KESSR
By John R. Platt
It takes a lot of effort and more than a little bit of luck for researchers like André Raine to get to the remote mountaintops of Kauai, where they're working to save endangered Hawaiian seabirds from extinction.
<p>First you need a helicopter capable of reaching sites more than 4,600 feet above sea level.</p>
<p>Then you need exactly the right weather to fly — and the hope that conditions don't shift, as they frequently do.</p><p>"The weather's not that great," said Raine, the project coordinator for the <a href="https://kauaiseabirdproject.org/" target="_blank">Kaua'i Endangered Seabird Recovery Project</a>. "We keep going and hanging out at the helipad, waiting and watching. And then it looks like it's going to be okay but it gets fogged in, or you get up there and then you get stuck. The joys of working in a remote, inaccessible area."</p><p>The seabirds — including Newell's shearwaters (<em>Puffinus newelli</em>) and Hawaiian petrels (<em>Pterodroma sandwichensis</em>) — obviously have a much easier time getting up the tops of these mountains.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQyMjUxMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNDI0MDYzOX0.Xckl7lehoaKqVpDcl2Iauq_7FsUd3dhhJCqlQ_00T7w/img.jpg?width=980" id="3eff9" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a188467cc0cf6aaf6e732ff033bf58be" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Raine holding a Hawaiian petrel chick. Courtesy Kaua'i Endangered Seabird Recovery Project
<p>So, unfortunately, do several species of invasive predators — including feral cats, black rats and feral pigs — that have put these ground-nesting birds, and so many other native Hawaiian species, on the fast track toward extinction.</p><p>"People are always really surprised by this," Raine said, "but it doesn't matter how remote the area, or how apparently inhospitable it is to predators like cats. You're going to find cats and rats and pigs in these areas. There wasn't a single site that we work in that doesn't have all these predators, busy eating the birds."</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQyMjUxMi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwMDA1OTUzNX0._y8WyIKu-gqIxghf0MAe4M2Jct0kKO_8dRVZeFTkP5s/img.jpg?width=980" id="9566a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a6b43d8eb34efa6830b67e9c9b760acb" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
An endangered chick in the mouth of a feral cat. Courtesy Kaua'i Endangered Seabird Recovery Project
<p>Like many island endemics, Hawaii's bird species grew up without mammalian predators, so they're ill-adapted to the teeth and claws that arrived with human society. The cats descended from housecats, while pigs escape from agricultural sites and rats descended from stowaways on ships.</p><p>That's why the Kaua'i Endangered Seabird Recovery Project has spent the past nine years constructing fences and establishing other predator controls — work that is proving essential in giving these native birds a chance.</p><p>The first step in controlling predators is quantifying the threat.</p><p>According to a paper Raine and his colleagues published earlier this year in <a href="https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jwmg.21824" target="_blank">The Journal of Wildlife Management</a>, introduced predators killed at least 309 endangered seabirds at six monitored breeding colonies between 2011 and 2017. That's quite a blow for each of these endangered species.</p><p>"Newell's shearwaters and Hawaiian petrels have suffered catastrophic declines over the last few decades," Raine said. "Any chick that's lost in the population is one that we can't afford to lose."</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQyMjUxMy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NzM0Mjk0NH0.OQtFhGyhMY0IdQIFof0hJQjrsMnarkKMPZ7pxFGmbxQ/img.jpg?width=980" id="28423" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="67a9f67f9d9b15b91d0c4fb08f3a4018" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Hawaiian petrel. © Ken Chamberlain, some rights reserved (CC-BY-NC). Via iNaturalist.
