How to Restore a Million Acres of Strip-Mined Land? Bring in the Elk

By Mason Adams
The camera wasn't where it was supposed to be. Clad in chest waders and camouflage, Kyle Hill stepped into the pond, reached into the shallow water, and lifted it from the post where it had been mounted. "They got it pretty good," he said.
A few hundred yards away were the culprits: Rocky Mountain elk, lurking at the interface between scrubby woods and sparse grassland. Overhead, patches of clouds moved briskly across a blue November sky in southwest Virginia. The sheared ground of this former strip mine was unnaturally flat and a sharp contrast to the crinkled mountain ridges of late-autumn brown that stood layer upon layer on the horizon. The animals were slowly fading into the pine and autumn olive, leaving just one who boldly remained in the open — a large bull with antlers reaching more than three feet from its head.
Hill is a senior environmental science major at the University of Virginia's College at Wise. He was here with biology professor Wally Smith to study the impact of the elk in the area.
These elk are members of a herd released onto the site of a former strip mine outside the town of Grundy in Buchanan County, Virginia. They're part of a larger population now spread across Central Appalachia, where the ungulates are at the center of a pioneering new environmental and economic landscape on the literal remnants of Central Appalachia's coal industry. It's the kind of habitat that elk prefer — open country, with grasses, forbs, and low shrubs, and pockets of wooded areas. Elk once were native to these mountains, but the population was driven to extinction by habitat loss and overhunting.
This land has been mined by multiple companies for decades. A sign on the gated road into the property reads, "Dominion Coal Company, Mine #10." It's from an earlier mining operation, with underground mines burrowing deep into the earth. More recently, Paramont Coal Co. removed the mountaintop to get at the coal beneath the surface, leaving behind a flat terrain covered in grass, scrub, and pine.
That's how mountaintop-removal mining works — blowing up the top few hundred feet of mountain to expose coal seams. After the coal is stripped, mine companies are legally required to do some restoration, which usually involves replacing the exploded soil and rock — rubble — covering it with a layer of topsoil, and seeding it with anything that will hold the ground together. Even under optimal conditions, mountaintop removal severely disrupts the ecology and environmental quality of large sites. A 2016 Duke University study found the technique has left parts of Appalachia 40 percent flatter.
Central Appalachian communities are burdened with more than a million acres of these flattened mountains, many of which have been restored on the cheap. Faced with the quandary of what to do with these problematic lands, several states have used them as reintroduction sites for elk in hopes of enriching the habitat for diverse animal species. And the hopes that follow involve some economic revival in coal country from tourist dollars spent by wildlife watchers and, eventually, hunters.
Guide Leon Boyd pulled up in a truck to join them. He'd been up the ridge getting a different camera back online. That tower-mounted camera streams to the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries website.
Boyd is a vice president at an oil and gas drilling company in nearby Vansant who has become a local champion for elk restoration. He heads up the Southwestern Virginia Coalfields Chapter of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, a group of volunteers that partners with Game and Inland Fisheries and other agencies to restore the 2,600-acre former strip mine site by seeding it with native plants, improving the soil, removing invasive species, and generally trying to create ideal wildlife habitat.
Hunters were happy, and so were biologists. "We started making more open areas that had a lot of autumn olive and locust, and seeding them with orchard grasses and clovers," Boyd said.
"The number of white-tailed deer and black bear and turkey we see come in and utilize those food sources is amazing. That's what's got the wildlife biologists so excited."
By breaking up the otherwise forested landscape and creating ponds and other wetlands, these open grasslands attract insects, amphibians and migratory songbirds.
Wildlife restoration is just one of the new uses of about 1.5 million acres of Central Appalachian land affected by strip- and mountaintop-removal-mining since the 1970s. Other communities have turned their land into sites for solar energy farms, outdoor recreation hubs, industrial parks and more. A coalition of advocacy groups recently released a list spotlighting 20 different projects at reclaimed mines in Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia.
Elk have proven a powerful draw for Central Appalachian communities, especially since the effort engages hunters, who have historically proven to be a powerful group when it comes to funding conservation efforts.
But elk restoration also has its downsides.
