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NEWS

Fire season intensifies in the Brazilian Amazon, feeding off deforestation by Liz Kimbrough [01 Jul 2021]
- Twenty-four major fires have burned in the Brazilian Amazon so far this year, all of them set on land previously deforested in 2020, until this week when the first major blaze was set on land cleared in 2021.
- Experts are expecting this to be a bad year for fires, owing to a historic drought, high levels of deforestation, and a lack of funding for environmental law enforcement.
- President Jair Bolsonaro signed a decree on June 23 to send Brazilian soldiers into the Amazon to curb deforestation (which often precedes fires), but one expert calls this a “smokescreen” that would allow deforestation to continue.
- Deforestation rates have been higher under Bolsonaro than any past president: in 2020, Brazil lost a Central Park-sized area of forest every two hours, and on the day with the highest rate of deforestation, July 31, an estimated 2 million trees were cut down.

Converting biowaste to biogas could power cleaner sustainable Earth future by Marina Martinez [01 Jul 2021]
- Biogas made from organic materials — including food and agricultural waste, and animal or human manure — is a renewable, sustainable, affordable and inclusive energy alternative becoming increasingly available to households, farms, municipalities and nations.
- Converting biowaste into biogas, via anaerobic digestion technology, is a strategy that could contribute to multiple U.N. Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris climate agreement. Biodigesters are already in use to meet a range of energy needs around the world.
- Current limiting factors to the sector’s growth include technical and adaptive challenges, lack of awareness in many regions, and unsupportive policy instruments that can discourage biogas adoption.
- Ahead of COP26, the critically important U.N. climate meeting coming this November, the World Biogas Association is urging governments to integrate biogas into their Nationally Determined Contributions — their voluntary emissions reduction targets, as agreed to under the Paris Agreement.

Mongabay’s What-To-Watch list for July 2021 by Mongabay.com [01 Jul 2021]
- As heat waves hit all over the world, we’re bringing you environment and conservation videos you can add to your watchlist while you’re trying to stay cool in the shade.
- In the last month, Mongabay’s video teams have explored the intersection between tech and animal conservation, and community-led initiatives to protect natural spaces.
- Add these videos to your watchlist for the month — you don’t need a Netflix, Prime or Disney+ subscription; watch these for free on YouTube.

With growing pressures, can the Philippines sustain its marine reserves? by Leilani Chavez [30 Jun 2021]
- The Philippines pioneered a community-based approach to marine protected area management in 1974, which balanced conservation and community livelihood. This became the blueprint of the more than 1,500 marine reserves in the country today.
- While the government depends on its MPA system in protecting its seascapes and meeting its international commitments, research suggest only a third of the country’s MPAs are well-managed and only protect around 1% of the country’s coral reefs.
- With management and resource challenges, these MPAs are threatened by overfishing and illegal fishing practices as well as the worsening impacts of climate change.
- Experts say strengthening the country’s larger MPA systems, synchronizing conservation with fisheries management policies, adapting newer models, and creating a network of MPAs may help the country buffer the impacts of climate change on its rich marine resources.

Monks and wildlife come under pressure from Malaysian cement company by Sheryl Lee Tian Tong [30 Jun 2021]
- Since last December, cement manufacturer Associated Pan Malaysia Cement has been looking to evict dozens of monks and devotees from the Dhamma Sakyamuni Caves Monastery in the limestone hills of Mount Kanthan in Malaysia’s Perak state.
- APMC calls the monks unlawful trespassers on company land; the monks say the company consented to their occupying the land for decades.
- Much of Mount Kanthan has already been quarried by APMC, and the untouched southern section where the monastery is located is also home to highly endemic and critically endangered flora and fauna.
- The monks and devotees are petitioning for the Perak state government to officially designate the monastery as a place of worship and Mount Kanthan as a national heritage site.

Cambodia’s first giant muntjac sighting highlights key mountain habitat by Carolyn Cowan [30 Jun 2021]
- Camera trap surveys in Virachey National Park in northeast Cambodia have recorded the country’s first sightings of a critically endangered deer, the large-antlered muntjac (Muntiacus vuquangensis).
- The surveys also recorded a suite of other increasingly rare species, including critically endangered Sunda pangolins and red-shanked douc langurs and endangered Asian elephants and dholes.
- Located in the Annamite mountain range, Virachey National Park is remote and rugged, which affords wildlife some protection from human encroachment.
- Poaching and logging have been hugely problematic in Virachey National Park in the past; experts say stronger protection is needed to safeguard its unique and diverse wildlife.

Study warns of impacts of unregulated trade in Indonesian porcupines by Basten Gokkon [30 Jun 2021]
- The unmonitored illegal trade in porcupines across Indonesia has prompted calls from conservationists for stricter protection of the species’ population in the wild.
- A new study examining seizure data of porcupines, their parts and derivatives in Indonesia has found more than 450 of the animals in nearly 40 incidents between January 2013 and June 2020
- Indonesia is home five porcupine species, but only one is currently protected by under the law.
- The study’s author has recommended that all porcupines be categorized as protected species under Indonesian wildlife laws and listed under CITES to monitor the impacts of the trade on the wild population.

Climate, biodiversity & farmers benefit from rubber agroforestry: report by Erik Hoffner [29 Jun 2021]
- Rubber plantations have been a main historical cause of tropical deforestation, and are generally responsible for a range of environmental and social ills.
- But rubber grown in agroforestry systems–in combination with fruit and timber trees, useful shrubs, medicines, and herbs–is shown by a new report to increase ecosystem services and biodiversity, while sequestering carbon and diversifying farmers’ incomes.
- Additional to providing shelter and forage for a range of species, rubber trees are not shown to suffer yield declines due to implementation of the more sustainable method.
- Mongabay interviewed the three authors of the new report, “Rubber agroforestry–feasibility at scale,” to learn more.

Without room to expand, mountain gorillas’ population growth could backfire by Ini Ekott [29 Jun 2021]
- Mountain gorilla populations have grown steadily in recent decades, thanks largely to intensive conservation efforts in Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- But the species’ entire population is confined to protected parks in these countries, with limited room to expand, and as the population has grown, so too has population density.
- A new study that tracked the incidence and intensity of parasitic infections across the mountain gorilla’s range suggests that greater population density correlates with greater susceptibility to parasites and other health problems.

Beef industry causes deforestation in Colombia’s Chiribiquete National Park by Tatiana Pardo Ibarra [29 Jun 2021]
- A recent investigation by the Environmental Investigation Agency found that some Colombian supermarkets may be selling beef from cattle raised in Chiribiquete National Park.
- There are large gaps in the traceability of the beef produced in Colombia.
- The Colombian Agricultural Institute is responsible for vaccinating all 28 million head of cattle in Colombia and has important information that could help authorities design effective strategies to prevent cattle ranching in natural protected areas.

NGOs call for alternative routes for Bornean road to avoid wildlife habitat by Sheryl Lee Tian Tong [29 Jun 2021]
- Coalition Humans Habitats Highways has urged authorities in the Malaysian state of Sabah to adopt alternative routes to a 13-kilometer (8-mile) stretch of the Pan Borneo Highway.
- That particular stretch cuts through a protected forest reserve and overlaps extensively with heavily used elephant migration paths.
- Experts say constructing the highway as currently planned would increase wildlife-vehicle collisions, including deadly accidents involving elephants, as well as human-elephant conflict.
- It would also derail progress made by local community efforts encouraging humans and elephants to coexist in harmony.

How many times a day does a waterbuck need to drink? Candid Animal Cam by Romina Castagnino [29 Jun 2021]
- Every two weeks, Mongabay brings you a new episode of Candid Animal Cam, our show featuring animals caught on camera traps around the world and hosted by Romi Castagnino, our writer and conservation scientist.