<p>The researchers took on the sad task of collecting the dead and examining the wound patterns to determine which type of predator made the kill.</p><p>Rats, it turned out, killed the most — more than 50% of mortalities — usually from entering the birds' rocky burrows and eating eggs and chicks. That dramatically slows recovery efforts, but the research shows that adult birds who've lost their chicks returned to the same burrows the following year to try again.</p><span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8dd9a93a40e27d91a7d4be3e64989e97"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QqxzWxyzQhc?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>Pigs kill fewer birds — about 10% of all tracked mortalities — but they were the most destructive, digging up and taking out entire nests. "It's literally like someone's taken a hand grenade and stuffed it down the burrow and blown it up," Raine said. "They just eat whatever's inside."</p><p>Cats were responsible for another 35% of known deaths, and Raine says the research shows those mortalities were the worst for the long-term health of the bird species. Cats target breeding birds, taking out not just the current generation but any hope of successive generations. The seabirds are very faithful to both their burrow sites and their mates, so if a cat takes out one parent the other might not breed again for several years, if at all. (Without predation, the researchers say an amazing 98.6% percent of breeding pairs matched up again and bred each year of the study.)</p>
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4fc7193649ed712ac1e3c32f773b9299"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FS8meaFqnIQ?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>And while cats in general are the most destructive, some individual cats are downright scary.</p><p>"Every now and then, you get a sort of super cat, which is really good at finding burrows and killing the birds," he said.</p><p>In one incident recounted in the paper, the seabird recovery team found images of a cat taken by nine out of 30 remote cameras on the same day. Each camera was trained at a different seabird burrow — which provided ready meals for the feral feline.</p><p>"It just shows that all you need is for a cat to get into an area for a very short period," Raine said. "When the birds are sitting in a hole in the ground, they're entirely vulnerable to predation. The cat can very easily wipe out a huge number of birds."</p><p>Raine describes another incident as "quite horrific to watch." It took place at a remote site the team can only visit about once a month during breeding season, "because it's expensive and hard to get to," he said. They arrived one day to review the site's automatic cameras and the images revealed "this one cat just wreaking havoc across the site. It goes in and kills an adult Newell's shearwater, and they next thing you know it's emerging from the same burrow with four kittens. So it uses that burrow to raise the kittens, and then we get it on camera at another burrow with the kittens, basically training them how to kill more shearwaters."</p><p>That's a tough thing to see — especially when these researchers have followed the comings and goings at these burrows for years.</p><p>"You start to really empathize with these birds, because you're watching them on the burrow cameras and you're seeing all these amazing behaviors," Raine said. "And we're tracking them as well. We're seeing that they make these incredible journeys to feed their chicks. Hawaiian petrels go towards the coast of Alaska, 11-14,000 kilometers on a feeding voyage, and then you go to the site and you find this bird that's just been shredded by an introduced predator and the chicks left to starve to death. It's quite hard to deal with."</p><p>But as difficult and dangerous as these predators can be, the research also shows that the situation is far from hopeless.</p>
Fence Me In
<p>Over the past decade, the Kaua'i Endangered Seabird Recovery Project and its many organizational partners have concentrated on establishing predator controls at six of their seven regularly monitored seabird breeding sites.</p><p>Again, this isn't easy to accomplish in these remote, rarely visited locations. Materials must be flown in, ungulate-proof fences built, other traps set, and pig-hunting expeditions organized. All of it must be accomplished and maintained in precarious territory full of wet vegetation, narrow ridgelines and steep canyon walls.</p><p>To make things even more difficult, the human visitors must leave the habitat as undisturbed as possible.</p><p>"If you start making trails in these areas, then you're basically just opening them up to the hordes of predators that are out there," Raine says.</p><p>But the hard work pays off.</p><p>According to the paper, fences and other controls not only keep the invasive predators out, they give the birds the opportunity to thrive.