One of the sad ironies of our time is that we have become very good at studying nature just as it begins to sicken and die under our weight. “Weight” is no mere metaphor: of all land mammals and birds alive today, humans and their livestock make up 96 per cent of the biomass; wildlife has dwindled to four per cent. This has no precedent. Not so far back in history the proportions were the other way round. As recently as 1970, humans were only half and wildlife more than twice their present numbers. These closely linked figures are milestones along our rush towards a trashed and looted planet, stripped of diversity, wildness, and resilience; strewn with waste. Such is the measure of our success.

Dr. Ben-Dor: "Our findings enable us to propose a fascinating hypothesis on the development of humankind: humans always preferred to hunt the largest animals available in their environment, until these became very rare or extinct, forcing the prehistoric hunters to seek the next in size. As a result, to obtain the same amount of food, every human species appearing in the Southern Levant was compelled to hunt smaller animals than its predecessor, and consequently had to develop more advanced and effective technologies. Thus, for example, while spears were sufficient for Homo erectus to kill elephants at close range, modern humans developed the bow and arrow to kill fast-running gazelles from a distance." Prof. Barkai concludes: "We believe that our model is relevant to human cultures everywhere. Moreover, for the first time, we argue that the driving force behind the constant improvement in human technology is the continual decline in the size of game. Ultimately, it may well be that 10,000 years ago in the Southern Levant, animals became too small or too rare to provide humans with sufficient food, and this could be related to the advent of agriculture. In addition, we confirmed the hypothesis that the extinction of large animals was caused by humans -- who time and time again destroyed their own livelihood through overhunting. We may therefore conclude that humans have always ravaged their environment but were usually clever enough to find solutions for the problems they had created -- from the bow and arrow to the agricultural revolution. The environment, however, always paid a devastating price."

In this way, according to the researchers, early humans repeatedly overhunted large animals to extinction (or until they became so rare that they disappeared from the archaeological record) and then went on to the next in size -- improving their hunting technologies to meet the new challenge. The researchers also claim that about 10,000 years ago, when animals larger than deer became extinct, humans began to domesticate plants and animals to supply their needs, and this may be why the agricultural revolution began in the Levant at precisely that time.

A groundbreaking study by researchers from Tel Aviv University tracks the development of early humans' hunting practices over the last 1.5 million years -- as reflected in the animals they hunted and consumed. The researchers claim that at any given time early humans preferred to hunt the largest animals available in their surroundings, which provided the greatest quantities of food in return for a unit of effort.

The USDA engaged the Soil and Water Conservation Society in 2005 to assemble a panel of university scientists and conservation community leaders to recommend the most effective, proactive, and scientifically credible CEAP activities—thereby ensuring that

The Conservation Effects Assessment (Mausbach and Dedrick 2004). Project (CEAP) is a unique, multiagency effort designed to quantify conservation effects and to determine how conservation practices can be most effectively designed and implemented to protect and enhance environmental quality (Duriancik et al. CeaP Goals The primary goal of CEAP is to strengthen the scientific foundation underpinning conservation programs to protect and enhance environmental Rangelands represent non-cultivated, non-forested land that is extensively managed with ecological principles. (Photo: David Briske) 2008). CEAP was jointly initiated in 2003 by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in partnership with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) in response to requests from Congress and the Office of Management and Budget for greater accountability to US taxpayers following a near doubling of US Department of Agriculture (USDA) conservation program funding in the 2002 Farm Bill. These funds are allocated to multiple conservation practices through several USDA-sponsored conservation programs, including the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, Wetlands Reserve Program, Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program, Conservation Reserve Program, and NRCS Conservation Technical Assistance Program. This funding increase was concomitant with substantial modifications to

I particularly enjoyed the California water commons, with its quiet nod to Elinor Ostrom’s original post-graduate research on emergent cooperation between county water-boards.

an environment unlike anything they will encounter outside of school

institutional demands for enterprise services such as e-mail, student information systems, and the branded website become mission-critical

This has much in common with a customer relationship management system and facilitates the workflow around interventions as well as various visualisations.  It’s unclear how the at risk metric is calculated but a more sophisticated predictive analytics engine might help in this regard.