Forest loss in mountains of Southeast Asia accelerates at ‘shocking’ pace by Carolyn Cowan [28 Jun 2021]
- Southeast Asia is home to roughly half of the world’s tropical mountain forests, which support massive carbon stores and tremendous biodiversity, including a host of species that occur nowhere else on the planet.
- A new study reveals that mountain forest loss in Southeast Asia is accelerating at an unprecedented rate throughout the region: approximately 189,000 square kilometers (73,000 square miles) of highland forest was converted to cropland during the first two decades of this century.
- Mountain forest loss has far-reaching implications for people who depend directly on forest resources and downstream communities.
- Since higher-elevation forests also store comparatively more carbon than lowland forests, their loss will make it much harder to meet international climate objectives.

 

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Humans are biggest factor defining elephant ranges across Africa, study finds by Jim Tan [28 Jun 2021]
- A recently published study that analyzed movement data from 229 elephants has found that human influence and protected areas are main factors determining the size of elephant ranges.
- Protected areas alone are not large enough to provide space for elephants, and elephants living outside them are under pressure from expanding human populations.
- Finding ways for elephants to coexist with humans, including through proper planning of wildlife areas and corridors, will be key to ensuring that elephant populations have a future.

Philippine forest turtles stand a ‘good chance’ after first wild release by Leilani Chavez [28 Jun 2021]
- Researchers released a pair of Philippine forest turtles (Siebenrockiella leytensis) on the island of Palawan in February, they announced this month, part of a batch of only 17 to have been successfully bred under human care in the Philippines since 2018.
- After tracking the turtles for three months following the release, the researchers say there are indications the animals can mature and reproduce if released within guarded and protected areas.
- The turtles are notoriously difficult to breed in human care and the conservation group that carried out the breeding program took 10 years before recording its first successful hatchling in 2018.
- Endemic to the Philippines, the forest turtle is threatened by poaching for the exotic pet trade, with wild-caught specimens often passed off as captive-born ones by private traders, despite the great difficulty in breeding this species in captivity.

Sri Lanka banks on the ocean to chart a green path toward a blue economy by Dennis Mombauer [28 Jun 2021]
- Coastal and marine ecosystems in Sri Lanka provide a variety of services that are vital to coastal communities and the environment.
- To protect these ecosystems while addressing national development needs, Sri Lanka is well-positioned to invest in a “blue economy” that focuses on economic growth that incorporates and protects the environment and ecosystem services.
- Officials and experts have identified a huge potential to enhance livelihoods and value chains in Sri Lanka’s coastal and marine sector without destroying local ecosystems, based on technical expertise and guidance.
- If development of the coastal sector can be achieved in harmony with ecosystem growth and conservation, proponents say, this will enhance Sri Lanka’s capacities for climate change mitigation and adaptation, supporting the resilience of its population and its commitments under the Paris Agreement.

Deforestation of endangered wildlife habitat continues to surge in southern Myanmar by Morgan Erickson-Davis [25 Jun 2021]
- The Tanintharyi region of Myanmar is home to unique and endangered species, but its forests are being cleared.
- Tanintharyi’s Kawthoung district lost 14% of its primary forest between 2002 and 2020.
- New satellite data show deforestation activity spiking in many parts of Kawthoung, including in some of the last known habitat of critically endangered Gurney’s pittas.

Sri Lanka zoo lion contracts COVID-19 as reports of animal infections rise by Malaka Rodrigo [25 Jun 2021]
- Thor, an 11-year-old lion at Sri Lanka’s national zoo, has been isolated after PCR tests showed he was infected with COVID-19.
- Several lions at zoos in neighboring India have also reportedly contracted the virus, with at least two dying.
- In the case of Thor, zoo authorities in Sri Lanka suspect the lion contracted the virus from a zookeeper; subsequent tests showed a gardener at the zoo had COVID-19.
- With the increasing threat of COVID-19 impacting both wild and farm animal populations, Sri Lanka is monitoring suspected cases of animal deaths.

Brazil continues to lose an entire generation of Indigenous leaders to COVID-19 by Jennifer Ann Thomas [25 Jun 2021]
- With scant support from the federal government, Indigenous Brazilians are taking matters in their own hands when it comes to dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.
- For many of these communities, however, decimated by centuries of massacre and disease, the avoidable deaths of the few remaining elders mean an incalculable loss of culture and cultural memory.
- Aruká Juma, the last elder of his Juma people, died from COVID-19 in February after being treated with a cocktail of drugs promoted by the president but not proven to be effective against the illness.
- Decades of inadequate health care for Indigenous communities have also left them with comorbidities that make them particularly susceptible to death from COVID-19.

A startup deploys black soldier flies in the Philippines’ war on waste by Bong S. Sarmiento [25 Jun 2021]
- In Davao City, in the southern Philippines, a startup has introduced the use of black soldier flies (Hermetia illucens) to address kitchen waste.
- The flies are fed kitchen waste, turning the food waste into compost, while their larvae, rich in protein, is touted as alternative feed for livestock.
- Proponents say insect protein is a much better alternative than commercial livestock feed made with fishmeal, associated with depleting fish populations, or soybeans, linked to deforestation and extensive use of pesticides and fertilizers.
- Treating kitchen waste with black soldier flies is also being touted as a cleaner alternative to municipal plans to incinerate the waste to generate electricity, which would contribute to air pollution.

In Colombia, end of war meant start of runaway deforestation, study finds by Nicolás Bustamante Hernández [25 Jun 2021]
- A new study analyzes the changes in forest cover in Colombia before and after the signing of a peace agreement in 2016 between the government and armed guerrillas.
- The authors found that between 1988-2012 the forest area transformed to agriculture amounted to 1.2 million hectares (3 million acres), but that in the much briefer post-conflict period of 2013-2019, the pace of conversion surged, with 500,000 hectares (1.2 million acres) turned into farmland.
- The researchers also identified a direct relationship between violent events and the loss of forest cover.

Development of third Sumatran rhino sanctuary advances to save species by Junaidi Hanafiah [25 Jun 2021]
- The development of a highly anticipated sanctuary for the Sumatran rhinoceros in Indonesia’s Aceh province is advancing as part of conservation efforts to save the nearly extinct species.
- The planned facility will be the third in a network of Sumatran Rhino Sanctuaries to breed the species in captivity.
- Its location in the Leuser Ecosystem in northern Sumatra means it will have access to what is believed to be the largest population of the critically endangered species.
- Indonesia is now the only home in the world for Sumatran rhinos, a species decimated by a series of factors, from poaching to habitat loss and, more recently, insufficient births.

Decades of research back the value of marine reserves to Kenya’s fisheries by Elizabeth Claire Alberts [24 Jun 2021]
- A 24-year study conducted by Tim McClanahan looked at two different interventions to address unsustainable fishing practices in artisanal fisheries along Kenya’s coast: gear restrictions, and a marine reserve that prohibited all fishing activities.
- It found both methods showed an increase of catch per unit effort (CPUE), which indirectly measures the number of target species that were caught.
- Landing sites adjacent to the marine reserve maintained steady total yields, while the gear-restricted sites declined over the study period.
- While marine reserves were shown to generate more long-term benefits, outside experts say they are not always an ideal solution and that other approaches may be more appropriate in managing fisheries.

