1468001345000

astronomy

%feed
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheDailyGalaxyNewsFromPlanetEarthBeyond/~3/2qXLLs52ATM/alien-mindscapes-sea-changes-in-the-search-for-advanced-intelligent-life.html
“Alien Mindscapes" --Radical New Changes Called for in Search for Advanced Intelligent Life

To find ET, we must open our minds beyond a deeply-rooted, Earth-centric perspective, expand our research methods and deploy new tools. Never before has so much data been available in so many scientific disciplines to help us grasp the role of probabilistic events in the development of extraterrestrial intelligence. These data tell us that each world is a unique planetary experiment. Advanced intelligent life is likely plentiful in the universe, but may be very different from us, based on what we now know of the coevolution of life and environment.

The SETI Institute Director of Research, proposed a broader, multidisciplinary approach to the SETI search, beyond radio and optical modalities, in an article published today in the journal Astrobiology. “Are we alone in the Universe?” is the provocative question that inspires the scientific search for life beyond Earth. Today, we know definitively of only one planet that hosts life, and that is Earth. How can we find life, and in particular, intelligent life beyond our world?

“Alien Mindscapes A Perspective on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence” authored by Nathalie A. Cabrol, Director of the Carl Sagan Center for Research at the SETI Institute, suggests the need for a sea change in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, where the full complement of physical, biological, computer and social sciences are deployed in a quest to look for life as we do not know it.

Led by pioneers such as Frank Drake and Jill Tarter, SETI the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence commenced in the 1960's using radio astronomy to listen for signals from ET. Today, both radio and optical SETI searches seek signals generated by technology similar to ours. There are compelling reasons to continue with these endeavors, but equally compelling reasons to broaden the search criteria and expand the existing methodologies.

In her paper's call to action, Cabrol promotes the establishment of a Virtual Institute with participation from the global scientific community. The new SETI Virtual Institute will integrate our new knowledge to understand who, what, and where ET can be, and step beyond the anthropocentric perspective. New detection strategies generated by this approach will augment our chances of detection by identifying new survey targets. The purpose is to expand the vision and strategies for SETI research and to break through the constraints imposed by imagining ET to be similar to ourselves. This new endeavor will probe the alien landscapes and mindscapes, and expand our understanding of life in the universe.

“The timing is right for SETI research around the world to open a new chapter in its history. The SETI Institute is taking the lead on this new path,” says Bill Diamond, President and CEO of the SETI Institute. “In the coming months, we will invite the US and international research communities to contribute to a new scientific roadmap for SETI. We will explore resources for the development of a Virtual Institute and an intellectual framework for projects focused on the advancement of knowledge on extraterrestrial intelligence.”

The Daily Galaxy via SETI Institute

Image credit: The artist's impression at the top of the below shows what it would look like from an exoplanet 10,000 light-years away in its home galaxy. (Beijing Planetarium / Jin Ma)

Today's 'Galaxy' Insight --"The Dominant Intelligence in the Universe May Be Non-Biological"

"There have been 10,000 Generations Before Us --Ours Could be the First to Discover Extraterrestrial Life" --NASA (2014 Most Viewed)

astronomy

1468001343000

astronomy

%feed
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheDailyGalaxyNewsFromPlanetEarthBeyond/~3/kuPoWfWM5xc/exoplanet-discovered-unlike-any-other-known-world-three-suns-and-a-550-year-orbit.html
Exoplanet "Unlike Any Other Known World!" Discovered --Three Suns and a 550-Year Orbit

If you thought Luke Skywalker's home planet, Tatooine, was a strange world with its two suns in the sky, imagine this: a planet where you'd either experience constant daylight or enjoy triple sunrises and sunsets each day, depending on the seasons, which happen to last longer than human lifetimes.

Such a world has been discovered by a team of astronomers led by the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona, using direct imaging. The planet, HD 131399Ab, is unlike any other known world - on by far the widest known orbit within a multi-star system.

Located about 340 light years from Earth in the constellation Centaurus, HD 131399Ab is believed to be about 16 million years old, making it one of the youngest exoplanets discovered to date, and one of very few directly imaged planets. With a temperature of 850 Kelvin (about 1,070 degrees Fahrenheit or 580 degrees Celsius) and weighing in at an estimated four Jupiter masses, it is also one of the coldest and least massive directly imaged exoplanets.

