European Alps Biodiversity

 


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How does humanity relate to rubbish?

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How does humanity relate to rubbish? Pollution is considered as "the introduction of harmful materials in the environment” called pollutants (Boudreau 2023). They can be both natural or anthropogenic the latter being the biggest driver of pollution globally. Pollution spreads in the water, air and soil directly impacting the health and livelihood of all living things on Earth and degrading common resources. The moral and ethical question arises: why do we pollute if the consequences are proved to be highly detrimental to our lives? Pollution is an activity that inherently promotes selfish and unethical behaviour due to the procedural steps in public waste management which allow the parties involved to transfer the responsibility towards the final discharger of waste (Rabbito 2018). There is a need to enforce more strategic policies which address the need for collective scientific research prioritising the needs of the public as a whole rather than the values of polluting industrie...
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Italy and its Protected Areas

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  Italy presents a highly diversified and complex network of protected areas which cover around 21.5% of terrestrial territory and 8.8% of marine territory (UNEP-WCMC and IUCN 2023). Nonetheless, these areas are continuously reported as lacking of appropriate financing which leads to poor management plans resulting with the inability to protect the areas from illegal activities, such as pastures, tourism or fishing (WWF Italia 2018).  During an investigation by WWF Italia in 2018 where protected areas personnel itself responded to a survey exploring the current status of Italian Protected Areas, respondents highlighted some key points of development regarding risks and opportunities (WWF Italia 2018).  First of all, the main threat for Italian Protected Areas, especially Marine territories, is identified with Climate Change as the leading problem, followed by littering, naval traffic, illegal fishing or poaching and invasion of alien species (WWF Italia 2018).  To re...
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The Southern Annular Mode (or Antarctic Oscillation)

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The weather can be defined as the end product of the interaction among atmosphere, ocean, biosphere, land surface and cryosphere exchanging mass, momentum and energy. These interchanges oscillate in a somewhat regular fluctuation, also called climate variability, individually known as mode or oscillation. Research was able to point out several of these phenomenon, for example El Nino (ENSO) which we already analysed in some previous articles. However, many questions still remain under inquiry: to which extent are these events affected by the changing climate? And what are is the predictability, if any, for the future appearances ? The focus of this piece will be on the investigation of the Southern Annular Mode (or Antarctic Oscillation). This mode indicates "the (non-seasonal) north-south movement of the strong westerly winds that blow almost continuously in the mid- to high-latitudes of the southern hemisphere" (Commonwealth of Australia 2019) resulting in storms and rainf...
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