Timber troubles fell Ricardo Salles, Brazil’s environment minister by Juliana Ennes [24 Jun 2021]
- Three weeks after being named in a second probe into alleged illegal exports of Amazon timber and facing growing opposition, Brazil’s controversial environment minister, Ricardo Salles, was ousted on June 23 “upon request,” as announced in the country’s official gazette.
- Despite his controversial remarks and heavily criticized policies that fueled deforestation rates in the Amazon, Salles enjoyed relative stability in the government, until a month ago when the legal troubles flared up.
- In a press conference in Brasília, Salles said he was resigning to allow the facilitation of the country’s environmental negotiations on the international stage and in the national agenda, which will require Brazil to “have a strong union of interests.”
- Salles has been replaced by Joaquim Alves Pereira Leite, who has been in the environment ministry since 2019 and held a board seat for more than 20 years at an agribusiness lobbying institute. While some politicians have welcomed his appointment, others have called for a shift in Brazil’s environmental policies.


PREVIOUS FEATURES

Under assault at home, Indigenous leaders get a violent welcome in Brasília by Fernanda Wenzel [06/24/2021]
In Brazil’s most Indigenous city, prejudice and diversity go hand in hand by Ana Amelia Hamdan [06/22/2021]
In Scotland, the rewilding movement looks to the past to plan its future by Kieran Dodds [06/21/2021]
With Indigenous rights at stake in Brasília, a territory is attacked in Paraty by Ana Ionova [06/18/2021]


MONGABAY ORG

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View the web version ~ Below: photo by Grant Callegari

It’s a Bird-Eat-Bird World

The weather tends to factor into most conversations here in Victoria, British Columbia, but this week folks could talk about little else as a heatwave melted the smug-about-our-mild-weather grins off our faces and broke the city’s highest recorded temperature.

Our team members did their best to work through the heat in our various remote locations. In Zoom meetings, everyone’s smiling faces were shiny with sweat (we haven’t set a date for our post-pandemic return to the office, but since the 1874 stone building we’re in has no air conditioning, or even double-pane windows, that wouldn’t have helped, anyway).

This week was also the end of school for many kids, including my daughter. Along with the thermometer dropping back down to more reasonable temperatures and restrictions continuing to ease off, I’m looking forward to camping trips, beach days, and checking things off our summer vacation fun list (blanket-fort slumber party, cross-city park crawl, baking cookies and dropping them off anonymously on friends’ doorsteps …). Wherever you are and whatever your area’s restriction levels are like, I hope you also have some fun things to look forward to!

Mark Garrison
Art director



This Week’s Stories

Clash of the Feathered Titans

For Gough Island’s imperiled albatrosses, the sudden emergence of a giant new predator is tough to handle.

by Jake Buehler • 900 words / 4 mins

The Mighty Taku Glacier Takes a Bow

After advancing for over a century, a massive glacier near Juneau, Alaska, is poised for accelerated retreat and the birth of a new fjord.

by Tim Lydon • 1,200 words / 6 mins

Bringing Eels Back to the River Thames

One ongoing project is looking to reduce the barriers to migration for juvenile European eels.

by Nancy Averett • 950 words / 4 mins

Coastal Job: Maritime Pilot

A captain oversees the safe passage of ships into and out of the US East Coast’s busiest port.

as told to Brendan Crowley • 600 words / 3 mins

 

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The rose star comes in a dazzling array of colors and patterns, earning it the additional name of snowflake star. Even more impressive is its undiscerning palate; a plethora of ocean invertebrates are on the menu for this many-armed marvel, from the stationary (anemones, sea pens, bryozoans, and tunicates) to the shelled (bivalves) to the mobile (nudibranchs and even other sea stars). With so many options, it seems like this sea star would hardly need to move, but its ability to reach blistering speeds of 70 centimeters per minute comes in handy when it needs to escape from sunstars. The voracious morning sunstar and even speedier sunflower star are formidable predators.

This spiny sea star was spotted by our friends at the Hakai Institute during a biodiversity research trip on the central coast of British Columbia, then added to iNaturalist as part of ongoing efforts to incorporate the community science platform into the institute’s work.

Oceans can hold more than 150 times more carbon dioxide than the air. To fight climate change, scientists are proposing a process to pull carbon from seawater to form carbonate rock. To maintain equilibrium, the ocean should absorb more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in response. (“Petrifying Climate Change”)

Mexico’s dive tourism industry has serious economic clout. The country’s 264 tour operators and 860 dive sites pull in US $455-million to $725-million per year in revenue. (“In Mexico, Dive Tourism Is Worth as Much as Fishing”)

In 2002, a mysterious parasite called MSX killed millions of oysters in Bras d’Or, Nova Scotia, wiping out the lucrative harvesting industry. The parasite dispatches oysters by devouring their internal organs, causing the bivalves to starve. (“Freeing Oysters from a Parasite’s Hold”)

Some urban gulls have precisely timed routines to capitalize on human food sources, flocking to schools during lunch breaks, or to the dump to meet garbage trucks. (“The Gull Next Door”)

In the Salish Sea, British Columbia, resident killer whale females prevent inbreeding with closely related males by choosing mates with “foreign accents.” (The Sound Aquatic Episode 4: “Learning To Speak Whale”)



Birdopolis: Coastal Birds at Home in the City Webinar Follow-up

We had a great time chatting about urban gulls with experts Louise Blight and Ed Kroc this week. If you missed the webinar, you can find the recording on YouTube.

Here are the links to some of the resources mentioned by Louise and Ed:

• eBird, an excellent online guide to birds with photos, recordings, and more.
• Xeno-canto database of bird calls.
• The film Albatross.
• Ed’s Know Your Gulls poster and Open Google Maps file on urban gull nesting activity around the world.

We didn’t have time to answer all of the audience questions, but Louise and Ed took the time to follow up.

Margie wondered if fireworks bother gulls?

Louise: Yes, they do. During fireworks displays in Vancouver and Victoria, gulls alarm-call and take flight, leaving their nests (with chicks or eggs) and rooftop territories. Urban-nesting cormorants also leave their nests during these displays. Impacts of firework displays have been studied in coastal towns on the US Pacific coast. This California study found that some cormorants experienced nest failure as a result, while western gulls left their nests during the display but did not abandon them (i.e. they returned after the event). Here is an article about a similar study in Oregon and a European study that used radar to document bird flight just after midnight on New Year’s Eve.

Neeltje asked for the panelists’ thoughts on how the public feels about urban nesting gulls, noting that in the United Kingdom they are featured in tabloids with horror stories such as “gull eats chihuahua.”

Louise: These members of the public seem to be enjoying observing a gull. Most people I talk to either openly admire gulls for their beauty and toughness, or have a grudging respect for them for similar reasons.

Melba wondered how the gulls in our region [Pacific coast of North America] are related to the Pacific gulls in Australia. Are there many variants that are essentially the same species with different names?

Louise: The large “white-headed” gulls are all in the genus Larus.
Ed suggests the resource Gulls of the World: A Photographic Guide by Klaus Malling Olsen, which, he says, “goes into all the minutiae of different common/regional names for the same species, and is loaded with helpful pictures.”