"HD 131399Ab is one of the few exoplanets that have been directly imaged, and it's the first one in such an interesting dynamical configuration," said Daniel Apai, an assistant professor of Astronomy and Planetary Sciences who leads a research group dedicated to finding and observing exoplanets at the UA.

"For about half of the planet's orbit, which lasts 550 Earth-years, three stars are visible in the sky, the fainter two always much closer together, and changing in apparent separation from the brightest star throughout the year," said Kevin Wagner, a first-year PhD student in Apai's research group and the paper's first author, who discovered HD 131399Ab. "For much of the planet's year the stars appear close together, giving it a familiar night-side and day-side with a unique triple-sunset and sunrise each day. As the planet orbits and the stars grow further apart each day, they reach a point where the setting of one coincides with the rising of the other - at which point the planet is in near-constant daytime for about one-quarter of its orbit, or roughly 140 Earth-years."

Wagner identified the planet among hundreds of candidate planets and led the follow-up observations to verify its nature.

The planet marks the first discovery of an exoplanet made with SPHERE, one of the world's most advanced instruments dedicated to finding planets around other stars. SPHERE, which stands for the Spectro-Polarimetric High-Contrast Exoplanet Research Instrument, is sensitive to infrared light, making it capable to detect the heat signatures of young planets, along with sophisticated features correcting for atmospheric disturbances and blocking out the otherwise blinding light of their host stars. The instrument is part of the Very Large Telescope operated by the European Southern Observatory on Cerro Paranal in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile.

Although repeated and long-term observations will be needed to precisely determine the planet's trajectory among its host stars, observations and simulations seem to suggest the following scenario: At the center of the system lies a star estimated to be eighty percent more massive than the sun and dubbed HD 131399A, which itself is orbited by the two remaining stars, B and C, at about three-hundred AU (one AU, or astronomical unit, equals the average distance between the earth and the sun). All the while, B and C twirl around each other like a spinning dumbbell, separated by a distance roughly equal to that between our sun and Saturn.

In this scenario, planet HD 131399Ab travels around the central star, A, in an orbit about twice as large as Pluto's if compared to our solar system, and brings the planet to about one-third of the separation of the stars themselves. The authors point out that a range of orbital scenarios is possible, and the verdict on long-term stability of the system will have to wait for planned follow-up observations that will better constrain the planet's orbit.

"If the planet was further away from the the most massive star in the system, it would be kicked out of the system," Apai explained. "Our computer simulations showed that this type of orbit can be stable, but if you change things around just a little bit, it can become unstable very quickly."

Planets in multi-star systems are of special interest to astronomers and planetary scientists because they provide an example of how planet formation functions in these more extreme scenarios. While multi-star systems seem exotic to us in our orbit around our solitary star - multi-star systems are in fact just as common as single stars.

"It is not clear how this planet ended up on its wide orbit in this extreme system, and we can't say yet what this means for our broader understanding of the types of planetary systems out there, but it shows there is more variety out there than many would have deemed possible," Wagner said. "What we do know is that planets in multi-star systems are much less explored, and potentially just as numerous as planets in single-star systems."

The Daily Galaxy via University of Arizona

Unearthly Zodiacal Light --A Fossil Clue to the Origin of Our Solar System

"Mars' Gale Crater on Earth" --The Extreme Life of Chile's Atacama Desert

Jupiter's Moons --"Hint at Life on Alien Moons of Gas Giants"

Astronomers Discover Evidence of a Planet forming around a Star 335 Light Years from Earth

astronomy

1468001340000

astronomy

%feed
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheDailyGalaxyNewsFromPlanetEarthBeyond/~3/KPvvpCEj8ek/mysterious-anomaly-in-cassini-saturn-mission-orbit-caused-by-planet-9-gravitation.html
Mysterious Anomaly in NASA's Cassini Saturn-Mission Orbit --"Caused By Planet 9 Gravitation?"

Several recent news stories have reported that a mysterious anomaly in Cassini's orbit could potentially be explained by the gravitational tug of a massive new planet in our solar system, lurking far beyond the orbit of Neptune.