Many former strip mines are reclaimed with the goal of stabilizing the ground so that it doesn't all run off with a heavy rainfall. Remnants of the rock and soil removed to expose coal are replaced with new material that's graded and seeded, often with nonnative species like autumn olive, which is known for holding soil. As a result, soil on reclaimed mine sites tends to be tightly compacted, which makes it difficult for vegetation to take root. A 2008 study published in the journal Ecological Applications found that reclaimed mine land was poorer in nutrients, had more severe storm runoff, and resulted in major changes to vegetation, wildlife and soil structure.
Despite habitat improvement efforts, the landscape is covered with broom sage, a sign of poor soil fertility. One of the few running streams on the site flows out from one of the old deep mines. Yet wildlife is showing up. Mason Adams
Despite habitat improvement efforts by Leon Boyd and other volunteers, the landscape is covered with broom sage, a sign of poor soil fertility. One of the few running streams on-site flows out from one of the old deep mines.
Yet wildlife is showing up. It's not just elk, but songbirds, dragonflies, damselflies, bullfrogs and waterfowl.
Jennifer Franklin, a professor in the University of Tennessee's Department of Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries, said elk damage trees and keep the landscape more open, which "is bad if you want to grow timber, but good if you are a golden-winged warbler."
"The main impact of elk is on the vegetation, although the development of soils and vegetation go hand in hand," Franklin said. "Elk could improve the soil organic matter by defecating on the site, but at the same time, some studies have found that elk grazing can increase soil compaction and reduce some soil nutrients.
"They also bring in soil microorganisms and seeds because they frequently move between the forest and reclaimed mine site. This could help to reestablish soil biota and nutrient cycling on soils that were initially void of microorganisms after reclamation."
A 2011 study by John Cox, a wildlife ecology and conservation biology professor at the University of Kentucky, suggested that elk are a keystone species that "act as habitat modifiers through grazing, trampling, wallowing, and uprooting of existing vegetation."
Sometimes that habitat modification can benefit other species, as in the case of an elk wallow becoming a small wetland used by waterfowl, said David Kalb, a biologist with Virginia's Game and Inland Fisheries department.
"Restoration into meadows creates opportunities for elk on the landscape, but also for these less common or rare birds that need that habitat to take advantage of it," Kalb said. "A whole host of amphibian species that need small vernal pools can take advantage of the small ponds and wallows that elk create."
But that activity can also disrupt local ecologies by causing erosion and transporting invasive plants.
"On the edge of surface mines, elk have created wide movement paths as they enter and exit forests during their daily activities," Cox wrote in his study. "In these areas, erosion is readily visible, where soils have been excavated by trampling hooves, particularly on steeper slopes."
Research has confirmed that elk disturb soil in areas where they are bedding, resulting in less soil moisture, less leaf litter and less vegetation. By disrupting the natural ecological succession toward hardwood forest, however, they're also creating spaces for other wildlife.
"It's a double-edged sword with elk," Cox said. "They're back doing the work they're supposed to be doing in the landscape, even though it's a denatured sort of alien landscape in some ways. These grasslands are providing habitat for grassland bird and shrub-scrub species that are declining in the U.S. Now migratory warblers are coming in. The elk help maintain that."
One reason Leon Boyd's elk cameras are important is to get the elk herd before a worldwide audience. The camera's accompanying website links to a public comment form for the state's proposed 10-year elk management plan for the herd in Dickenson, Wise and Buchanan counties. The plan includes guidelines for growing the elk population before opening it to hunting. Another reason for keeping the camera going: Livestreamers might eventually decide to come view the elk in person.
Wildlife viewing has become a pillar in the growing outdoor recreation industry of many Central Appalachian communities in the aftermath of coal's dominance.
Places gifted with beautiful scenery see outdoor recreation as a path toward rebuilding their economies. The welcome signs in Buchanan County, for instance, bill it as "Nature's Wonderland."
Elk restoration adds another attraction to the marketing of the region as an outdoor destination.
"The elk viewing tours are one of about six things that we really kind of publicize as our adventure offerings, including zip line, mountain bike and e-bike rentals, whitewater rafting trips, guided adventure hikes, and rock climbing," said Austin Bradley, superintendent at Breaks Interstate Park, which is located on the Kentucky–Virginia state line.
