenges that a river faces as it makes its way to its terminus.
Fact: river basins are threatened and that threatens us
Rivers basins are the way nature gathers and delivers water for human use.
River basins provide electricity generation, transport, recreation and tourism, and valuable but often unaccounted flood and drought regulation, sediment and nutrient retention, and habitat for diverse fauna and flora.
Life that lives in and around these river basins is an important source of food, income, and livelihood. It is little surprise that studies have estimated the economic value of river basins in the billions of dollars.
We need to recognise the threats river basins face in order to encourage dialogue, provoke debate, and urge governments and other stakeholders to take action before it is too late.
The top 10 rivers at risk
To do this, WWF has selected the top 10 major rivers that, in our view, either
WWF assessed the 6 most important threats based on their known impact on roughly 225 river basins.
These are:
Focusing our analysis on watersheds with high ecological importance and those affecting large human populations, with a view to continental representation, the 10 most endangered rivers emerge as the:
Tropical Deforestation Powerpoint I (PPT 2.35 MB)