News
Tropentag 2017
20.09. - 22.09.2017
Bonn, Germany
Anticipated SURUMER contributions:
Cotter, M. et al. : "Identifying Tipping Points in the Supply of Ecosystem Services in Rural Environments of South-east Asia"
Lang, R. et al. : "Rubber Cultivation Weakened the Soil Methane Sink Function Compared to Natural Forest"
Laub, M. et al. : "New Landscape Modelling Approaches for Soil Organic Carbon Across Continuous Profile Depth in Mountainous Subtropics"
Liu, H. et al. : "Climate Change Impacts on Erosion Control in a Watershed with an Integrative Modelling Approach"
SURUMER expert contributes to science program "W wie Wissen"
In March 2017 Franziska Harich from the SURUMER project accompanied the film crew of the ARD- science program “W wie Wissen” to her study sites in Thailand. For a reportage on natural rubber she highlighted the changes and challenges of rubber cultivation for landscapes and ecosystems. The reportage will be broadcasted on 13th May at 4pm during the ARD science program “W wie Wissen” and will be available in the ARD media centre at http://www.daserste.de/information/wissen-kultur/w-wie-wissen/index.html afterwards.
WOCAT book „Making sense of research for sustainable land management“ published
Results of our SURUMER-project (esp. from SP3, SP5, SP8) have been published in the WOCAT-book „Making sense of research for sustainable land management“ (initialized and coordinated by GLUES), which can be downloaded for free on the following webpage: www.wocat.net/makingsense
How to make condoms more sustainable
In the framework of the ASA- program “Sustainability connects” and supervised by SURUMER and einhorn GmbH, 3 stipends with different scientific background were heading to Malaysia in June 2016. Their goal: evaluate the socio- economic and ecological framework conditions and establish a concept for more sustainability on a Malaysian rubber plantation.
Background of the study is a cooperation between einhorn that aims at sustainable condom production and SURUMER that contributes with scientific expertise. Natural rubber (NR) is the major source of condoms and one of the most important renewable resources. Car tyres, seals, mattresses and medicinal products, such as gloves, or condoms, they all contain NR as raw material. Due to the increasing demand for NR, the area of rubber cultivation increased drastically within the last decade, going along with changes in land and a reduction of natural forest cover. This development is accompanied by various problems and loss of ecosystem services, which requires the development of alternative land use concepts.
The stipends spent 3 month in Malaysia to collect field data. Afterwards, 3 months at the University of Hohenheim were used to analyze and synthezize their findings, and to develop a sustainability concept for an environmentally improved rubber production.