Breaks started offering elk-viewing tours in 2015, three years after the Virginia elk population was introduced. In 2018, about 400 people went on elk tours, Bradley said, including free trips for school groups, economic development professionals, and elected officials.
"For a really long time, this park and this entire region were so heavily focused on mining," Bradley said. "Even here at the park, the coal miners came in and ate at our restaurant, they camped at our campground, and coal companies had large employee appreciation events in the summer and Christmas parties in the winter. All that dried up. We were really getting in some pretty dire straits.
"But that outdoor recreation and adventure tourism focus to reach a broader audience has definitely paid off. We'll set a revenue record this year. The elk help us reach a broader audience."
Across the state line in Kentucky, elk have had an even more transformative effect on mountain economies.
The Bluegrass State began studying elk reintroduction in the 1990s, released its first herds in 1997, and opened hunting in 2001. Kentucky has seen its elk population in the 16-county region grow from 1,541 introduced animals to more than 10,000. About 10 percent of the area is reclaimed and active surface mines.
A 2013 study from the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources estimated that hunters spend $1.9 million annually in the elk region. Licenses and permits bring another $800,000. These figures don't factor in nonconsumptive users, such as wildlife watchers.
"If you go to places like Louisville or Paducah or Lexington, $1.9 million is nice, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to other revenue sources," said Steven Dobey, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation's conservation program manager for the eastern U.S. "But when you go to eastern Kentucky and that 16-county elk zone, and spread that over gas stations, hotels, hunting stores, that does have a significant economic impact."
A study on five Tennessee counties where elk populations have been restored counted about $10.25 million in total economic value.
As Hill and Smith set up the last of their wildlife cameras, the weather had started to turn. The temperature had dropped, and clouds coalesced overhead and started to spit cold rain.
Boyd recounted hunting and wildlife-watching stories.
He clearly believes in the restorative power of the elk. He described a group of birders he'd brought to the site who expected the former strip mine to look like a moonscape. At one point in time it did. But by the end of the day, he said, the most skeptical birders were the most enthusiastic, gushing about the 27 species they'd seen that day.
"You've just got to get out and see the site," Boyd said. "Then you'll really understand it."
Reposted with permission from our media associate YES! Magazine.
By Deborah Moore, Michael Simon and Darryl Knudsen
There's some good news amidst the grim global pandemic: At long last, the world's largest dam removal is finally happening.
A young activist for a free-flowing Salween River. A team of campaigners and lawyers from EarthRights International joined Indigenous Karen communities on the Salween in 2018 to celebrate the International Day of Actions for Rivers on March 14. This year, EarthRights joined communities living in the Eu-Wae-Tta internally displaced persons camp for a celebration in solidarity with those impacted by dam projects on the Salween River. EarthRights International
<p>The dam removal project is a sign of the decline of the hydropower industry, whose fortunes have fallen as the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46098118" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">troubling</a> cost-benefit ratio of dams has become clear over the years. The rise of more cost-effective and sustainable energy sources (including wind and solar) has hastened this shift. This is exactly the type of progress envisioned by the <a href="https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/17023836/dams-and-development-a-new-framework-for-decision" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">World Commission on Dams</a> (WCD), a global multi-stakeholder body that was established by the World Bank and International Union for Conservation of Nature in 1998 to investigate the effectiveness and performance of large dams around the world. The WCD released a damning landmark <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2000/20001117.dam.pressconferencepm.doc.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">report</a> in November 2000 on the enormous financial, environmental and human costs and the dismal performance of large dams. The commission spent <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2000/20001117.dam.pressconferencepm.doc.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">two years</a> analyzing the outcome of the trillions of dollars invested in dams, reviewing dozens of case studies and testimonies from over a thousand communities and individuals, before producing the report.</p><p>But despite this progress, we cannot take hydropower's decline as inevitable. As governments around the world plan for a post-pandemic recovery, hydropower companies sense an opportunity. The industry is eager to recast itself as climate-friendly (<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/how-green-is-hydropower-1919539525.html" target="_self">it's not</a>) and <a href="https://www.hydropower.org/covid-19" target="_blank">secure</a> precious stimulus funds to revive its dying industry — at the expense of people, the environment and a truly just, green recovery.</p>Hydropower’s Troubling Record
