Rapid climate change threatens biodiversity – of alpine ecosystems in particular. The EU FP-5 project GLORIA-EUROPE has established a long-term monitoring network to study climate change-induced impacts on Europe's mountains. The major forthcoming step of GLORIA is the extension from the European to the global level. GLORIA is an initiative towards an international research network to assess climate change impacts on mountain environments. The challenge of GLORIA is to establish a long-term observation network that uses a standardised monitoring protocol in all major mountain systems on Earth. The aim of GLORIA's Multi-Summit approach is to establish a long-term observation network to obtain standardised data on alpine biodiversity and vegetation patterns on a global scale. Its purpose is to assess risks of biodiversity losses and the vulnerability of high mountain ecosystems under climate change pressures. ... [Information of the supplier, modified]
Tropical forests harbour thousands of useful plants that are harvested and used in subsistence economies or traded in local, regional or international markets. The effect on the ecosystem is little known, and the forests resilience is badly understood. Palms are the most useful group of plants in tropical American forests and in this project we study the effect of extraction and trade of palms on forest in the western Amazon, the Andes and the Pacific lowlands. We determine the size of the resource by making palm community studies in the different forest formations and determine the number of species and individuals of all palm species. The genetic structure of useful palm species is studied to determine how much harvesting of the species contributes to genetic erosion of its populations, and whether extraction can be made without harm. We determine how much palms are used for subsistence purposes by carrying out quantitative, ethnobotanical research in different forest types and we also study trade patterns for palm products from local markets to markets that involve export to other countries and continents. Palm populations are managed in various ways from sustainable ones to destructive harvesting; we study different ways in which palms are managed and we will propose sustainable methods to local farmers, local governments, NGOs and other interested parties. Finally we study national level mechanism that governs extraction, trade and commercialization of palm products, to identify positive and negative policies in relation to resilience of ecosystems and use this to propose sustainable policies to the governments. ... [Information of the supplier]