</p><p>The research team used seven years data from the six sites, from before and after predator controls were established, and projected striking results for the future of the two seabird species.</p><p>The first model looked at what would happen to each site without predator controls. It was a disaster — mostly due to cats. "We ran that for 50 years, and we found that all of the colonies dwindle toward extinction."</p><p>The paper, in what Raine acknowledges as gallows humor, calls this the <em>CATastrophe</em> model.</p><p>The second modeling approach incorporated data from successful breeding that took place after more extensive predator controls (fences and traps) were put in place. "We found that the populations increased over those 50 years," Raine said. Under the model, which was based on 2017 population growth rates at sites with predator controls, most sites would see a 50-60% increase over the 50-year projection, while one site more than doubled.</p><p>"It really does show that if you remove the predators, the birds will begin to recover."</p><span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ac52cff84afea378f9a779341a21e9c7"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FGzpq0g0KnA?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>This isn't the be all and end all. Hawaiian seabirds face a laundry list of additional threats, including climate change, collisions with power lines, reduced fish populations at sea, and invasive plants that change forest compositions. The models don't address those threats, which also require mitigation.</p><p>There's also another introduced predator: barn owls. Hawaii introduced barn owls in the 1960s to control rats, but — as we've seen in so many other similar examples — they quickly became a new problem. Owls only killed 12 seabirds during the study, but Raine says these newest invaders pose an increasing threat that's proven harder to control. You can build fences to protect birds, after all, but you can't prevent other birds from flying over those protections.</p><p>But this research does prove that current management techniques to protect Hawaiian seabirds from their most pressing threats — cats, rats and pigs — really do work, and that they can be applied to more locations, even by private landowners who have birds on their properties. "Although we've got seven managed sites, there are other sites on the island where the birds are still hanging on, and there's no reason to expect that these techniques wouldn't be effective at other colonies."</p><p>That's important, because some of those additional sites are on the edge.</p><p>"We're finding that these other sites are just going silent," Raine said. "With no management on them, the birds just flit away." The paper recommends predator-proof fences at all sites, as well as dedicated year-round funding for both seabird monitoring efforts and predator-control operations designed to specifically target the composition of animals at each location. The authors also suggest additional port biosecurity to prevent more invasive species from arriving, and possibly the targeted use of landscape-level toxicants to remove rats and cats.</p><p>In addition, Raine says, these techniques can be applied to other species and other island locations where invasive predators threaten ground-nesting birds.</p><p>Perhaps most importantly, the research helps show these conservationists — whose work has continued as "essential" during the pandemic — that their efforts to fight extinction in these challenging, hard-to-reach habitats are paying off.</p><p>"I remember one of our sites in particular — in fact the one I was trying to get into today — the first time I went there I found within a five-foot area a burrow that had been predated by a cat, a dead chick that had been pulled out by a rat, and a burrow that had been destroyed by a pig," Raine recounted. "Now you can go a month without even seeing predators at some of these sites because of the great work that the controllers' crews are doing."</p><p>And this raises one more issue: this work isn't just about birds. It may help heal Hawaii — the extinction capital of the world — in the process.</p><p>"I think it's really important that people understand the critical importance of seabirds as the architects of the island itself," Raine said. "They bring all those ocean nutrients up into the mountains, and their partly responsible for the watersheds that we all rely on. It's a whole ecosystem that needs to be addressed."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/hawaii-predator-catastrophe/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>. </em><em></em></p>
Read More
Show Less
The new species, Rhombophryne ellae, is well camouflaged among the rainforest leaflitter. Mark D. Scherz
Located just off the southeastern coast of Africa, Madagascar is a remote island nation and home to one of the most biodiverse pockets in the world, among them the elusive diamond frog. Even in the most well-studied areas, new species are constantly being discovered.