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What We’re Reading

A reporter bought 1.5 meter’s worth of Subway tuna sandwiches which yielded several bags of tuna salad that she sent a lab in order to determine whether the restaurant chain uses real tuna in its subs. (A recent lawsuit alleges the fish is fraudulent; the chain maintains they serve the real thing.) What’s the verdict? (New York Times)

Indigenous-led research is supporting conservation efforts around the world, including on the British Columbia coast. Here, species such as yelloweye rockfish and Dungeness crab are in trouble and environmental baselines are unclear to science—but not to Indigenous memory, which is informing environmental policy. (Vox)

The country of Cyprus is embarking on a quest to vaccinate 40,000 seafarers. (gCaptain)

A terribly cute rodent known as Gould’s mouse, thought to have been extinct in Australia for the last 150 years, has been discovered living on several islands off the coast of Western Australia. Many native Australian rodents, including Gould’s mouse, took a pummeling when European colonizers introduced reams of new species. (The Guardian)

Fisheries and Oceans Canada avers that the culprit for crumbling cod stocks in Newfoundland and Labrador is climate change, not seals. (This comes on the heels of a Newfoundland and Labrador politician’s tweet that rampant seal populations are responsible for the fish’s decline, and thus the cod fishery’s woes.) (Toronto Star)

In the low-lying Florida Keys, climate change-driven sea level rise has encroached on many neighborhoods. Residents are facing grueling choices whether or not to try and raise streets and homes; but they don’t have the resources to save all of the infrastructure. (The Guardian)

The long-awaited international Central Arctic Ocean Fisheries Agreement entered into effect last Friday, banning fishing in this part of the sea until the ecosystem is better understood. The treaty will last 16 years with the option to extend, and is signed by Canada, China, Denmark, the European Union, Iceland, Japan, Norway, Russia, South Korea, and the United States. There is currently no fishery in the central Arctic Ocean, but as sea ice dwindles, commercial activity is increasing. The treaty also mandates Indigenous knowledge and participation in future fishery discussions and policy. (Arctic Today)

More than 200 tonnes of marine debris was collected from just 300 kilometers of British Columbia coastline during a recent shoreline cleanup. (National Observer)

 

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Conservation Headlines
Through credible and accurate coverage of conservation and environmental issues, Mongabay inspires, educates, and informs the public, while enabling leaders to more effectively protect our planet's wildlife and ecosystems. Donate here

Excerpts:
‘We are intimately connected with nature’: Q&A with oceanographer Kim McCoy

Sit on a beach and watch the waves. If powered by a storm, the waves may chew away at the beach, depositing sediment in an underwater sand bar that actually protects the coastline from the ocean’s full strength. But the soft waves that follow a storm will slowly return the sand back to the beach. […]
Read on »

Mining exposes Indigenous women in Latin America to high mercury levels

A recent investigation has found dangerously high levels of mercury among women from different Indigenous communities in four Latin American countries. This chemical element is a neurotoxic substance that presents a severe threat to both women’s health and that of fetuses. The International Pollutant Elimination Network (IPEN) and the Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) analyzed the […]
Read on »

Fire season intensifies in the Brazilian Amazon, feeding off deforestation

So far this year, 24 major fires have burned in the Brazilian Amazon, covering an area of 7,167 hectares (17,710 acres). All of the fires were set on land previously deforested in 2020 until this week, when the first major blaze was set on land cleared in 2021, according to a report by the Amazon […]
Read on »

The conservation gains we’ve made are still fragile, says Aileen Lee of the Moore Foundation

Since the early 2000s, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has invested more than half a billion dollars into efforts to protect the Amazon, making it the largest private donor of conservation efforts for Earth’s largest rainforest. The foundation has supported a range of interventions, including establishing protected areas and Indigenous territories, using technology to […]
Read on »

Mongabay’s What-To-Watch list for July 2021

Tech advances in the last decades have given humans new tools for helping animals — whether it’s printing prosthetics on a 3-D printer or building robots that scientists can send into wombat tunnels. Tech also has the potential to shape a more sustainable future for the shipping industry. These are just some of the topics […]
Read on »

 

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1 of 4

Making the switch to renewable energy in the Dominican
ENVIRONMENT

Making the switch to renewable energy in the Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic in the Caribbean is still heavily dependent on fossil fuels. But a push is underway to increase the use of wind and solar — and to convince critics that it's a good idea.

The Brazilian city pioneering green transport
Belo Horizonte is creating more space for cyclists and the community in the hopes of improving air quality and lowering CO2 emissions.

US farming: Lessons in sustainability from the Meskwaki Nation
Among the vast monocrop fields in central Iowa, the Indigenous community practices regenerative agriculture. Could it provide inspiration for farmers battling climate change?

Mozambique: Swapping gold for organic farming
With unemployment rising in the southeastern African country due to COVID-19, some locals have turned to digging for gold in the rivers of Chimanimani National Park. Organic farming offers an alternative.

Could bacteria help save historic buildings from environmental damage?
Limestone, the raw material for many iconic monuments and cultural treasures, is facing damage through climate change and air pollution.

A greener way to cook and farm in Peru
While the South American country is famous for its diverse cuisine, food waste is a problem. Could the principles of the circular economy help turn this around?

The tiny startup bringing recycling to Cape Town
Plastic, paper, metal and household waste — some 90% of trash ends up in landfills in South Africa. One recycling startup wants change that by rewarding those who separate their refuse.

Join our Global Ideas community
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Mammals Conservation Headlines
Through credible and accurate coverage of conservation and environmental issues, Mongabay inspires, educates, and informs the public, while enabling leaders to more effectively protect our planet's wildlife and ecosystems. Donate here

Excerpts:
Cambodia’s first giant muntjac sighting highlights key mountain habitat

Camera trap surveys in Virachey National Park in northeast Cambodia have recorded the country’s first sightings of a critically endangered deer, the large-antlered muntjac (Muntiacus vuquangensis). The species, also known as the giant muntjac, was first described nearly three decades ago, and up until now had only been recorded in Laos and Vietnam. The surveys […]
Read on »

Study warns of impacts of unregulated trade in Indonesian porcupines

JAKARTA — The unmonitored illegal trade in porcupines across Indonesia has prompted calls from conservationists for stricter protection for the species’ population in the wild. A new study examining seizure data of porcupines, their parts and derivatives in Indonesia has found more than 450 of the animals in nearly 40 incidents between January 2013 and […]
Read on »

Without room to expand, mountain gorillas’ population growth could backfire

Mountain gorillas, one of the world’s endangered apes, appear be facing a fresh health threat after a successful conservation campaign saved them from looming extinction, a new study says. Thanks to intensive conservation efforts, the population of mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei) has risen to more than 1,000, up from 620 in 1989, according to […]
Read on »

NGOs call for alternative routes for Bornean road to avoid wildlife habitat

Malaysian scientists and activists have called on road planners in the Bornean state of Sabah to reconsider a 13-kilometer (8-mile) stretch of the Pan Borneo Highway that will cut through a protected forest reserve with a dense concentration of elephants when built. The current planned route runs through the Tawai Forest Reserve, a Class I […]
Read on »

How many times a day does a waterbuck need to drink? Candid Animal Cam

Camera traps bring you closer to the secretive natural world and are an important conservation tool to study wildlife. This week we’re meeting a large antelope native to sub-Saharan Africa: the waterbuck. Waterbucks (Kobus ellipsiprymnus), as their names indicate, inhabit areas that are close to water sources in savanna grasslands, gallery forests, and riverine woodlands. […]
Read on »

Humans are biggest factor defining elephant ranges across Africa, study finds

In an undisturbed ecosystem, elephants move across the landscape in response to the availability of food and water and the type of habitat or competition. But according to a continent-wide study coordinated by Save the Elephants and recently published in Current Biology, elephants’ range is now predominantly defined by human activities and the boundaries of […]
Read on »

 

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New Species Headlines
Through credible and accurate coverage of conservation and environmental issues, Mongabay inspires, educates, and informs the public, while enabling leaders to more effectively protect our planet's wildlife and ecosystems. Donate here

Excerpts:
Carving up the Cardamoms: Conservationists fear massive land grab in Cambodia

A new regulation signed into law in March this year but only unveiled publicly in May will see almost 127,000 hectares (313,800 acres) of previously protected land in Cambodia made available for sale or rent, prompting fears among conservationists about a land grab for some of the country’s best-preserved ecosystems. On paper, Sub-decree No. 30 […]
Read on »

 

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End of GM ban 'a great step forward' for NSW farmers, biotech companies, grains group says
A grains industry lobby group hails the lifting of a NSW ban on genetically modified food crops, but after 18 years in limbo the ag sector has some catching up to do.

