Walter V Reid

• Ph.D.
• The David and Lucile Packard Foundation

Energy from biomass plays a large and growing role in the global energy system. Energy from biomass can make significant contributions to reducing carbon emissions, especially from difficult‐to‐decarbonize sectors like aviation, heavy transport, and manufacturing. But land‐intensive bioenergy often entails substantial carbon emissions from land‐use...

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment was modeled on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It was carried out as a pilot of an assessment mechanism designed to meet decision-makers’ needs for information on how human actions were changing biodiversity and ecosystems, how those changes were affecting ecosystem services and human well-b...

An age-old conflict around a seemingly simple question has resurfaced: why do we conserve nature? Contention around this issue has come and gone many times, but in the past several years we believe that it has reappeared as an increasingly acrimonious debate between, in essence, those who argue that nature should be protected for its own sake (intr...

Climate change alters the functions of ecological systems. As a result, the provision of ecosystem services and the well-being of people that rely on these services are being modified. Climate models portend continued warming and more frequent extreme weather events across the US. Such weather-related disturbances will place a premium on the ecosys...

Efficient conservation planning requires knowledge about conservation targets, threats to those targets, costs of conservation and the marginal return to additional conservation efforts. Systematic conservation planning typically only takes a small piece of this complex puzzle into account. Here, we use a return-on-investment (ROI) approach to prio...

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and the findings of more recent literature document the significant local, regional and global threats posed by the growing problem of nitrogen pollution in many regions, as well as the threat to food security posed by too little use of nitrogen in other regions, particularly in Africa. Although practical solutio...

Tremendous progress has been made in understanding the functioning of the Earth system and, in particular, the impact of human actions (1). Although this knowledge can inform management of specific features of our world in transition, societies need knowledge that will allow them to simultaneously reduce global environmental risks while also meetin...

Human-induced climate change was unknown outside of limited scientific circles just 25 years ago, but it has now become the focus of intense national discussions and international negotiations. One chapter in the story of how this issue moved from lab benches to national capitals was recognized by the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, which was co-awarded to...

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) introduced a new framework for analyzing social-ecological systems that has had wide influence in the policy and scientific communities. Studies after the MA are taking up new challenges in the basic science needed to assess, project, and manage flows of ecosystem services and effects on human well-being. Ye...

Copyright: 2006 Nature Publishing Group Historically, conservation has largely relied on the considerations of intrinsic value that McCauley sees as the only solution. This has been manifestly insufficient as a response to the increasing threats to biodiversity, particularly in the world’s poorest regions, where considerations of intrinsic and spir...

Copyright:2006 American Association for the Advancement of Science The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) was designed to meet the needs of decision-makers for scientific information on the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being. Even though the intended audience is decision-makers, the scientific community is involved as assessmen...

Environmental goals cannot be attained without also addressing poverty; similarly, addressing poverty is essentialfor improving the environment; both need additional resources, particularly in developing nations.

Increasingly, cracks are appearing in the capacity of communities, ecosystems, and landscapes to provide the goods and services that sustain our planet's well-being. The response from most quarters has been for "more of the same" that created the situation in the first place: more control, more intensification, and greater efficiency. "Resilience t...

How can ecosystems provide sustainable services to benefit society?

This report presents a synthesis and integration of the findings of the four MA Working Groups (Condition and Trends, Scenarios, Responses, and Sub-global Assessments). It does not, however, provide a comprehensive summary of each Working Group report, and readers are encouraged to also review the findings of these separately. This synthesis is org...

Interpretation of the key messages emerging from the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment 2005

The Wetlands and Water synthesis was designed for the Ramsar Convention to meet the need for information about the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being and sought to strengthen the link between scientific knowledge and decision-making for the conservation and wise use of wetlands.

Hundreds of scientists from over 70 nations are now engaged in an intensive effort to assess what we know about the status of the world's ecosystems. Here, we describe the fundamental nature of this assessment, what it hopes to accomplish and how it will go about its work. The results of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment will serve as a baseline...

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment focuses on the benefits people obtain from ecosystems and aims to improve ecosystem management and contribute to human well-being and poverty alleviation.

Planning and decision-making can be improved by access to reliable forecasts of ecosystem state, ecosystem services, and natural capital. Availability of new data sets, together with progress in computation and statistics, will increase our ability to forecast ecosystem change. An agenda that would lead toward a capacity to produce, evaluate, and c...

Unless major steps are taken to restore and protect the Earth's ecosystems, scientists predict that tens of thousands of species will likely go extinct. Why is it in the best interest of the United States to address the biodiversity problem? What domestic and international actions should the U.S. administration take?

Without Abstract

The earth's ecosystems provide goods and services that are essential to human existence, yet many of them are directly threatened by human activities. A coordinated international effort is needed, to assess the current and probable future state of ecosystems worldwide. An international ecosystem assessment is desirable to meet the needs of sustaina...

Hotspots of biodiversity—areas particularly rich in species, rare species, threatened species, or some combination of these attributes—are increasingly being delineated to help set priorities for conservation. Only recently have we begun to test key assumptions that determine how useful a hotspot approach can be for conservation planning. The evide...