"An undiscovered planet outside the orbit of Neptune, 10 times the mass of Earth, would affect the orbit of Saturn, not Cassini," said William Folkner, a planetary scientist at JPL. Folkner develops planetary orbit information used for NASA's high-precision spacecraft navigation. "This could produce a signature in the measurements of Cassini while in orbit about Saturn if the planet was close enough to the sun. But we do not see any unexplained signature above the level of the measurement noise in Cassini data taken from 2004 to 2016."

While the proposed planet's existence may eventually be confirmed by other means, mission navigators have observed no unexplained deviations in the spacecraft's orbit since its arrival there in 2004, according to mission managers and orbit determination experts at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

"Although we'd love it if Cassini could help detect a new planet in the solar system, we do not see any perturbations in our orbit that we cannot explain with our current models," said Earl Maize, Cassini project manager at JPL.

Scientists have been looking for Planet X for 100 years. The possibility that it's real got a big boost recently when researchers from Caltech inferred its existence based on orbital anomalies seen in objects in the Kuiper Belt, a disc-shaped region of comets and other larger bodies beyond Neptune. In January of 2016, Caltech researchers announced that they found evidence of a giant planet tracing a bizarre, highly elongated orbit in the outer solar system. The object, which the researchers have nicknamed Planet Nine, has a mass about 10 times that of Earth and orbits about 20 times farther from the sun on average than does Neptune (which orbits the sun at an average distance of 2.8 billion miles). In fact, it would take this new planet between 10,000 and 20,000 years to make just one full orbit around the su

The researchers, Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown, discovered the planet's existence through mathematical modeling and computer simulations but have not yet observed the object directly.

Brown notes that the putative ninth planet—at 5,000 times the mass of Pluto—is sufficiently large that there should be no debate about whether it is a true planet. Unlike the class of smaller objects now known as dwarf planets, Planet Nine gravitationally dominates its neighborhood of the solar system. In fact, it dominates a region larger than any of the other known planets—a fact that Brown says makes it "the most planet-y of the planets in the whole solar system."

"Although we were initially quite skeptical that this planet could exist, as we continued to investigate its orbit and what it would mean for the outer solar system, we become increasingly convinced that it is out there," says Batygin, an assistant professor of planetary science. "For the first time in over 150 years, there is solid evidence that the solar system's planetary census is incomplete."

A recent paper predicts that, if data tracking Cassini's position were available out to the year 2020, they might be used to reveal a "most probable" location for the new planet in its long orbit around the sun. However, Cassini's mission is planned to end in late 2017, when the spacecraft -- too low on fuel to continue on a longer mission -- will plunge into Saturn's atmosphere.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

The Daily Galaxy via http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and Caltech

Close Up View of Saturn's Strange Moon Hyperion

Young Solar System Observed Around a Nearby Star

Unexplained Red Arcs Observed on Saturn's Moon Tethys

astronomy

1468001045000

robots

%feed
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fredirect.viglink.com%2F%3Fu%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.theguardian.com%252Flifeandstyle%252F2016%252Fjul%252F08%252Fhow-to-relate-to-robots%26key%3Dddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8
r0B0t: Why you should be nice to your robots | Oliver Burkeman

Oliver Burkeman says it's hard to bark orders at a machine without feeling like the kind of obnoxious person who barks orders at waiters

I became highly confused the first time I used the Amazon Echo, a voice-activated “smart home assistant” that sits in the corner and responds to the name Alexa as in “Alexa, play some music!” or “Alexa, how many ounces in a kilogram?” Partly, this was because the only person I know who owns an Echo is herself called Alexa, and she was home at the time. But that aside, it's hard to bark orders at a machine without feeling like the kind of obnoxious person who barks orders at waiters. That is, unless you start young. “We love our Amazon Echo… but I fear it's also turning our daughter into a raging asshole,” the Silicon Valley investor Hunter Walk fretted recently. Alexa doesn't need you to say please or thank you; indeed, she responds better to brusque commands. “Cognitively, I'm not sure a kid gets why you can boss Alexa around, but not a person,” Walk wrote. How's a four-year-old supposed to learn that other household members aren't simply there to do her bidding, when one (electronic) household member was designed to do exactly that?