<p>The world's largest hydropower dam removal project on the Klamath River is a significant win for tribal communities. But while the Yurok and Karuk tribes <a href="https://www.karuk.us/images/docs/press/bring_salmon_home.php" target="_blank">suffered</a> terribly from the decline of the Klamath's fisheries, they were by no means alone in that experience. The environmental catastrophe that occurred along the Klamath River has been replicated all over the world since the global boom in hydropower construction <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/hydropower" target="_blank">began</a> early in the 20th century.</p><p>The rush to dam rivers has had huge consequences. After decades of rampant construction, only <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/05/worlds-free-flowing-rivers-mapped-hydropower/" target="_blank">37 percent of the world's rivers remain free-flowing</a>, according to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1111-9" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">one study</a>. River fragmentation has <a href="https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/70/4/330/5732594" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">decimated freshwater habitats and fish stocks</a>, threatening food security for millions of the world's most vulnerable people, and hastening the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffopperman/2020/10/13/freshwater-wildlife-continues-to-decline-but-new-energy-trendlines-suggest-we-can-bend-that-curve/?sh=f9d175a61ee4" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">decline of other myriad freshwater species</a>, including mammals, birds and reptiles.</p><p>The communities that experienced the most harm from dams — whether in Asia, Latin America or Africa — often lacked political power and access. But that didn't stop grassroots movements from organizing and growing to fight for their rights and livelihoods. The people affected by dams began raising their voices, sharing their experiences and forging alliances across borders. By the 1990s, the public <a href="https://tinyurl.com/y55lnlst" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">outcry</a> against large dams had grown so loud that it finally led to the establishment of the WCD.</p><p>What the WCD found was stunning. While large dam projects had brought some economic benefits, they had also <a href="https://www.irn.org/wcd/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">forcibly displaced an estimated 40 to 80 million people in the 20th century alone</a>. To put that number into perspective, it is more than the current population of present-day <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=FR" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">France</a> or the <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=GB" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">United Kingdom</a>. These people lost their lands and homes to dams, and often with no compensation.</p><p>Subsequent research has compounded that finding. A paper published in <a href="https://tinyurl.com/c7uznz" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Water Alternatives</a> revealed that globally, more than <a href="https://tinyurl.com/yxw8x7ab" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">470 million people living downstream from large dams</a> have faced significant impacts to their lives and livelihoods — much of it due to disruptions in water supply, which in turn harm the complex web of life that depends on healthy, free-flowing rivers. The WCD's findings, released in 2000, <a href="https://www.irn.org/wcd/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">identified</a> the importance of restoring rivers, compensating communities for their losses, and finding better energy alternatives to save rivers and ecosystems.</p>Facing a New Crisis
<p>Twenty years after the WCD uncovered a crisis along the world's rivers and recommended a new development path — one that advances community-driven development and protects freshwater resources — we find ourselves in the midst of another crisis. The global pandemic has hit us hard, with surging loss of life, unemployment and instability.</p><p>But as governments work to rebuild economies and create job opportunities in the coming years, we have a choice: Double down on the failed, outdated technologies that have harmed so many, or change course and use this transformative moment to rebuild our natural systems and uplift communities.</p><p>There are many reasons to fight for a green recovery. The climate is changing even <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07586-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">faster</a> than expected, and some dams — especially those with reservoirs in hot climates — <a href="https://tinyurl.com/w6w29t8" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">have been found to emit more greenhouse gases than a fossil fuel power plant</a>. Other estimates have put global reservoirs' human-made greenhouse gas emissions each year on par with <a href="https://www.climatecentral.org/news/greenhouse-gases-reservoirs-fuel-climate-change-20745" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Canada's</a> total emissions.</p><p>Meanwhile, we now understand that healthy rivers and freshwater ecosystems play a <a href="https://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/resources/b55b1fe4-7d09-47af-96c4-6cbb5f106d4f/files/wetlands-role-carbon-cycle.