10 Environmentalists, scientists, and land managers have long debated the role of ranching in landscape conservation with some contending that ranching represents the major threat to ecological systems, while others believe it is key to long-term conservation. We contrast the impacts of livestock grazing with those of the major alternative land use at this time, suburban and ex-urban developmen...

BACKGROUND Noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) is an increasingly growing problem in young children. This is attributed to recreational noise being the most common cause of this problem. In young children, hearing problems can delay language development and reduce academic achievements. South Africa, in particular, has limited information and protective measures regarding the conservation of hear...

Conservation prioritization at large scales is complex, combining biological, environmental, and social factors. While conservation scientists now more often aim to incorporate human-related factors, a critical yet unquantified challenge remains: to identify which areas people use for recreation outside urban centers. To address this gap in applied ecology and conservation, we developed a novel...

green belt is defined as a narrow green area surrounding an urban area. shiraz green belt has been developed through 9 projects with a variety of purposes since 2005. the development of green belt is being considered in a number of iranian cities, and therefore, investigation of shiraz green belt’s purposes and challenges could contribute to an appropriate planning by decision makers. the main ...

Biodiversity underlies many of the ecosystem services demanded by humans. For cities, the design of ‘green infrastructures’ or ‘nature-based solutions’ has been proposed to maintain the provisioning of these services and the preservation of biodiversity. It is unclear, however, how such green infrastructure can be implemented, given existing planning practices that generally ignore biodiversity...