The Washington Nationals are on the cusp of history. Despite one of the worst starts in Major League Baseball (MLB) this season, skipper Dave Martinez has orchestrated one of the best turnarounds in recent history. Since May 24, the Nationals have been the best team in MLB.  They are led by pitching staff consisting of two candidates for the National League Cy Young Award, an award given annually to the best pitchers in MLB: Stephen Strasburg (18-6, 3.32 Earned Run Average (ERA)) and Max Scherzer (11-7, 2.92 ERA). Starters Patrick Corbin (14-7, 3.25 ERA) and Anibal Sánchez (11-8, 3.85 ERA) have provided great depth for an already strong rotation. Anthony Rendon (.325 postseason average) and Juan Soto (.289 postseason average) have each had magnificent seasons compiling over a combined 250 runs batted in (RBI’s).  Both were just nominated Gold Glove finalists, an award given to the best fielding player in league at each position. Despite a shaky bullpen, the Nats have relied on a diverse mix of spectacular pitching, powerful offense, danger on the base path and stellar defense. This gameplay made it difficult for opposing teams coming down the stretch in the regular season. In addition, their 2-out magic has been a major reason for their postseason success, nearly hitting .300 with 2 outs and scoring position opportunities. There’s a reason they play 162 games, and October is the time to shine. Washington has come up big in every moment they have been granted so far in October.

Even with many setbacks at the beginning of the season, such as losing 3-1 in National League Wild Card game in the 8^th inning and a 2-1 series hole against the Dodgers, the Nats and their fans have rallied on their slogan “Stay in the Fight.”  The Nats fans are now looking to “Finish the Fight” as they enter into the World Series.

This team has overcome adversity many times and will look to end the Nationals curse of failures in the National League Division Series (NLDS) by winning a World Series title. The Nats staved off elimination in the NLDS in their game against the Dodgers with a hard-fought win in Game 4 and a terrific rally in the 8^th inning of Game 5. Four runs in the 10^th inning in Game 5 in Los Angeles ended their longtime curse of never making it out of the division series. With this new momentum, the Nationals swept the Cardinals in 4 games. This win brought the first ever National League pennant to D.C., advancing to team the World Series for the first time in franchise history. A sweep would allow the Nats to have a full week of rest to recover for a tough series against MLB’s best team, the Houston Astros.

Before the Washington Capitals championship last year, D.C. experienced a 26-year championship drought. Since the Caps win, the Nats will seek to become the 3^rd team in the past year to win a championship (the Capitals won the Stanley Cup in 2018 and and the Mystics won the WBNA finals this month).

The Nats stormed into Houston and took both games off Astros top pitchers Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander to gain a commanding 2-0 series lead coming back to D.C. The Nats ride an 8-game winning streak in the playoffs and to look to extend this streak in the coming games in order to win the title at home. As former Washington National Bryce Harper stated in his opening Phillie’s press conference, “We want to bring a title back to D.C.”  As of Game 2, the Nationals are two victories away from achieving that goal.

• Learn about Georgia Tech's graduate degree programs.
• Gain insight into available financial resources.
• Visit academic units and research laboratories.
• Obtain assistance with the graduate school application process.
• Network with more than 100 scholars with similar interests.

From November 1 through 10, UMBC will again join in two of Baltimore’s signature events — Light City and the Baltimore Book Festival — which will be held together in 2019 under the theme of Brilliant Baltimore.

Organized by the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts, Brilliant Baltimore promises to illuminate the city with literature, ideas, world-class light installations, and performances. UMBC’s contributions include a talk by President Freeman Hrabowski, a UMBC-Light Ekphrastic panel discussion, a panel discussion on Baltimore Revisited featuring UMBC faculty, and the SPARK gallery, which will showcase visual artwork and offer performances and presentations.

President Hrabowski: The Empowered University // Sunday, November 3, 2 p.m., Literary Salon, USM Columbus Center

UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski will discuss his new book, The Empowered University: Shared Leadership, Culture Change, and Academic Success, written with Philip Rous and Peter Henderson. The Empowered University examines how university communities support academic success by cultivating an empowering institutional culture and broad leadership for innovation. President Hrabowski argues that higher education can play a unique role in addressing the fundamental divisions in our society and economy by supporting people in reaching their full potential.