<p>Defining and characterizing the "hyper diverse island" is an ongoing effort that has yielded many results in recent years, including defining and characterizing frogs of the diamond genus <em>Rhombophyrne. </em>In the last decade alone, the diversity of diamond frogs has more than doubled, yet even so a number of undescribed species still persist in the wild. Now, <em>Rhombophyrne ellae </em>is a brightly orange colored, highly miniaturized frog described in <em><a href="https://zse.pensoft.net/article/51372/" target="_blank">Zoosystematics and Evolution</a></em> that is furthering the scientific community's understanding of amphibians on this remote, isolated island.</p>
<p>"As soon as I saw this frog, I knew it was a new species," <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-06/pp-sla061520.php" target="_blank">said</a> Dr. Mark D. Scherz of the Technical University of Braunschweig. "The orange flash-markings on the legs and the large black spots on the hip made it immediately obvious to me. During my Master's and Ph.D. research, I studied this genus and described several species, and there are no described species with such orange legs, and only [a] few species have these black markings on the hip. It's rare that we find a frog and are immediately able to recognize that it is a new species without having to wait for the DNA sequence results to come back, so this was elating."</p>
<p>The study is just the third to have been published on reptiles or amphibians in the park, and describes the finding of <em>R. ellae</em> in 2017. Characterized by the orange coloration on its legs and large black spots, this species is closely related to another poorly known and undescribed species of frog from northern Madagascar. It remains unclear why diamond frogs have such dramatic coloration even though it appears that this feature has evolved in many Madagascar frogs.</p>
<p>In itself, the discovery highlights how little is still known about our planet, particularly small species found in remote and biodiverse places around the world – even the most well-studied regions.</p><p>"The discovery of such a distinctive species within a comparatively well-studied park points towards the gaps in our knowledge of the amphibians of the tropics," said Sherz.</p><p>"It also highlights the role that bad weather, especially cyclones, can play in bringing otherwise hidden frogs out of hiding – <em>R. ellae</em> was caught just as Cyclone Ava was moving in on Madagascar, and several other species my colleagues and I have recently described were also caught under similar cyclonic conditions."</p><p>Though the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation" target="_self">conservation</a> status of <em>R. ellae </em>still remains unknown, the researchers conclude that it is likely to be considered "near threatened" due to its small range.</p>
From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
A hummingbird feeds on a butterfly bush in Washington state on Aug. 18, 2017. Jim Culp / Flickr
Hummingbirds live a more colorful existence than humans do, a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Monday confirmed.
<p>While humans only have three color cones, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/birds" target="_self">birds</a> have four, meaning they can theoretically see colors on the ultraviolet spectrum, <a href="https://api.nationalgeographic.com/distribution/public/amp/animals/2020/06/hummingbirds-see-colors-outside-rainbow" target="_blank">National Geographic</a> explained. Until now, however, no <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/scientists" target="_self">scientist</a> had really tried to discover what a bird's eye view of color would look like.</p><p>"Humans are color-blind compared to birds and many other animals," lead study author and Princeton University assistant professor Mary Caswell Stoddard said in a <a href="https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/06/15/wild-hummingbirds-see-broad-range-colors-humans-can-only-imagine" target="_blank">Princeton press release</a>. "Not only does having a fourth color cone type extend the range of bird-visible colors into the UV, it potentially allows birds to perceive combination colors like ultraviolet+green and ultraviolet+red — but this has been hard to test."</p>
<p>To overcome these difficulties, Stoddard and a team of scientists from Princeton, the University of British Columbia (UBC), Harvard University, University of Maryland and the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL) set up a series of outdoor experiments with broad-tailed hummingbirds in Colorado. They wanted to test the birds' abilities to see nonspectral colors, colors perceived from widely distinct parts of the color spectrum.</p><p>The only nonspectral color humans can see is purple, which is not part of the rainbow.</p><p>"Instead of being formed by a single light or mixture of similar lights, purple is formed by simultaneously stimulating our non-adjacent red-sensitive and blue-sensitive cones in our eyes," study coauthor and UBC Ph.D. student Harold Eyster explained on Twitter.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Since purple is my favorite color, & birds are my favorite animals, I wondered, "Can birds see purple?" Today, our paper led by Dr. Cassie Stoddard with <a href="https://twitter.com/dylanhmorris?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@dylanhmorris</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/B_G_Hogan?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@B_G_Hogan</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/DavidInouye1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DavidInouye1</a> Ed Soucy is in <a href="https://twitter.com/PNASNews?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PNASNews</a> that shows that yes, birds can! <a href="https://t.co/lcFuu2yt1l">https://t.co/lcFuu2yt1l</a> 3/n</p>— Harold Eyster (@HaroldEyster) <a href="https://twitter.com/HaroldEyster/status/1272627051229376513?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 15, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p>But birds, because of their fourth cone, can in theory see up to five nonspectral colors: purple, ultraviolet+red, ultraviolet+green, ultraviolet+yellow and ultraviolet+purple.</p><p>To test whether the birds really did see these colors, researchers placed feeders containing sugar and plain water in an alpine meadow next to LED tubes designed to emit a variety of colors, including nonspectral ones, the press release explained. The researchers conducted 19 experiments over three years, recording data from more than 6,000 feeder visits. They found that the birds could learn to visit the sugar water feeder even when the two LED tubes marking the feeders were indistinguishable to human eyes.</p>