Such worries will grow more urgent as we interact with more convincingly humanesque devices. As the tech writer John Markoff puts it: “What does it do to the human if we have a class of slaves which are not human, but that we treat as human?” Most of us would agree with Immanuel Kant that it's unethical to treat others as mere means to our own ends, instead of ends in themselves. That's why slavery damages the slaveholder as well as the slave: to use a person as if they were an object erodes your own humanity. Yet Alexa (like Google Home, and Siri, and the rest) trains us to think of her as both human yet solely there to serve. Might we start thinking of real humans that way more frequently, too?

Continue reading...
robots

1468000890000

culture

%feed
http://insider.si.edu/2016/07/castle-corbel-chisled-basque-country-stone-carver-bernat-vidal/
Castle corbel chisled by Basque Country stone carver Bernat Vidal

Master stone carver Bernat Vidal chisels a piece of Seneca sandstone during the 2016 Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C. Vidal is making a rough replica of a corbel from the Smithsonian Castle. (Photo by Michelle Z. Donahue)

Peering closely at the surface of the ruddy red Maryland sandstone block, Bernat Vidal sets a chisel resolutely against the stone and confidently taps it with a wood-handled mallet. With every strike, puffs of dust wisp upward, and tiny sharp chips fly off in all directions.

Vidal, unflinching, etches the beginnings of an incised line into a semi-circle that he has already coaxed out of the squared-off stone. With the easy reflex of 30 years' practice, he flicks away larger shards to reveal the beginnings of an ornate corbel to crown a stone column.

The column in question is on the west face of the Smithsonian's iconic red sandstone Castle, and the sculptor bending to the task traveled from the Basque Country, located in northern Spain and southern France, to share his craft with the public at the 2016 Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The unique Seneca Creek sandstone block from a nearby quarry is very similar to the buttery sandstone Vidal chisels in his studio outside Bilbao, on Spain's northern coastline.

Master stone carver Bernat Vidal displays a photograph of a corbel from the Smithsonian Castle that he is using to create a replica from a piece of Seneca sandstone. Vidal was working on the National Mall as part of the 2016 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. His corbel will eventually go on display in the Castle's Schermer Hall. (Photo by Michelle Z. Donahue)

“We gave Mr. Vidal a couple of pieces of Seneca sandstone from our attic stock and a photograph of one of the Castle's decorative corbels,” says Paul Westerberg, registrar for the Castle Collection. “He's going to leave it unfinished and rough for us in order to show his tool marks in the stone.”

Vidal's unfinished block will eventually go on display in the Castle's Schermer Hall next to an 1846 Castle model by architect James Renwick “as a representative sample of how these carvings are made,” Westerberg adds. “People normally only see the finished product. It's rare to see something in the process of its creation. We were very happy a master stone carver was working on the Mall.”

Though once renowned in the Middle Ages for their skill, today, only a handful of traditional Basque stone workers continue the craft. Originally a painter and ceramics artist, Vidal came to the tradition almost on a whim, but became so smitten that he began to teach to the younger generation at a stone carvers' college in Bilbao 20 years ago.

One of the ornate Seneca sandstone corbels that decorate the Smithsonian Castle.

Among his works: a 1.5-ton coat of arms, carved from a 6-ton block, mounted on the City Hall of Guernica, an important symbol of Basque autonomy before and after it was bombed during World War 2; and the Puerta del Mar in the Dominican Republic, commissioned in 1992 for the 500th anniversary of the discovery of the Americas.

Vidal laments the economic realities that make even highly regarded traditional craft a lackluster prospect for Basque youth, though he hopes that his efforts in educating others and demonstrating the craft may yet bring renewed interest to the trade.

Insider writer Michelle Donahue spoke to Vidal during a lull at the Festival, and he shared some of his thoughts on the history and future of Basque traditional stone carving.

Q: Can you talk a little bit about the importance of what you do as a reflection of the Basque culture as a whole?

Vidal: Basque carvers were very important during the Crown of Castile [the consolidation of Spanish kingdoms in the 13th century]. These were carvers whose works were very much sought after, but then this art was all forgotten because all of this work was being done outside of Basque country. So, the Basque people as well as the rest of Spain have lost the tradition. For me to discover this art form was very beautiful.

Q: Was the purpose of traditional Basque stone carving originally for house building, fortress building, or some other reason?

Vidal: Historically, it was for house building and making artistic works. It was even further divided than that, with specialists in different forms. Nowadays, 80 percent is for custom work at houses, family crests, or the name of the house in stone with different designs, because in Spain traditional homes have names.

