Will passive protection save Congo forests?

Central Africa\u27s tropical forests are among the world\u27s largest carbon reserves. Historically, they have experienced low rates of deforestation. Pressures to clear land are increasing due to development of infrastructure and livelihoods, foreign investment in agriculture, and shifting land use management, particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The DRC contains the greatest area of intact African forests. These store approximately 22 billion tons of carbon in aboveground live biomass, yet only 10% are protected. Can the status quo of passive protection - forest management that is low or nonexistent - ensure the preservation of this forest and its carbon? We have developed the SimCongo model to simulate changes in land cover and land use based on theorized policy scenarios from 2010 to 2050. Three scenarios were examined: the first (Historical Trends) assumes passive forest protection; the next (Conservation) posits active protection of forests and activation of the national REDD+ action plan, and the last (Agricultural Development) assumes increased agricultural activities in forested land with concomitant increased deforestation. SimCongo is a cellular automata model based on Bayesian statistical methods tailored for the DRC, built with the Dinamica-EGO platform. The model is parameterized and validated with deforestation observations from the past and runs the scenarios from 2010 through 2050 with a yearly time step. We estimate the Historical Trends trajectory will result in average emissions of 139 million t CO2 year-1 by the 2040s, a 15% increase over current emissions. The Conservation scenario would result in 58% less clearing than Historical Trends and would conserve carbon-dense forest and woodland savanna areas. The Agricultural Development scenario leads to emissions of 212 million t CO2 year-1 by the 2040s. These scenarios are heuristic examples of policy\u27s influence on forest conservation and carbon storage. Our results suggest that 1) passive protection of the DRC\u27s forest and woodland savanna is insufficient to reduce deforestation; and 2): enactment of a REDD+ plan or similar conservation measure is needed to actively protect Congo forests, their unique ecology, and their important role in the global carbon cycle

Mapping and monitoring carbon stocks with satellite observations: a comparison of methods

Mapping and monitoring carbon stocks in forested regions of the world, particularly the tropics, has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years as deforestation and forest degradation account for up to 30% of anthropogenic carbon emissions, and are now included in climate change negotiations. We review the potential for satellites to measure carbon stocks, specifically aboveground biomass (AGB), and provide an overview of a range of approaches that have been developed and used to map AGB across a diverse set of conditions and geographic areas. We provide a summary of types of remote sensing measurements relevant to mapping AGB, and assess the relative merits and limitations of each. We then provide an overview of traditional techniques of mapping AGB based on ascribing field measurements to vegetation or land cover type classes, and describe the merits and limitations of those relative to recent data mining algorithms used in the context of an approach based on direct utilization of remote sensing measurements, whether optical or lidar reflectance, or radar backscatter. We conclude that while satellite remote sensing has often been discounted as inadequate for the task, attempts to map AGB without satellite imagery are insufficient. Moreover, the direct remote sensing approach provided more coherent maps of AGB relative to traditional approaches. We demonstrate this with a case study focused on continental Africa and discuss the work in the context of reducing uncertainty for carbon monitoring and markets

Elucidating Poor Decision-Making in a Rat Gambling Task

Although poor decision-making is a hallmark of psychiatric conditions such as attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, pathological gambling or substance abuse, a fraction of healthy individuals exhibit similar poor decision-making performances in everyday life and specific laboratory tasks such as the Iowa Gambling Task. These particular individuals may provide information on risk factors or common endophenotypes of these mental disorders. In a rodent version of the Iowa gambling task – the Rat Gambling Task (RGT), we identified a population of poor decision makers, and assessed how these rats scored for several behavioral traits relevant to executive disorders: risk taking, reward seeking, behavioral inflexibility, and several aspects of impulsivity. First, we found that poor decision-making could not be well predicted by single behavioral and cognitive characteristics when considered separately. By contrast, a combination of independent traits in the same individual, namely risk taking, reward seeking, behavioral inflexibility, as well as motor impulsivity, was highly predictive of poor decision-making. Second, using a reinforcement-learning model of the RGT, we confirmed that only the combination of extreme scores on these traits could induce maladaptive decision-making. Third, the model suggested that a combination of these behavioral traits results in an inaccurate representation of rewards and penalties and inefficient learning of the environment. Poor decision-making appears as a consequence of the over-valuation of high-reward-high-risk options in the task. Such a specific psychological profile could greatly impair clinically healthy individuals in decision-making tasks and may predispose to mental disorders with similar symptoms

Etude de l'evolution spatio-temporelle de la vegetation tropicale: utilisation de donnees satellitaires NOAA-AVHRR sur l'Afrique de l'Ouest

SIGLEINIST T 74890 / INIST-CNRS - Institut de l'Information Scientifique et TechniqueFRFranc

Le visage invisible dans l'oeuvre de Jacques Poulin

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Nicolas Bouvier, passeur pour notre temps

OCLC: 1012935921International audienc

Shanghai : mythes et réalités

Shanghai se veut aujourd’hui le symbole d’une Chine économiquement forte et dynamique, rivalisant avec les grandes métropoles mondiales. Son indépendance apparente par rapport au pouvoir central chinois a des racines profondes dans l’histoire de la ville, ainsi que dans la perception que ses habitants ont d’elle. Pour les Occidentaux, l’occupation des concessions shanghaiennes entre 1840 et 1949, donne de la cité une image proche et idéale d’une ville par ailleurs plus profondément chinoise q..

Le livre des merveilles et le cuir du langage

L'Usage du monde de Nicolas Bouvier est un texte très connu, mais dont la présence au programme des agrégations des lettres est inattendu. Cet essai inédit est d'autant plus précieux, qui propose l'analyse littéraire d'un récit hors norme

Le livre des merveilles et le cuir du langage. Lecture de <i>L’Usage du monde</i> de Nicolas Bouvier

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Le livre des merveilles et le cuir du langage : lecture de "L'usage du monde" de Nicolas Bouvier

International audienc