Study: PAs provide mixed results in protecting biodiversity

Biodiversity is dwindling at a rapid pace across the globe. As one key remedy, we are protecting areas around the world, hoping that they will suffice to save what is left. While protected areas have undoubtedly contributed to slowing the overall biodiversity loss, it is unclear how well they work across multiple species concurrently. To explore this, researchers at the University of Helsinki examined changes in the occurrence of hundreds of species within and outside of protected areas.

Researchers found mixed effects, highlighting that protected areas do not fully meet the expectations set for them. Rather than reversing the trend in biodiversity loss, current protected areas will, at best, help decelerate the species decline rate. What they thus currently offer is more time to act on the root causes of biodiversity loss. Their work was published in Nature Communications.

https://phys.org/news/2023-09-nature-reserves-insufficient-reversing-biodiversity.html

Morocco | Earthquake that killed thousands also decimates WH-listed historic district of Marrakech

MARRAKECH, Morocco (AP) — A rare, powerful earthquake struck Morocco late Friday night, killing more than 1,000 people and damaging buildings from villages in the Atlas Mountains to the historic city of Marrakech. The full toll was not known as rescuers struggled to

get through boulder-strewn roads to the remote mountain villages hit hardest.

People woken by the magnitude-6.8 quake ran into the streets in terror and disbelief. A man visiting a nearby apartment said dishes and wall hangings began raining down, and people were knocked off their feet and chairs. A woman described fleeing her house after an “intense vibration.’’ A man holding a child said he was jarred awake in bed by the shaking.

https://whdh.com/news/powerful-quake-in-morocco-kills-more-than-1000-people-and-damages-historic-buildings-in-marrakech/

First Paris Accord climate accord report card: We're trying, but not hard enough yet

Eight years after world leaders approved a landmark agreement in Paris to fight climate change, countries have made only limited progress in staving off the most dangerous effects of global warming, according to the first official report card on the global climate treaty.

Many of the worst-case climate change scenarios that were much feared in the early 2010s look far less likely today, the report said. The authors partly credit the 2015 Paris Agreement, under which, for the first time, almost every country agreed to submit a voluntary plan to curb its own planet-warming emissions. Since then, the rise in global greenhouse gases has notably slowed.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/08/climate/paris-agreement-stocktake.html