A selection of the work of master stone carver Bernat Vidal, from the Basque Country in northern Spain and southern France. Vidal is in Washington, D.C. as a participant in the 2016 Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Michelle Z. Donahue)

Q: How did you come to be a stone carver? Was this a family tradition?

Vidal: In the village where I lived, there was strong stone influence—not in carving, but in quarrying. Then I had the opportunity to take a carving class and I loved it, the complexity of the rock. It was something that filled me.

Q: Was it easy for you to master?

Vidal: It wasn't too easy, but it wasn't too difficult, either. When you are absolutely dedicated to something, you slowly begin to master it.
Has your work attracted the interest of young people who want to learn from you?
Approximately 20 years ago, I was a professor at the stone carvers college in Bilbao. But now with the economic crisis in Spain, few are interested. It's a tough and dirty job, and people nowadays prefer to be in front of a computer.

Q:What do you hope people here learn from your work?

Vidal: By virtue of seeing it here, people can value the effort that is required to do this kind of work, and that there are very few people who actually do this. Truthfully, I've been surprised—people have been very interested in all of the aspects of my work, with a desire to learn [about] my craft.

Q: How do you find the experience of carving the Castle stone compared to the others you've worked with?

Vidal: It's intriguing. Where I'm from in Navarre there is also a different kind of red stone that looks exactly the same. But upon a closer look there are differences—that one has larger grains and it's more abrasive, whereas this one is much finer and is very malleable, but breaks very easily.

Q: How long will it take you to complete this piece?

Vidal: It's difficult to say. It's a very detail-oriented job. I'd calculate that if I was back in my shop, I'd say about a week.

Q: Will you take it back and finish it or will you stay here until it's completed?

Vidal: I can always send it back because it would be great to show all of the phases of the work, so others can see what is necessary to prepare a stone for carving. But the Basques also like this type of stonework, so they might want to keep it! [laughs]

The post Castle corbel chisled by Basque Country stone carver Bernat Vidal appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

culture

1467997668000

gaia

%feed
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Falice-cunningham%2Fremembering-the-seeds-of-_b_10742950.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dgreen%26ir%3DGreen&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8
Remembering The Seeds Of Freedom
In America's early days, the nation's founders required a potent symbol to communicate the concept of freedom. In colonial Boston, the symbol that became synonymous with freedom was an elm tree.

The Liberty Tree, as it came to be known, was a gathering place for advocates for freedom. Though eventually cut down by opponents, its symbolic resonance only grew, gracing flags and pins, with elms being planted throughout the new nation.

This week following Independence Day, and throughout this summer, I hope that we can all remember the Liberty Tree and why it was such a powerful symbol. And, why the growth that it promises may continue to resonate as we undertake a new struggle for freedom.

The struggle we now face is no less a campaign for self-determination than the American Revolution. Much like the Revolution, what is at stake is personal freedom and the ability to choose your own destiny.

It is a struggle over the freedom to choose what you can grow and eat; each of us is involved, whether we know it or not. The right to choose seems basic. Indeed, you may assume that farmers have the ability to save and exchange seed that they are growing our food with, but you would be wrong.

Seeds are a gift of nature, the result of centuries of labor by farmers worldwide who have conserved heirloom seeds and thousands of natural varieties. But over the past few decades, legislation restricting access to seeds helped diminish small farmers' holdings and have established industrial agriculture as globally dominant.

Under certain laws, seed varieties must undergo complicated tests and registration procedures. Costly and lengthy processes, these favor companies with deep pockets that produce seeds -- many of them genetically modified -- dependent upon chemicals for their cultivation.

The putative goal of these laws is to protect food security. The ironic result is that our food security -- both in the U.S. and globally -- is threatened due to a lack of agro-biodiversity. As we face the uncertainty of climate change, we need more, rather than less, types of seed capable of flourishing under conditions such as drought, insects or flood.

With a handful of global seed companies monopolizing the market, we have handed our freedoms over to corporate boards. Right now, according to the ETC Group, six multinationals control 75% of all private-sector plant breeding research, 60% of the commercial seed market and 76% of global agrochemical sales.

New laws which make it illegal for farmers to save and exchange seed are a further threat. Ethically and ecologically unjustified, seed patents grant exclusive rights for inventions; but, seed is not an invention. Further, genetically engineered seeds contaminate our farms, removing the option for GMO-free food.

