Healthy Waterways Healthy Catchments is now available for free in PDF format from IAN press. Healthy Waterways Healthy Catchments: Making the connection in South East Queensland, Australia … This 238 pp. book was the fourth in a series of four books produced as part of the Healthy Waterways campaign in Southeast Queensland. It was published in 2005 and summarized the scientific findings from a variety of different projects that were conducted as part of Phase 3 of the Healthy Waterways program.

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Discover the Waterways is now available for free in PDF format from IAN Press. Discover the Waterways of South-East Queensland … This book was the third of a series of four books produced as part of the Healthy Waterways campaign in Southeast Queensland. It was published in 2001 and was intended to provide citizens with enough context to view key ecosystem features from different vantage points around Southeast Queensland.

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Moreton Bay Study is now available for free in PDF format from IAN Press. Moreton Bay Study: A Scientific Basis for the Healthy Waterways Campaign … This book was the second of a series of four books produced as part of the Healthy Waterways campaign in Southeast Queensland. It was published in 1999 and was the first summary of the scientific findings of Healthy Waterways.

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The crew member's guide to the health of our waterways is now available for free in PDF format from IAN Press. The crew member's guide to the health of our waterways … This short book (~100 pp.) was the first of a series of four books produced as part of the Healthy Waterways campaign in Southeast Queensland. It was published in 1998 and was a key component of the campaign in a variety of ways. First, the book was inexpensively priced to encourage wide dissemination.

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Maryland's greenhouse gas reduction plan: Executive summary … This 20 page booklet was produced in 2013 for the Maryland Department of Environment to summarize a long (300+ pp.) and detailed Greenhouse Gas Reduction Plan. The short, bold statements that are highlighted at the beginning of the booklet are very powerful: "Climate change is real. Scientists agree. It's happening now. It's harmful and human caused.

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The fifth National Conference on Ecosystem Restoration (NCER 2013) was held near Chicago, Illinois July 29-August 2, 2013. UMCES was the local sponsor for the forth National Conference on Ecosystem Restoration in Baltimore, Maryland in 2011, and our name tag lanyards were beads to advertise that NCER 2015 will be in New Orleans. A new conference feature was introduced for the start of each concurrent session - a short exercise/stretching video (XBYTES) that was really fun and relaxing.

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We all have a stake in sustaining functional ecosystems … When ecologists and economists began talking about ecosystem services in the 1990s it was to make a stronger argument for restoring and preserving natural systems. The idea that nature provides the life-support system of the planet, cleaning and recycling the air and water and providing us with food and raw materials, motivated the environmental activists of the 1960s and 70s.

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The Society for Conservation Biology sponsors a biennial conference and their 26th International Congress for Conservation Biology 2013 was held at the Baltimore Convention Center. I attended the session "Advancing Science-informed Ocean Management Decisions Through Ecosystem Health Report Cards". The session was organized by Melanie McField, Smithsonian Institution, Jason Vasques, Coral Reef Alliance and Liz Whiteman, California Ocean Science Trust.

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Several hundred people gathered at the Maritime Institute conference facility in Baltimore for the Maryland Climate Change Summit on July 25. The Summit was kicked off with a talk by Governor Martin O'Malley to a standing room only audience. Governor O'Malley likened climate change to gravity--physics, pure and simple but also acknowledged that the response was complex. He spoke of the 'fierce urgency of now' and moral obligation of addressing climate change issues.

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The first five sentences of Maryland’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Plan summarize what we need to know and do. 1) Climate change is real. 2) Scientists agree. 3) It’s happening now. 4) It’s harmful and human caused. 5) We can make a difference through our actions. These simple statements are backed up with a wealth of scientific information, but one just needs to look around at the record-breaking weather events in Maryland and beyond to validate these statements.

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