The role of developing countries in helping to solve the problem of climate change is increasingly a focus of political controversy. With levels of greenhouse gas emissions projected to exceed those of developed countries by 2020, some industrialized countries are calling on developing countries to take stronger actions to meet the commitments they...

It is time to adopt a new objective for ecosystem management: maximizing the human capacity to adapt to changing ecological conditions. There is no point in continuing to pursue a "correct" state of ecological systems as an objective of management when it is clear that ecosystems are both dynamic and subject to random changes. There is every reason...

The 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity marks a basic change in the international status of genetic resources. Prior to the Convention, these resources were considered to be the "heritage of mankind.' Although the intent of this open access regime was to ensure the widespread availability of genetic resources for agriculture and industry, comme...

Conservation of the Earth's diversity is one of the most important and daunting challenges faced by biologists and politicians alike. The challenge has been taken up and declarations of intent issued, but there remains a basic problem of defining what we are trying to conserve, and why. This collection of essays reflects the wide range of views tha...

SYNOPSIS. A significant reduction in the diversity of life on earth is already assured as a result of the loss and degradation of terrestrial and aquatic habitats over past centuries. With continued human population growth, biodiversity will come under even more pressure in coming decades. Yet significant opportunities do exist to lessen the rate o...

In order to better govern natural resources, protect ecosystems, and prevent species from becoming endangered, the establishment of a national biodiversity policy is suggested. Currently, the US operates under outdated national resource management policies. Over the past several hundred years, as many as 290 species in the US have become extinct, a...

Coordinated management of biological resources can protect species from becoming endangered - and thus spare us from political crises.

Accelerated rates of sea level rise and other impacts of climate change resulting from global warming are likely to aggravate threats to coastal biodiversity in the United States. Species restricted to or dependent upon a narrow band of habitat close to sea level will be subjected to continuing threats of development from above, and rising sea leve...

Recent evidence that tropical deforestation has accelerated in the 1980s has profound implications for the persistence of tropical species. Based on species-area techniques and current rates of forest loss, over the next 25 yr an estimated 4-8% of closed tropical forest species are likely to be committed to extinction. This loss will take place ove...

We examined the relative contributions of egg size and parental quality to hatching success, fledging success, and chick growth in the Magellanic penguin (Spheniscus magellanicus) by exchanging clutches between nests to reduce the covariation between egg and parental factors. Among control nests, fledging success increased slightly with egg size. H...

We examined the relative contributions of egg size and parental quality to hatching success, fledging success, and chick growth in the Magellanic penguin (Spheniscus magellanicus) be exchanging clutches between nests to reduce the covariation between egg and parental factors. Among control nests, fledging success increased slightly with egg size. H...

The idea of biodiversity and its importance to the future of the world is outlined, paying particular attention to how it can contribute to development and be integrated into policies for resource use. The authors conclude by calling for action among businesses, institutions and individuals which benefit from the protection of biological resources....

This article examines the push of development agencies and multilateral development banks in developing countries to achieve economic, political and social sustainability without considering long-term environmental costs. A case in point is dams built for irrigation and hydroelectric power; the benefits are outweighed by the environmental costs of...

The diversity of life is an irreplaceable asset to humanity and to the biosphere. It provides both immediate and long-term benefits, and its maintenance is essential to sustainable development worldwide. Components of life that vanish in the next decades will be gone forever; those that remain will provide future options for humanity. This document...

I examined age-specific breeding patterns in the Glaucous-winged Gull (Larus glaucescens) in Washington and evaluated the importance of age-specific changes in reproductive effort as an explanation for improved breeding performance with age of the adult. Age was related to nest location, laying date, egg size, clutch size, hatching success, and ter...

I examined demographic traits of the glaucous-winged gull (Larus glaucescens) on Protection Island, Washington, from 1983 to 1985 and analyzed historical factors that may have led to the gull's recent population growth in Washington and British Columbia. First-year, second-year, and adult survival rates were 61, 80, and 85%, respectively. First-yea...

Adult Storm-Petrels had between 0.004 and 0.0008 ml of fossil fuel hydrocarbons present in their food samples when they were considered contaminated. Chicks of Fork-Tailed Storm-Petrels (Oceanodroma furcata) were fed 0.1 ml of weathered Prudhoe Bay crude oil, which should be close to the maximum dose they might receive at a feeding. Chicks dosed or...

I used simulation models to analyze the effect of different suites of life-history traits and mating rules on the correlation between ages of paired birds. If pair stability is high, the correlation between ages of mates may be strong even in the absence of active mate selection on the basis of age or experience. Even a low frequency of dissolved p...

Experimental enlargement of brood size in the glaucous-winged gull (Larus glaucescens) resulted in increased adult foraging time, decreased adult body weight at the end of the breeding season, and decreased over-winter adult survival. The decreased survival of breeding adults was associated with reduced body condition at the end of breeding (result...

In response to lessons from previous international assessments and in light of unique features of ecosystems and their management, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment was designed as a multi-scale assessment and has established mechanisms to incorporate information and knowledge from non-peer-reviewed sources including local and traditional knowled...

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