That's untenable. It's time for a declaration of independence that recognizes that seed is the source of life and seed freedom is the birthright of every farmer and food producer. Seed Freedom -- an initiative created by activist, author and scientist Dr. Vandana Shiva -- has done just that: created the Declaration on Seed Freedom. It's very much needed right now.

We the people should also secure the right of farmers to save, exchange, evolve, breed and sell seed. This guarantees the right of all people to food freedom, the right to know what we are putting in our bodies and the right to exercise self-determination every time we step into a market. As growers and eaters, remember that our choices -- our demand to eat and grow foods that are the products of natural and organic agriculture -- provide moral and monetary support for this struggle.

As we think back on the birth of our independence, it's clear why the patriots chose a tree as the symbol of liberty and why we can use this symbol today. The most basic of liberties is the right to choose and that right has deep roots in our democracy. Farmers and gardeners are right now struggling to regain that right. This movement is growing, sending roots deeper and shoots upward, but it isn't over. We need all of you who care to help fight for this most basic of freedoms -- the freedom of choice.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

gaia

1467997665000

gaia

%feed
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fsteve-zwick%2Fwar-peace-and-climate-how_b_10885768.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dgreen%26ir%3DGreen&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8
War, Peace, and Climate: How Carbon Trading Can Help Avert Resource Wars
This story first appeared on Ecosystem Marketplace.

Liberian environmentalist Silas Siakor knows all too well what can happen to a fragile nation when a dictator hijacks its commodity sector, as warlord Charles Taylor did in the 1990s - first by using slave labor and "blood diamonds" to finance a devastating civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone, and then by spreading that war to Guinea and commandeering the presidency of Liberia itself.

Siakor helped expose Taylor's use of "conflict timber" to finance those bloody wars, and he helped make sure farmers, conservationists, and commercial enterprises all had a role in restructuring the forest sector once the sanctions were removed - a process that Art Blundell, who chaired the UN Panel of Experts on Liberia, credits with keeping the country's current peace alive.

He cautions, however, that Liberia's peace is the exception that proves the rule.

Art Blundell

"The UN Environment Programme says that natural resources are a factor in about 40% of conflicts since the end of the Cold War, and they are often a driver," Blundell said at last month's Oslo REDD Exchange in Norway, where he presented findings from recent analysis conducted on behalf of Ecosystem Marketplace publisher Forest Trends. "But if you look at peace agreements, only about 15% of them mention natural resources, let alone call for reforms of governance in a way that will minimize the role of resources in causing future conflict."

The result, he said in a recent episode of the Bionic Planet podcast, is tragic: "More than half of peace agreements fail within five years, often because belligerents get money from the exploitation of natural resources, like logging, that they can use to fuel the resumption of civil war."

Liberia has so far avoided slipping back into that cycle, in part because it tore up corrupt concessions and started with a clean slate on forest governance. That peace, however, has a downside of its own: without civil war, the forests are now safe for illegal logging - which is often carried out not by ruthless logging companies, but by desperate farmers looking to feed their families.

As the government steps in to save forests, it risks pitting conservationists against small farmers - something Siakor says has already happened.

"The government has tried to impose [conservation] projects on the people - in protected areas - but people have resisted, and they're very active in this resistance," he said at the Oslo REDD Exchange. "The government had to roll back [its conservation efforts] and grant the community the right to manage that particular forest."

This story has been adapted from the Bionic Planet episode "Climate, Conflict, and Commodities: The Calculus of Peace on a Changing Planet", which is available on iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, and elsewhere.

Siakor sees a more workable solution in President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's efforts to tap carbon finance through the United Nations REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation of forests, plus other land uses) initiative, which aims to slow deforestation by funding sustainable agriculture initiatives so that farmers aren't forced to chop trees - a process that aligns the interests of small farmers with those of the forest and also promotes the kind of governance associated with lasting peace.

"2016-07-08-1467988656-8014017-Silas.JPG"

Silas Siakor

Such initiatives have proven successful in several Latin American and African countries, and forest-carbon projects are currently being used to conserve forested areas larger than the entire Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the most recent State of Forest Carbon Finance report. Both Siakor and Blundell say that REDD+ can support the peace process in war-torn areas, but only if its implemented in ways that recognize the challenges particular to war-torn regions.