cant say im happy re that fdevelopment
imag9ne scientists say9ing how wtonhg we were,at some srage

 

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Conservation news from Mongabay

Latest environmental headlines from Mongabay.com
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Environmental Headlines
Through credible and accurate coverage of conservation and environmental issues, Mongabay inspires, educates, and informs the public, while enabling leaders to more effectively protect our planet's wildlife and ecosystems. Donate here

Excerpts:
The true environmental cost of the Internet (commentary)

Most people do not realize how much the internet requires in energy, physical space, and its carbon footprint. Here are some tips on what we can do, individually, to reduce it.
Read on »

Naming of new ant species from Ecuador breaks with binary gender conventions

Scientists describing a new species of ant, Strumigenys ayersthey, have broken with conventional naming traditions and used the pronoun “they” instead of the traditional male or female form to promote nonbinary gender inclusivity. The new ant, described in a recent paper in ZooKeys, was named after the late artist and human rights activist Jeremy Ayers. […]
Read on »

Amid historic heat, a climate scientist’s mountain love story (commentary)

The past 16 months have been challenging for many of us, a time from which we are learning how to better care for one another. And from these challenges of loss of livelihoods, racial injustice, widespread disease, and hotter, drier years, we are learning to identify our strengths. It has been a year of climbing […]
Read on »

In the Brazilian Amazon, a road project drives the threat of deforestation

The pace of deforestation has surged in the region around Brazil’s BR-319 highway since the federal government announced its interest in restarting road works, a new study has found. The paper by researchers from Brazil’s National Institute of Spatial Research (INPE) and the University of Kansas reports forest clearing in what’s known as the highway’s […]
Read on »

 

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UK aid cuts spark fears over parasitic killer that stalks the poor
Efforts to halt visceral leishmaniasis - the deadliest parasitic disease after malaria - are threatened by cuts to UK aid funding, health workers say

Get on your bike: Indian cities tap into pandemic cycling trend
Nationwide effort to foster green transport launched as COVID-19 boosts bike sales and interest in cycling in India

Boost to clean energy investment could drive 10 million new green jobs
If funded, about 13,000 renewable energy projects proposed in nearly 50 countries could slash emissions and create work, researchers find

Talks to reform energy pact blocking climate action face 'failure'
Under existing rules, fossil fuel firms can sue countries that take climate action for lost 'anticipated' income

Amsterdam says 'stay home' to partiers, pot smokers in tourism rethink
Authorities are curbing excess and highlighting culture as they look to make tourism work better for the whole city

Russia violated rights of trans mother to see her children, European court rules
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) found that the rights of a trans woman blocked from seeing her children by Russian courts had been violated because of her gender identity.

Dance off: Why are Black TikTok creators going on strike?
Black choreographers are boycotting the platform for a second month, charging that their dances are being co-opted by white influencers without credit or compensation

Carrot or stick? How countries are tackling COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy
Authorities and companies are offering a dizzying array of incentives to boost COVID vaccination rates and turn a page on the pandemic

Canada's first Indigenous governor general pledges to help heal nation
The appointment of Mary Simon, a former ambassador and Inuit community activist, comes as Canada grapples with the legacy of its treatment of indigenous people

China's Wechat deletes university LGBT accounts
Dozens of LGBT accounts run by university students were deleted by social media platform WeChat, sparking fears of a crackdown on gay content online

Indian billionaires face off in race to solar domination
India's richest tycoons - Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani - are vying to be at the forefront of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambition to ramp up green energy capacity




* Feel free to republish as long as credit is given to the Thomson Reuters Foundation

 

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Is the environment a part of your investing strategy?
We are running a survey in partnership with Investopedia to understand if and how our readers' investment priorities include environmental, social, and governance issues. We promise to keep your personal information private. It’s a short, 6-minute survey (if you are in the USA; otherwise it is a 10-second survey) and we thank you so much for taking it!
TAKE THE SURVEY

 

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Intercepted: Corporate Counterinsurgency Against Line 3 Pipeline Resistance


Podcasts

Corporate Counterinsurgency Against Line 3 Pipeline Resistance
Intercepted
Alleen Brown reports on the latest oil company efforts to suppress water and land defense movements.

LISTEN →

a usual/typical corporate rip off,endorsed by govts worldwide

why atr tere not people in authority who prevent this

 

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NEWS

For Norway salmon farms giving up deforestation-linked soy, Cargill proves a roadblock by Sheryl Lee Tian Tong [07 Jul 2021]
- Two major salmon producers in Norway have eliminated all links to deforestation in their soy supply chains, according to new analysis from eco-watchdog Rainforest Foundation Norway.
- This is due in large part to a ripple effect down the value chain, after Brazilian soy suppliers to the European salmon industry made no-deforestation commitments earlier this year.
- However, at least seven of the biggest salmon producers in Norway have yet to become fully deforestation-free, according to the report.
- This is because they buy feed from Cargill Aqua Nutrition, whose parent company, U.S.-based Cargill, has been linked to deforestation in South America.

Billions in fishing subsidies finance social, ecological harm, report finds by Elizabeth Claire Alberts [07 Jul 2021]
- A new report found that the world’s top 10 fishing nations are spending billions of dollars on harmful fishing subsidies to not only exploit their own domestic waters, but to fish in the high seas and the waters of other nations.
- Experts say these subsidies are propping up fishing industries that would not be viable without financial support, and contributing to overcapacity, overfishing, and illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
- The report also found that harmful fishing subsidies could also be leading to food security issues in some of the world’s least-developed countries where foreign fleets surpass domestic fleets in terms of subsidies and catches.
- The issue of harmful fishing subsidies will be addressed at an upcoming meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) that will take place online on July 15.

Tiger habitat threatened by Malaysian royals’ mining plans by Rachel Donald [07 Jul 2021]
- A company owned by members of Pahang state’s royal family plans to mine iron ore in a forest reserve that is home to 15 threatened species, including tigers, elephants, tapirs, sun bears and leopards.
- The area, which was until June 2019 listed as a permanent forest reserve, is part of a wildlife corridor connecting key forest complexes in Peninsular Malaysia’s Central Forest Spine.
- The planned iron mine, which came to light after the project’s environmental impact assessment was made public, is one of a spate of extractive projects recently found to be linked to Malaysian royalty.

Activists take Indonesia’s mining law to court, but don’t expect much by Hans Nicholas Jong [07 Jul 2021]
- Activists have filed suit to revoke what they say are problematic articles from a controversial mining law that has been criticized as pandering to mining companies at the expense of the environment and local communities.
- Among the stipulations the plaintiffs are seeking to have annulled are the centralization of the mining authority with the national government rather than local authorities; and criminal charges for disruptive protests against mining activity.
- Another controversial issue in the law is guaranteed contract renewals for coal miners, along with bigger concessions and reduced environmental obligations.
- The plaintiffs say they’re not optimistic about the court approving their lawsuit, citing the government’s recent gifting of civilian honors, longer terms and an extended retirement age for the six Constitutional Court justices hearing the case.

Former dam executive found guilty in the killing of Berta Cáceres by Mongabay.com [06 Jul 2021]
- The alleged ringleader of the 2016 killing of environmental and Indigenous rights activist Berta Cáceres was convicted of murder by a Honduran court on Monday.
- Roberto David Castillo Mejía, the ex-head of the dam company Desa, was found guilty of participating in the assassination of Cáceres. The court decision was unanimous.
- Cáceres was gunned down in her home on March 2, 2016 at the age of 44 after leading opposition to the Agua Zarca dam on the Rio Galcarque, a river that holds spiritual significance for the Lenca people.
- Cáceres was recognized for her activism in 2015 when she won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize.