<div id="d4f75" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f65de188636d57ec4f34c1168ac5f4db"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1272627060561768448" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">The details of color vision are usually studied in the lab, but we wanted to know how birds act in the wild. Thus,… https://t.co/3JoxVNIY29</div> — Harold Eyster (@Harold Eyster)<a href="https://twitter.com/HaroldEyster/statuses/1272627060561768448">1592252910.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>"Seeing them do this right in front of my eyes is one of the most exciting things I've ever witnessed," Stoddard told National Geographic.</p><p>The hummingbirds could see purple, ultraviolet+green, ultraviolet+red and ultraviolet+yellow, the researchers confirmed, according to the press release.</p><p>University of Chicago evolutionary biologist Trevor Price, who was not involved with the research, told National Geographic that the findings marked a "big step forward" for understanding how birds and other animals see.</p><p>"We're really only beginning to scratch the surface in our understanding of color vision in animals," he said.</p><p>The scientists think the birds use their enhanced color vision to locate a wide variety of plants for nectar. They found that the birds would be able to distinguish nonspectral colors in 30 percent of birds' plumage and 35 percent of plants from a database.</p>
<div id="3386f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="dfb13639f3ff74769af6bf57ef30515a"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1272627073484374016" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Birds can see nonspectral colors, and these colors make up a substantial part of the bird visual environment. We ho… https://t.co/160gQITMyo</div> — Harold Eyster (@Harold Eyster)<a href="https://twitter.com/HaroldEyster/statuses/1272627073484374016">1592252913.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>"The colors that we see in the fields of wildflowers at our study site, the wildflower capital of Colorado, are stunning to us, but just imagine what those flowers look like to birds with that extra sensory dimension," co-author David Inouye of the University of Maryland and RMBL said in the press release.</p><p>The findings also have <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation" target="_self">conservation</a> implications.</p><p>"We are now studying how hummingbirds use color to find flowers and impress mates — and how these behaviors might be impacted by <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate change</a>," Stoddard told <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/16/world/hummingbird-ultraviolet-light-colors-scn-trnd/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a>.</p>
From Your Site Articles
- It's OK to Feed Wild Birds — Here Are Some Tips for Doing It the ... ›
- 5 Gifts to Help Wild Birds - EcoWatch ›
- The Climate Crisis Is Making Birds Smaller - EcoWatch ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
New EU Biodiversity Strategy Can Reduce Risk of Future Pandemics — If It Fully Addresses Wildlife Trade
14 June
Animals
A lion photographed at Kruger National Park on April 16, 2017 in South Africa. Frédéric Soltan / Corbis / Getty Images
By Arnaud Goessens
As the planet faces the multiple impacts of COVID-19 on human health, well-being and economies, it's time for governments across the globe to show leadership and take the necessary steps to help prevent future major pandemics.
<p>The emergence of COVID-19 and other zoonotic diseases, which spread from wildlife to humans, shows that our relationship with the environment must now be rethought. We have no other choice but to protect nature and put an end to biodiversity loss, ecosystem degradation and climate change. There's no secret about it. Our health depends on the health of the planet — a fact supported by innumerable <a href="https://c532f75abb9c1c021b8c-e46e473f8aadb72cf2a8ea564b4e6a76.ssl.cf5.rackcdn.com/2020/05/22/8zqrkmzuna_Links_between_ecological_integrity_and_EIDs_originating_from_wildlife.pdf" target="_blank">scientific studies</a>.</p>
<p>With this in mind, many of us in the conservation community are now waiting for the European Union to deliver on its promised <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal_en" target="_blank">Green Deal</a>.</p><p>When discussing the EU COVID-19 recovery recently, European Commission Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans made a welcome statement and declared that the Green Deal is not a luxury but something that's essential for Europe's future. Done right, this plan for a sustainable economy can send a strong message to its citizens and to the world: We're all in this together, and we <em>will</em> protect nature and people.</p><p>As part of the Green Deal, the EU has started developing or reviewing major initiatives, including the <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal/actions-being-taken-eu/eu-biodiversity-strategy-2030_en" target="_blank">EU Biodiversity Strategy</a>. The new version of the Strategy, published May 20, sets the EU's biodiversity conservation objectives for the next 10 years. It also guides the EU's engagement within international agreements to which it is a party, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity.</p>
<div id="7d7cd" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="dbac853665b8646ea1fcb91f38bb13a8"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1266685787141222402" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Nature restoration is a central element of our recovery plan from the coronavirus pandemic.