"REDD programs working in the countries have to remember that people have been traumatized," said Blundell, adding that traumatized people are slow to develop trust. "You have to understand the history of the conflict, the legacy of that conflict in the present, and your interaction with it."

Understanding REDD+

For a deeper understanding of REDD+ and forest carbon, check out:
REDD Dawn: The Birth Of Forest Carbon
How Markets And Mother Earth Each Found A Home In The Paris Climate Accord

Liberia, Colombia, Myanmar: States of Readiness

Liberia began overhauling its forest governance more than a decade ago - when REDD+ was still in its infancy - but Colombia and Myanmar are now struggling to implement peace agreements. Colombia's peace agreement explicitly builds on resource reform, says the country's Vice Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, Pablo Viera Samper, while Myanmar's peace agreement gives short shrift to resource management, says Saw Frankie Abreu, the director of Myanmar's Tenasserim River and Indigenous People's Network (TRIP NET). Both men see a potential for REDD+ in supporting resource management.

"When you're designing a REDD programme, the main objective is not [to get] money for planting trees," said Samper, who said that, from his perspective, the role of REDD+ is to "transform those drivers that are resulting in deforestation into more sustainable activities that will lead to a reduction of the conflict - social, environmental - and generate opportunity's, generate jobs, and generate income for the population."

REDD+ and Peacebuilding: Untapped Potential

Blundell's analysis shows that more than half of the countries developing REDD+ initiatives have experienced organized armed conflict since 2008, when the UN first started considering REDD finance.

"2016-07-08-1467988731-1783695-Samper.JPG"

Pablo Viera Samper

"The governance reform that's required for peace building is very much what is also required by REDD Readiness," he said in Oslo, referring to the process of getting a country's ducks in a row. To be "REDD Ready," countries must not only be able to demonstrate that the government can accurately monitor its forests, but also to show that their forest people and small farmers are engaged in the governing process.

"REDD+ offers a plausible alternative to sectors that have contributed to conflict, such as industrial forestry and plantation agriculture, and governance reform associated with REDD readiness can contribute to 'environmental peacebuilding'," his analysis states. "But to be effective, REDD+ must address challenges unique to countries attempting to recover from conflict."

Key Challenge: Spoilers

Blundell said that "spoilers" present a common challenge in war-torn areas.

"These are people who did well through war...and they can take advantage of grievance to go back to war to protect their own self-interest: their power and money streams," he said.

Siakor agreed, and said that Liberia's reforms were designed to make sure no vested interests are in a position to disrupt forest governance.

"We are building on the good elements of reform that have been initiated, bearing in mind the possibility that some of the spoilers could take advantage of it's not designed very well," said Siakur. "The logging companies come at the very top, wanting business-as-usual."

Ironically, Blundell says, Liberia's forest reforms are not enshrined in the peace agreement itself, but instead emerged from the agricultural and environmental communities, with support from the World Bank and some outside governments.

The Siren Song of Industrial Forestry

REDD+ proponents also face a perception problem: namely, that money flows quickly and abundantly from massive soy and palm plantations, but trickles only slowly from REDD+.

Saw Frankie Abreu

Blundell says both perceptions are wrong, and Samper adds that even when money does flow to illegal or industrial activities, it rarely makes its way to the laborers on the ground.

"If...the actual miners or the people who are growing the coca leaves (for cocaine production) were receiving the economic benefits from their products, then it would be very difficult [to win support for REDD+ or sustainable agriculture], but the reality is that the [laborers] make very little money," he said. "The reality is that they are under a situation where they are, a lot of times, forced to do this work; and the reality is that, when you talk to them, they all say that, given an opportunity, they would move away from those activities."

REDD+ funding tends to flow more effectively to farmers, and it also flows earlier than it did in the past, when payments for performance only followed after years of validation and verification. Today, payments tend to come intermittently over the course of a project, and more money should flow as companies implement the Paris Agreement.

"Right now, the question that people ask is, 'Where will the money come from to pay for the carbon? Are you relying on the market? Will there be sufficient money?'" he says, adding that mining companies have given more than $80 million towards local communities in the last few years.

This is the first of a two-part series. Click here or check back next week for Part Two.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

gaia