SPARK Gallery // November 1 – 10, 5 – 10 p.m., USM Columbus Center

The SPARK Gallery represents a the third year of collaboration between UMBC, Towson University, PNC Bank, and BOPA. Curated by Catherine Borg, it features light art by UMBC faculty Corrie Francis Parks, Evan Tedlock, Lisa Moren, Lynn Cazabon, Timothy Nohe, Vin Grabill, and Colette Searls, with presentations of animated films by UMBC students.

Performances and events at SPARK will be presented by the UMBC Jazz Ensemble, directed by Matt Belzer; Lisa Cella and Stephen Bradley; and the UMBC New Music Ensemble; the Umbilicus percussion ensemble. They also include a site-specific dance performance by UMBC students choreographed by Ann Sofie Clemmensen and Carol Hess.

UMBC Light City Reception // Saturday, November 9, 4 – 9 p.m., USM Columbus Center

UMBC alumni and the UMBC community are invited to stop by the Columbus Center to enjoy light refreshments and pick up a fun glow in the dark giveaway (for first 300 guests), and enjoy a breathtaking view of the harbor and Light City Baltimore. Attendees are encouraged to bring friends and family, and to register in advance for the reception.

Word & Image // Saturday, November 2, 6 p.m., World Trade Center

In its first decade, The Light Ekphrastic (TLE) has paired more than 450 artists and writers from Baltimore and around the world to create new works of art and writing inspired by that of their partners. In “Word & Image: Creative Collaborations with UMBC and The Light Ekphrastic,” TLE participants share their work and talk about how the experience of collaborating with strangers has broadened the way they create.

The panel will be co-moderated by Jenny O’Grady, editor of UMBC Magazine; and Timothy Nohe, professor of visual arts and director of the Center for Innovation, Research, and Creativity in the Arts. Panelists will include Melissa Cormier, M.F.A. ’17, visual arts, and Katie Feild ’05, visual arts.

Baltimore Revisited // Sunday, November 3, 2 p.m., Radical Book Fair Pavilion

Baltimore Revisited is an innovative new edited volume that examines the complex histories of Charm City and efforts underway to address the city’s pervasive inequalities. These issues continue to resonate with Baltimore residents almost five years after the death of Freddie Gray and the Baltimore Uprising that followed.

The book is co-edited by Nicole King, associate professor and chair of American Studies; Kate Drabinski, lecturer, gender, women’s, and sexuality studies; and University of Baltimore historian Joshua Clark Davis. King will moderate a panel that will include Baltimore Revisited contributors Drabinski; Michael Casiano, assistant professor, American studies; and Ashley Minner, professor of the practice, American studies. It will take place in the Radical Book Fair Pavilion at the Baltimore Book Festival.

Drabinski has shared, “We hope the book raises questions about how history can inform the present to understand the roots of the city’s many inequalities. We wish readers to imagine new ways of being in and organizing for Baltimore in the future.”

More information about all events is available at UMBC at Brilliant Baltimore.

Featured image: The roof of the Columbus Center was illuminated in 2016 with artwork by UMBC’s Kelley Bell and Corrie Francis Parks. Photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

By Erle C. Ellis, professor of geography and environmental systems, UMBC, and James Watson, professor, The University of Queensland

Nature urgently needs our help. Wild creatures, from songbirds to butterflies and from primates to tortoises, are disappearing so rapidly that they could be lost forever together with the wild forests, grasslands and other habitats that long sustained them. We humans already use nearly half of all Earth’s land to sustain ourselves, and the most productive parts at that. Meanwhile, the habitats remaining for the rest of life are shrinking to levels too low to sustain themselves.

To ensure a future in which humanity thrives together with the rest of nature, people around the world will need to work together like never before.

To help make this happen, our team of scientists and conservation experts have developed a new world map highlighting three conditions of landscapes across the planet that will need to be approached differently if we are to succeed in conserving biodiversity globally. These conditions are cities and farms, large wild areas and shared lands.

In a commentary accompanying our map, we argue that for too long, efforts to conserve nature globally have acted as if this entire planet is equally influenced by the human world. Yet different landscapes differ profoundly in how they are used and influenced by people, demanding different strategies to conserve biodiversity. Our map aims to clarify these conditions to enable people to work together to conserve biodiversity more fairly and equitably.

Biodiversity is our natural heritage

The extraordinary richness of life we’ve inherited is an irreplaceable treasure that makes the world an immeasurably better place for people. Biodiversity underpins many of the ecological functions that sustain us, from healthy soils to a stable climate, and provides a wide variety of benefits to human health – mental and physical.

Yet the ultimate value of our biodiverse natural heritage is beyond any economic measure. Wild nature is our lifeblood and our heritage, connecting us with each other and the rest of life on this planet.