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">critical role in regulating and storing carbon</a>. And at a time when <a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-decline-unprecedented-report/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">biodiversity loss is soaring</a>, anything we can do to <a href="https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/70/4/330/5732594" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">restore habitat is key</a>. But with <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271996520_A_Global_Boom_in_Hydropower_dam_Construction" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">more than 3,700 major dams proposed or under construction</a> in the world (primarily in the Global South, with over <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/more-than-500-dams-planned-inside-protected-areas-study/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">500 of these in protected areas</a>), according to a 2014 report — and the hydropower industry <a href="https://www.hydropower.org/covid-19" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">jockeying</a> for scarce stimulus dollars — we must act urgently.</p>Signs of Hope
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTcxMzUyMS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxOTcyNTc3OX0.EbqBVPs2kjhrY5AqnZXOb_GX-s6pw4qyJmmeISzKA6U/img.png?width=980" id="a81d0" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="87bc79d69f72e9334a78da8e0355e6ae" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1620" data-height="1068" />Fish catch at the Siphandone on the Mekong River, prior to the completion of the Don Sahong Dam. Pai Deetes / International Rivers
<p>So what would a strong, resilient and equitable recovery look like in the 21st century? Let's consider one example in Southeast Asia.</p><p>Running through six countries, the Mekong River is the world's 12th-longest river, which is home to one of the world's most biodiverse regions, and includes the world's <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/places/greater-mekong#" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">largest</a> inland fishery. Around <a href="https://tinyurl.com/y6jrarjo" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">80 percent of the nearly 65 million people</a> who live in the Lower Mekong River Basin depend on the river for their livelihoods, according to the Mekong River Commission. In 1994, Thailand built the Pak Mun Dam on a Mekong tributary. <a href="https://tinyurl.com/y5ekfp4h" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Six years later</a>, the <a href="https://tinyurl.com/yxcvs6up" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">WCD studied the dam's performance</a> and submitted its conclusions and recommendations as part of its final report in 2000. According to the WCD report, the Pak Mun Dam did not deliver the peaking energy service it was designed for, and it <a href="https://tinyurl.com/y38p3jaw" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">physically blocked a critical migration route</a> for a range of fish species that migrated annually to breeding grounds upstream in the Mun River Basin. Cut off from their customary habitat, fish stocks plummeted, and so did the livelihoods of the local people.</p><p>Neighboring Laos, instead of learning from this debacle, followed in Thailand's footsteps, <a href="https://tinyurl.com/y4eaxcq2" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">constructing two dams on the river's mainstem</a>, Xayaburi Dam, commissioned in 2019, and Don Sahong Dam, commissioned in 2020. But then a sign of hope appeared. In early 2020, just as the pandemic began to spread across the world, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/20/cambodia-scraps-plans-for-mekong-hydropower-dams" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Cambodian government reconsidered its plans to build more dams on the Mekong</a>. The science was indisputable: A government-commissioned report showed that further dams would <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/16/leaked-report-warns-cambodias-biggest-dam-could-literally-kill-mekong-river" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reduce the river's wild fisheries, threaten critically endangered Irrawaddy dolphins</a> and <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2013WR014651" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">block nutrient-rich sediment from the delta's fertile agricultural lands</a>.</p><p><a href="https://data.opendevelopmentmekong.net/dataset/4f1bb5fd-a564-4d37-878b-c288af460143/resource/5f6fe360-7a68-480d-9ba4-12d7b8b805c9/download/volume-3_solar-alternative-to-sambor-dam.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Studies</a> show that Cambodia didn't need to seek billions of dollars in loans to build more hydropower; instead, it could pursue more cost-effective solar and wind projects that would deliver needed electricity at a fraction of the cost — and <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/press-releases/wwf-statement-on-cambodian-government-s-decision-to-suspend-hydropower-dam-development-on-the-mekong-river" target="_blank">without the ecological disasters to fisheries and the verdant Mekong delta</a>. And, in a stunning reversal, Cambodia listened to the science — and to the people — and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/20/cambodia-scraps-plans-for-mekong-hydropower-dams" target="_blank">announced</a> a 10-year moratorium on mainstream dams. Cambodia is now <a href="https://www.voanews.com/east-asia-pacific/cambodia-halts-hydropower-construction-mekong-river-until-2030" target="_blank">reconsidering</a> its energy mix, recognizing that mainstream hydropower dams are too costly and undermine the economic and cultural values of its flagship river.</p>Toward a Green Recovery