Wildfires turn up the heat on farmers growing Indonesia’s ‘hottest’ pepper by M Rahim Arza [06 Jul 2021]
- Farmers in the south of Indonesian Borneo have built up a reputation and a lucrative industry around their Hiyung chili pepper, said to be the hottest in the country.
- The pepper grows well in the swampy peat soil of the region; farmers here began planting it after their rice crops failed in the same acidic soil.
- But the chili peppers, which local officials say have elevated farmers’ income to six times the local average, are under threat from the perennial fires that sweep across Indonesia’s drained peatlands.

In DRC, community ownership of forests helps guard the Grauer’s gorilla by Marlowe Starling [06 Jul 2021]
- The Congolese government has officially recognized community ownership of a conservation area linking two national parks in the Democratic Republic of Congo, giving hope for the survival of the Grauer’s gorilla, a critically endangered species.
- The gorilla, found only in DRC, faces threats from habitat loss, poaching for bushmeat, and the effects of lingering civil unrest in the region.
- The Nkuba Conservation Area is co-managed by local communities and the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, with the latter providing jobs and training initiatives for women.
- The years-long effort to develop the conservation area and now to maintain it points to the importance of engaging local communities in conservation.

The true environmental cost of the Internet (commentary) by Enrique Ortiz [05 Jul 2021]
- Most people do not realize how much the internet requires in energy, physical space, and its carbon footprint.
- Enrique Ortiz, Senior Program Director at the Andes Amazon Fund, offers up some tips on what we can do, individually, to reduce it.
- The Spanish version of this piece originally appeared in RPP.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Naming of new ant species from Ecuador breaks with binary gender conventions by Jansen Baier [05 Jul 2021]
- The trap-jaw ant was named after the late artist and human rights activist Jeremy Ayers, a friend of study co-author Douglas Booher.
- When naming a species after an individual, scientific tradition has dictated ending the species name with an “i” for males or “ae” for females; Strumigenys ayersthey is the first species to break with this tradition.
- The ant is found in the Chocó region of Ecuador, a biologically rich and diverse coastal rainforest that is both understudied and under human threat due to mining, oil palm plantations, and logging.

Amid historic heat, a climate scientist’s mountain love story (commentary) by Heidi Steltzer [05 Jul 2021]
- Amid the record heatwaves hitting North America, no community is being spared, whether they are coastal, interior, floodplain or montane.
- A lead author on the High Mountain Areas part of a recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report shares a love story for these high places that are, she writes, changing rapidly.
- “As a scientist who studies the mountains, there are many tales I could tell in a year when snow melts early, and June is unnaturally hot. I choose this one of a place I love and the people who live here.”
- This article is a commentary, and the views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

In the Brazilian Amazon, a road project drives the threat of deforestation by Jennifer Ann Thomas [05 Jul 2021]
- Plans to pave a 400-kilometer (249-mile) stretch of road in the Brazilian Amazon could lead to 170,000 square kilometers (65,600 square miles) of deforestation by 2050, researchers warn.
- A new study shows forest loss around the BR-319 highway in Amazonas state is already by by 25% since the government expressed interest in restarting the road works.
- Experts say the argument that the road is needed to boost the region’s economy and improve connectivity is not valid.

‘Abnormally high’ turtle deaths after acid-laden ship sinks off Sri Lanka by Malaka Rodrigo [04 Jul 2021]
- As many as 176 turtles and 24 marine mammals have reportedly washed up dead along Sri Lanka’s coasts over during the past four weeks, since the sinking of the X-Press Pearl cargo ship triggered concerns about chemical pollution.
- The deaths coincide with the peak of the monsoon period, which typically sees a high number of turtle deaths, but conservation experts say the toll this time around is “abnormally high” and have called for necropsies to determine the cause of death.
- Government officials say the necropsies carried out so far have not been conclusive, and have commissioned further tests.
- Some experts are also cautioning against evidence-free speculation and theorizing, noting that the high number of reported deaths may be due to increased awareness among the public prompted by the sinking of the ship.

Deforestation soars 40% in Xingu River Basin in Brazilian Amazon by Fernanda Wenzel [02 Jul 2021]
- An area of forest twice the size of New York City was cleared in Brazil’s Xingu River Basin between March and April this year, a rate of deforestation 40% higher than in the same period last year, a new report shows.
- The highest rates of forest loss were recorded along the path of the BR-163 “soy highway,” a major trucking route that cuts through one of the most ecologically important parts of the Amazon Rainforest.
- Deforestation was recorded in protected areas, including conservation units and Indigenous reserves, which points to a failure by the government to fight environmental crimes, according to an author of the report.
- The main driver of deforestation in Indigenous reserves is illegal mining, which activists say has been encouraged by the rhetoric and legislative initiatives of President Jair Bolsonaro.

Nauru’s intention to mine the seabed prompts alarm among conservationists by Elizabeth Claire Alberts [02 Jul 2021]
- Nauru has notified the International Seabed Authority (ISA) that its sponsored entity, Nauru Ocean Resources Inc. (NORI), plans to commence deep-sea mining in two years’ time, triggering a two-year rule embedded in the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.
- The ISA has yet to generate a mining code that would set out rules and regulations for deep-sea mining activities.
- Experts are concerned that the ISA will prematurely approve Nauru’s application and that deep-sea mining will commence before we fully understand the damage it could cause to biodiversity and ecosystems.

Blind spot in palm policy raises deforestation risk in Malaysia, report says by Sheryl Lee Tian Tong [02 Jul 2021]
- A blind spot in the sustainable production policies of major palm oil companies is allowing plantation owners clearing rainforest in Malaysia to continue feeding the former’s “deforestation-free” supply chains.
- In Indonesia, forests can only be cleared if they are explicitly linked to a particular project; in Malaysia, companies can obtain permits for the sole purpose of clear-felling, making it more difficult to link oil palm growers and plantation owners to deforestation activities.
- Researchers have called on palm oil traders and refiners to trace deforestation beyond the mills in their supply chains, to the plantations the mills are buying from.

In the Colombian Andes, a forest corridor staves off species extinction by Veronika Perkova [02 Jul 2021]
- Recognized as one of the world’s most biodiverse regions, the tropical Andes host more than 10% of the planet’s biodiversity — roughly two million species of plants, animals, fungi and microorganisms — of which only 10% have been identified.
- This precious ecosystem is in peril because, in the past few decades, 75% of natural habitat has been lost largely to agricultural expansion.
- La Mesenia-Paramillo Nature Reserve in the Colombian Andes is attempting to stave off the threat by restoring 3,500 hectares (8,650 acres) of degraded land and connecting about 100,000 hectares (247,000 acres) of intact forest with the main Andean chain as a habitat corridor.

‘We are intimately connected with nature’: Q&A with oceanographer Kim McCoy by Elizabeth Claire Alberts [01 Jul 2021]
- The third edition of Waves and Beaches, published in March 2021 by Patagonia, examines the dynamic relationship between the sea and coast, blending lyrical prose with the theoretical study of beaches, waves and other oceanographic features.
- This new version of the book, which was published 57 years after the first edition, includes a discussion of how human-induced climate change is altering the dynamics between the sea and land, as well as the possible solutions to protecting coastlines against rising sea levels.
- The book was published as a collaboration between oceanographer Kim McCoy and the late Willard Bascom, the author of the first two editions, who acted as McCoy’s mentor in the years before his death in 2000.