The good news is that people have already begun to rise to the challenge. For example, international commitments now aim to protect 17% of Earth’s land. But it is widely agreed that these and other existing conservation efforts are not nearly strong enough to halt nature’s decline.

In October 2020, nations working together through the global Convention on Biological Diversity will meet in Kunming, China to negotiate more ambitious international targets for conserving nature across the planet. One of the bolder proposals is to develop international commitments to officially protect 30% of Earth’s land area by 2030, and 50% by 2050.

But for any bold conservation agenda to succeed, an unprecedented level of international commitment will be needed. Perhaps the greatest obstacle is the many profound differences in social, economic and natural conditions that persist around the world. Some nations remain rich in unprotected biodiversity and wild habitats but are much less developed economically. Some are the opposite.

So how can such different nations and regions join together to make shared commitments and investments to save nature across this entire planet?

Three conditions for conserving nature

The first step is to build a basic consensus that conserving biodiversity can benefit all people, as long we share the efforts fairly at every level, from backyards to biosphere reserves, and across every social, economic and natural context, from the densest of cities to the most remote wild areas. To succeed, strategies need to be suited to the many different types of landscapes to conserve.

Let’s start with the parts of the world where most of us live and most of our food comes from – the cities and farmlands that take up 18% of Earth’s land surface. These are not just full of people, crops and livestock, but also include some of the densest concentrations of vertebrate diversity on Earth, including many imperiled species of mammals and birds.

In these parts of the world, there needs to be widespread adoption of wildlife-friendly farming practices. Remnant and recovering habitats must be conserved within farmlands and agrichemical production reduced, even while increasing agricultural production. And even in the densest of cities, interconnecting small areas of protected habitat, such as parks and nature reserve networks, can successfully sustain some populations of highly endangered species. In the Indian city of Mumbai, for example, a national park conserves leopards.

Large wild areas, where human influences are lowest, including large parts of Amazonia and Canadian boreal forests, still cover about a quarter of Earth’s land. Here, an emphasis on large-scale protection, such as the Five Great Forests Initiative in Central America, will be the most effective strategy. To avoid damaging the last of Earth’s unaltered ecosystems, new infrastructure and land uses, including mining, should be limited as much as possible. Recognizing indigenous people’s rights to land, so they can conserve their own lands, can also be highly effective; a large proportion of large wild areas are indigenous-owned and managed lands.

Perhaps the greatest conservation opportunities of all may reside within the most common condition of Earth’s land today – shared landscapes. Though parts of these working landscapes are still used intensively for agriculture and settlements, most of their area is composed of remnant and recovering habitats and areas lightly used for extensive grazing and forestry.

Conservation in shared lands can include regional protected area networks, such as the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, community conservation reserves, and conservation-friendly farms and cities that prioritize the needs of local people. For example, the Lewa community conservancy in Kenya, which protects habitat for endangered black rhinos, includes programs to assist local farmers to maximize their production while minimizing any negative impacts to protected habitats.

Shared lands are also home to almost half of Earth’s indigenous sovereign lands, another reason why expanding and empowering indigenous land sovereignty is considered essential to global efforts to expand conservation.

Doing your part to save nature

Distant wildlands are critical habitat for so many species, but effective conservation also depends on efforts in our own neighborhoods and the regions where our food comes from.

Think of nature when making new friends, caring for family, shopping, working, casting your vote, or donating your time or money to make the world a better place. The challenges ahead are not small, but working together across our farms and cities, shared landscapes, and large wild areas, we can make the nature of our planet whole and healthy again.

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Header image: The Snake River in Idaho is an area of ‘critical environmental concern.’ U.S. Bureau of Land Management, CC BY-SA

Contributors to the creation of the Three Conditions map include Harvey Locke of the International Union for Conservation of Nature World Commission on Protected Areas, Oscar Venter of University of Northern British Columbia, Richard Schuster of Carleton University, Keping Ma of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiaoli Shen of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Stephen Woodley, IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas, Naomi Kingston and Nina Bhola of the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Bernardo B. N. Strassburg of the Pontifícia Universidade Católica and International Institute for Sustainability in Brazil, Axel Paulsch of the Institute for Biodiversity in Regensburg, Germany and Brooke Williams, University of Queensland.

Erle Ellis is a member of the American Association of Geographers. The association is a funding partner of The Conversation US.

Erle C. Ellis, Professor of Geography and Environmental Systems, University of Maryland, Baltimore County and James Watson, Professor, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.