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTcxMzUwOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MTMwMjk0M30.0LZCOEVzgtgjm2_7CwcbFfuZlrtUr80DiRYxqKGaKIg/img.jpg?width=980" id="87fe9" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e6b9bfeb013516f6ad5033bb9e03c5ec" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="2100" data-height="3086" />Klamath River Rapids. Tupper Ansel Blake / U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
<p>Increasingly, governments, civil servants and the public at large are rethinking how we produce energy and are seeking to preserve and restore precious freshwater resources. Dam removals are increasing exponentially across <a href="https://www.americanrivers.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/DamsRemoved_1999-2019.pdf" target="_blank">North America</a> and <a href="https://damremoval.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/DRE-policy-Report-2018-digitaal-010319.pdf" target="_blank">Europe</a>, and movements advancing <a href="https://www.rightsofrivers.org/" target="_blank">permanent river protection are growing across Latin America, Asia and Africa</a>.</p><p>We must use the COVID-19 crisis to accelerate the trend. Rather than relying on old destructive technologies and industry claims of newfound "<a href="https://www.hydrosustainability.org/news/2020/11/12/consultation-on-a-groundbreaking-global-sustainability-standard-for-hydropower" target="_blank">sustainable hydropower</a>," the world requires a new paradigm for an economic recovery that is rooted both in climate and economic justice as well as river stewardship. Since December 2020, hundreds of groups and individuals from more than 80 countries have joined the <a href="https://www.rivers4recovery.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Rivers4Recovery</a> call for a better way forward for rivers and natural places. This paradigm will protect our rivers as critical lifelines — supporting fisheries, biodiversity, water supply, food production, Indigenous peoples and diverse populations around the world — rather than damming and polluting them.</p><p>The promise of the Klamath dam removals is one of restoration — a move that finally recognizes the immense value of free-flowing rivers and the key role they play in <a href="https://f.hubspotusercontent20.net/hubfs/4783129/LPR/PDFs/Living_Planet_Report_Freshwater_Deepdive.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">nourishing both the world's biodiversity and hundreds of millions of people</a>. Healthy rivers — connected to watershed forests, floodplains, wetlands and deltas — are key partners in building resilience in the face of an accelerating climate crisis. But if we allow the hydropower industry to succeed in its <a href="https://www.world-energy.org/article/12361.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cynical grab for stimulus funds</a>, we'll only perpetuate the 20th century's legacy of suffering and environmental degradation.</p><p>We must put our money where our values are. Twenty years ago, the WCD pointed the way forward to a model of development that takes humans, wildlife and the environment into account, and in 2020, we saw that vision flower along the Klamath River. It's time to bring that promise of healing and restoration to more of the world's rivers.</p><p><em>Deborah Moore is a former commissioner of the <a href="https://www.water-alternatives.org/index.php/alldoc/articles/vol3/v3issue2/79-a3-2-2/file" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="">World Commission on Dams</a>. Michael Simon was a member of the <a href="https://www.hydrosustainability.org/assessment-protocol" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="">Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Forum</a>. Darryl Knudsen is the executive director of <a href="https://www.internationalrivers.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="">International Rivers</a>.</em></p><p><em>This article first appeared on <a href="https://truthout.org/articles/damming-rivers-is-terrible-for-human-rights-ecosystems-and-food-security/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Truthout</a> and was produced in partnership with <a href="https://independentmediainstitute.org/earth-food-life/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Earth | Food | Life</a>, a project of the Independent Media Institute.</em></p>EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
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Cuttlefish, marine invertebrates related to squids and octopuses, can pass the so-called "marshmallow test," an experiment designed to test whether human children have the self-control to wait for a better reward.
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By John R. Platt
The straw-headed bulbul doesn't look like much.
It's less than a foot in length, with subdued brown-and-gold plumage, a black beak and beady red eyes. If you saw one sitting on a branch in front of you, you might not give it a second glance.
Cages line the Malang bird and animal market on Java in 2016. Andrea Kirkby / CC BY-SA 2.0
A kingfisher, looking a little worse for wear, in the Malang bird and animal market in 2016. Andrea Kirkby / CC BY-SA 2.0
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