Mining exposes Indigenous women in Latin America to high mercury levels by Nicolás Bustamante Hernández [01 Jul 2021]
- A study carried out by the International Pollutant Elimination Network (IPEN) and the Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) analyzed the levels of mercury in the bodies of 163 Indigenous women of childbearing age.
- The study authors found considerably high levels of mercury in women from two Indigenous groups in Bolivia who base their diet mainly on fish they obtain from rivers near gold mines.
- According to the researchers, mercury in the mother’s body can put their health and that of their fetuses at risk.
- Communities evaluated in Brazil and Venezuela also had mercury in their bodies; in Colombia, Indigenous groups without nearby gold mining and with non-fish-based diets had the lowest levels of mercury.


PREVIOUS FEATURES

The conservation gains we’ve made are still fragile, says Aileen Lee of the Moore Foundation by Rhett A. Butler [07/01/2021]
‘I am Indigenous, not pardo’: Push for self-declaration in Brazil’s census by Karla Mendes [06/30/2021]
Podcast: Connecting kids and ourselves to nature by Mike Gaworecki [06/30/2021]
In Rio de Janeiro, Indigenous people fight to undo centuries of erasure by Karla Mendes [06/30/2021]
In Boa Vista, Indigenous Brazilians retake their identity through education by Nayra Wladimila [06/29/2021]
Reckoning with elitism and racism in conservation: Q&A with Colleen Begg by Rhett A. Butler [06/28/2021]

 

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Overcoming community-conservation conflict: Q&A with Dominique Bikaba by Rhett A. Butler [07/08/2021]

- Kahuzi-Biega National Park in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is renowned for its biodiversity. The area is also home to the Batwa people, who are highly dependent on its forests for their livelihoods and cultural traditions.
- Efforts to protect these forests are challenged by conservation’s mixed record: Kahuzi-Biega’s expansion in the 1970s forced the displacement of thousands of local people, turning them into conservation refugees and sowing distrust in conservation initiatives.
- One of the local organizations leading efforts to overcome these challenges is Strong Roots Congo, which was co-founded by Dominique Bikaba in 2009. Strong Roots Congo puts the needs of local people at the center of its strategy to protect endangered forests and wildlife in eastern DRC.
- “Strong Roots’ approach to conservation is bottom-up, collaborative, and inclusive,” Bikaba said during a recent conversation with Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler.


Playing the long game: ExxonMobil gambles on algae biofuel by Carly Nairn [07/06/2021]

- Algae biofuel initially looked promising, but a few key problems have thwarted major research efforts, including development of a strain of algae able to produce plentiful cheap fuel, and scaling up to meet global energy demand.
- Other alternative energy solutions, including wind and solar power, are outpacing algae biofuel advances.
- Much more investment in money and time is needed for algae biofuel to become viable, even on an extended timeline out to mid-century. While big players like Shell and Chevron have abandoned the effort, ExxonMobil continues work.
- In 2017, ExxonMobil, with Synthetic Genomics, announced they had used CRISPR gene-editing technology to make an algal strain that could pave the way to a low-carbon fuel and a sustainable future. But many environmentalists met the claim with skepticism, suspecting greenwashing.


Biofuel in Mexico: Uphill battle against bureaucracy, organized crime by Sandra Weiss [07/02/2021]

- Biofuels based on pressed plant oils, and made especially from used cooking oil, could help Mexico’s public transport sector transition to a cleaner and climate-friendly energy era, according to researchers and industry entrepreneurs.
- But there is a lack of government regulatory support, while the nation’s new president is betting on fossil fuels and neglecting biodiesel options and nature-based climate solutions.
- As a result, small biodiesel producers have to operate in a legal gray zone, while industry entrepreneurs are held back in the development of the technology and the market.
- Mexico isn’t alone: Many nations large and small are struggling with hurdles imposed by fossil fuel-friendly governments and a lack of supportive regulations to create a level playing field for the rapid development and deployment of biodiesel and other climate-friendly alternative energy solutions.


Myanmar’s warring military and rebels find common ground in corrupt jade trade by Andrew Nachemson and Kyaw Hsan Hlaing [07/02/2021]

- A new investigation from watchdog group Global Witness reports that jade mining is a major source of income for both the Myanmar military and armed ethnic groups, fueling conflict in the country.
- While conflicts between the military and armed groups escalate elsewhere in Myanmar, Global Witness reports that major armed groups and the military work side by side in jade mines in Hpakant in the ethnic-minority state of Kachin.
- Armed groups and individual officers have earned fortunes from the jade trade, while Kachin state’s environment, and the communities who depend on it, have paid the price.


Carving up the Cardamoms: Conservationists fear massive land grab in Cambodia by Gerald Flynn, Andrew Ball, Phoung Vantha [07/01/2021]

- Conservationists have expressed concern over a recently published regulation that makes nearly 127,000 hectares (313,800 acres) of previously protected land potentially available for sale or rent to politically connected businesses.
- Known as Sub-decree No. 30, the order is ostensibly meant to redistribute land to communities that had previously lost control of it after it was taken over by the Ministry of Environment and conservation NGOs to manage as protected areas.
- But activists and experts point to several features of the regulation — the proximity of some of the requisitioned land to concessions held by powerful magnates; the inclusion of uninhabited primary forest; the opacity of the land-titling process promised to local communities — that suggest it’s another form of land grabbing.


FEATURED VIDEO

What is the origin of zoonotic diseases such as COVID-19?

 

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Wildfire burns near the Canadian village of Lytton. (James MacDonald/Bloomberg via Getty)
Climate change made heatwave more likely
The chance of temperatures in North America’s Pacific Northwest coming close to 50 °C has increased at least 150-fold since the end of the nineteenth century, found a rapid analysis conducted in response to last month’s heatwave. “This heatwave would have been virtually impossible without the influence of human-caused climate change,” says climate scientist Sjoukje Philip. “It was probably still a rare event, but if global warming might exceed two degrees, it might occur every five to ten years in the future.” Canada’s highest-ever temperature — 49.6 ℃ — was recorded in Lytton, British Columbia, on 29 June. The next day, the village was almost completely destroyed by out-of-control wildfires.

Nature | 4 min read

 

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Antarctica - A message from another planet

 

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Survivor: Salmon Edition

View the web version ~ Below: sunflower star by Grant Callegari

Fish in Danger

In the past few evenings after the heat of the sun has faded, I’ll break from my desk to step into my back garden. The drooping butterfly bushes are in full bloom, and they make the air heavy with the saccharine scent of nectar. I hear the vibrational wingbeats of a hummingbird before I see it. It flits around the hanging basket with petunias spilling over the side and stabs its needly beak into the heart of each blossom.

The teeny bird is mostly an earthy green with a little white underbelly, and I go back inside to look up what species it might be. Calypte anna, or Anna’s hummingbird. It’s important for me to learn the names of the local flora and fauna because I’m writing a story about a naturalist with an obsessive proclivity for knowing the name of every last species on nearby Galiano Island, British Columbia.

What’s in a name? Juliet didn’t think much of them, but the plot of her infamous tragedy suggests that Shakespeare thought differently. For a naturalist, giving something a name means acknowledging its existence. Welcome to the human vernacular. Only once we have the basic vocabulary to discuss these plants and animals can we begin to understand and appreciate them.

While we’re on the subject of names, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Marina. To distinguish myself from Mariannas, Mariannes, and Marias, I often tell people to think of where they’d park a boat.

I also must acknowledge the perfect aptronym—that someone with my name has ended up at a magazine that largely features the marine environment. Actually, I take my name from Julie Andrews. You see, my parents gave my older sister—four at the time—the esteemed privilege of naming me, and her favorite film was The Sound of Music. Her toddler pronunciation came across muffled, and my parents (not natives of the English language) mistook her attempt at “Maria,” the movie’s main character, for “Marina.”

If I were to sing to you—“How do you solve a problem like Marina,” for example, or another favorite among my friends, “If you like Marina coladas” —you’d surely cover your ears as if screamed at by a menopausal banshee, so I can forget about living up to the angelic voice of my eponym. Luckily, pitch doesn’t matter on the written page; during my fellowship at Hakai Magazine, I hope to bring you marvelous stories from the marina and beyond.

Marina Wang
Journalism fellow



This Week’s Stories

Survivor: Salmon Edition

Will different salmon species adapt before the climate votes them off the island?

by Brandon Wei • 4,600 words / 23 mins

The Scent of Danger Makes These Fish Hulk Out

Some fish go through pronounced, yet reversible, physical changes when they sniff a predator’s trail.

by Susan Cosier • 750 words / 3 mins

Conservationists Set Their Sights on Shipping

Canada already has the legal tools to restrict shipping activity in marine protected areas. These environmentalists think it’s time to start using them more rigorously.

by Erica Gies • 1,000 words / 5 mins

 

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“Your Heart Never Forgets the Story”: 12 New Coastal Kids’ Books to Remember

From board books featuring Indigenous art to picture books highlighting solutions to the plastic problem, this season’s selections teach children about caring for the environment and each other.

by Raina Delisle • 2,400 words / 12 mins

Predicting When the Next Bluff Will Fall

Researchers in Southern California are using lidar to improve scientists’ understanding of the erosional forces that cause bluffs to collapse.

by Ramin Skibba • 900 words / 4 mins




What We’re Reading

A fire that sparked on the surface of the ocean (yes, really) off the coast of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on July 2 took more than five hours to extinguish and concluded North America’s week of record-breaking temperatures, melting power cables, and heat-related fatalities. Videos of the bright-orange blaze—a churning, flaming eye looking like something from J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings—spread on social media. A state oil company, Pemex, blamed a gas leak in an underwater pipeline and said it would investigate further. (Reuters, CTV News, HuffPost)

Farther north, in British Columbia, shoreline temperatures surpassed 50 °C last week and a foul smell began to emanate from the beaches. Chris Harley, a marine biologist at the University of British Columbia, soon realized that sea creatures such as mussels, clams, and snails had been cooked to death in the heat. He estimates that more than a billion shore-dwelling critters living along the Salish Sea could have died. (CBC News)

A sunken ship on the other side of the world might be to blame for the deaths of as many as 176 turtles and 20 dolphins. The MV X-Press Pearl, a cargo ship carrying nitric acid, bunker fuel, and plastic pellets, caught fire off the coast of Sri Lanka in late May and sank in June. Some researchers suggest that the pollutants could have been carried by ocean currents toward the turtles’ nesting sites. (Mongabay)

Kelp forests play a significant role in keeping our air clean, as they capture up to 20 times more carbon per acre than land forests while also housing a variety of marine life. According to satellite data, these underwater jungles have been shrinking. In order to preserve the carbon sink, scientists in California are working to control sea urchin populations–kelp forests’ enemy–by shoring up commercial demand and increasing sea star numbers. (Washington Post)

With the help of a space laser, scientists estimate that 410 million people around the world could be living in at-risk areas by 2100 if sea levels rise one meter. (Wired)

In “First Passage,” writer Elizabeth Rush ponders what it means to pursue motherhood in a changing climate and a woman’s place in the Antarctic. She is open about her own desires to conceive just before finding out she’d been invited to sail south to Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica–where pregnant women aren’t welcome. While onboard, a crew member who turns out to be with child develops symptoms of a possible ectopic pregnancy and is rushed back to the Rothera base on Adelaide Island for medical aid. The verdict: benign cysts and she’s having a boy. Had there been a medical ultrasound on the ship, the evacuation would have been unnecessary, Rush writes, but “our inability to imagine a pregnant woman alongside Thwaites” resulted in the detour. (Orion Magazine)

Binge listen to our five-part podcast, The Sound Aquatic, on our site or subscribe now through your favorite podcast app.



Behind the Story

Brandon Wei, our 2020 journalism fellow and author of this week’s feature, “Survivor: Salmon Edition,” wonders if there is anything more to write about salmon.

I was hesitant when editor in chief Jude Isabella suggested I write about salmon for my first-ever feature story. As a lifelong Vancouverite, I wondered: how could I write 3,000 words about a perpetually written-about fish in the Pacific Northwest? What could possibly be left to say?

Now, 4,500 words later and almost a year after I began this journey into the world of salmon, I realize my hesitation was misplaced. Pacific salmon are far more complex, dynamic, and nebulous than I anticipated. Salmon, as well as we might think we know them, are quite mysterious creatures. They have a niche yet are adaptive. They’re competitive, resilient, and quirky. They’re a lot like us.

One of the great salmon mysteries centers on why certain species and populations do well in some regions but not others. Much of my story focuses on chinook populations that are in decline along the entire Pacific Northwest coast. But there are a few exceptions. This photo is of chinook that exceeded broodstock requirements at the Puntledge River Hatchery in Courtenay, British Columbia, on the east coast of Vancouver Island.

Chinook populations were extirpated from this watershed decades ago, but now the hatchery says the river contains self-sustaining populations, with 50 percent of the fish from the hatchery and 50 percent from the wild. When I visited last October, I saw what peak chinook season looked like at the facility. The number of dark, majestic chinook brought a certain gravitas to the tanks, as smaller coho and chum swam around them. In decline, the king salmon certainly were not—at least here.

As journalists, we’re constantly trying to answer the question, What’s really going on here? Well, there’s a lot going on with Pacific salmon—much of which experts are still figuring out. I’m grateful to have gleaned some clues. And to have cut my feature-writing teeth.



A Bit of Fun, Just for the Halibut

by Liz Climo • thelittleworldofliz.com • www.facebook.com/LizClimo

 

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"The ocean is on fire" was this week's viral meme. Three ships hosing down a massive fireball in the sea perfectly exemplified the destructiveness of the fossil fuel era.

Gas leaking from a ruptured pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico had caught fire, prematurely emitting CO2 with none of the benefits associated with capturing that energy. Worse for the climate would be any methane emitted before it ignited, as the raw gas has a stronger warming effect.

It is impossible to quantify the carbon footprint of this dramatic incident, experts told Climate Home News, as there is no transparency around how much gas the pipeline would normally transport. And while we know the fire raged for five hours, we don't know how long the pipeline was leaking before that.

Pemex, the Mexican oil company responsible, said in a statement its firefighting actions had "avoided environmental damage". That claim is contested, to say the least. Environmentalists are demanding a full investigation.

But given president Andrés Manuel López Obrador's oil nationalism and regulator ASEA's bland assurance the rupture "did not generate any spillage", there is little faith in the Mexican authorities to hold Pemex to account.

Until such time as the world moves beyond oil and gas, it is incumbent on buyers to ask what the Mexican industry is doing to fix its creaking infrastructure and plug those methane leaks.

What you missed in this week's Climate Daily newsletter...

Climate Daily is your essential daily dose of international climate news, delivered straight to your inbox Monday to Friday. Here's what you missed this week:

• European Central Bank makes climate pivot
• HFC smuggling jeopardises EU climate goals
• G20 to talk carbon pricing in Venice
• 'No more coal' climate advisers tell South Africa
• Adapting infrastructure to extreme heat

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This week's news...

• North American heatwave broke records – and the climate models
• Ocean fire exposes weak regulation of Mexico’s oil and gas sector
• South Africa’s climate advisers urge faster shift away from fossil fuels
• As Elsa heralds a busy hurricane season, Caribbean states count on resilience plans
• Row erupts at Green Climate Fund over who defines climate adaptation

... and comment

• G20 ministers must scale up climate finance in solidarity with vulnerable countries – Andrea Meza Murillo and Simon Stiell
• Delivering an inclusive Cop26 in the age of Covid-19 requires more than vaccines – Brianna Craft, IIED

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