The #EUBiodiversity st… https://t.co/Z4sjx7eWWb</div> — European Commission 🇪🇺 #UnitedAgainstCoronavirus (@European Commission 🇪🇺 #UnitedAgainstCoronavirus)<a href="https://twitter.com/EU_Commission/statuses/1266685787141222402">1590836400.0</a></blockquote></div><p>The implementation of this strategy could represent new hope. If the actions it outlines are fully implemented and financed, it will be a critical tool to ensure the reduction of direct and indirect drivers of biodiversity loss at a global scale, including the EU's global ecological footprint, and to address the drivers of ecosystem degradation and deforestation.</p><p>This is important, because the EU — like any major government or region — has a critical role to play, not only within its own borders but around the globe.</p><p>While it is, of course, essential that the EU protect native biodiversity within its 27 member states, the majority of global biodiversity lies in the tropics, where thousands of species are deeply affected by EU policies. So it's vital that the EU addresses the biodiversity beyond its borders through a global dimension.</p>
Trade, Biodiversity and Diseases
<p>The strategy, as published, does a great job acknowledging that efforts to address wildlife trade and consumption will help prevent and build up resilience to possible future diseases and pandemics.</p><p>But it doesn't go far enough. The EU must also assist the global community in ending the commercial trade and sale in markets of wildlife for human consumption — particularly birds and mammals — as a key outcome to prevent future zoonotic outbreaks.</p><p>Although much of the wildlife sold in these markets is legal, the illegal trade in wild animals continues to harm both wildlife and local communities. It can also produce the conditions for disastrous and deadly pandemics. The <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/environment/cites/trafficking_en.htm" target="_blank">EU Action Plan against Wildlife Trafficking</a> — first published in 2016 and due to expire this year — will therefore be a critical instrument for reducing that threat. The Biodiversity Strategy calls for the revision of the wildlife trafficking plan in 2021.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzM5MTUzMi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMjU0ODQyN30.HTuK9gjS5mRSa0K4JJwOy_akXZXrsT1wBIavUYO5bmE/img.jpg?width=980" id="06cdb" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="0f612c21221c12500d8305384e021d37" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/european-union-biodiversity-strategy/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>.<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2646172264#/" target="_self"></a></em><em></em></p>Southern white rhino, a frequently trafficked species, in Uganda. Rod Waddington / CC BY-SA 2.0
<p>This commitment is welcome and will provide an opportunity for the EU and its Member States to step up their efforts to combat wildlife trafficking and finally treat it as serious crime. Hopefully it will include a commitment to deploying a similar level of resources and penalties as currently devoted to crimes like drug trafficking. Without such deterrents in place, the EU — like any government or region — won't be able to put an end to wildlife trafficking.</p><p>The EU is also now determining its long-term budget — the Multiannual Financial Framework — and will soon set spending targets for the next seven years. The MFF and the next EU development-aid budget (the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument) are critical in outlining the EU's top priorities.</p><p>Those priorities must include high, ambitious spending targets for climate, environment and biodiversity. Without proper financing mechanisms, the EU won't be able to implement <em>any</em> strategies or actions to preserve our environment and health. While the Biodiversity Strategy states that the EU's ready to increase its support to developing countries for biodiversity after this year, no detailed financial pledge has yet been made. The EU has missed an opportunity to make a much-needed commitment in this regard, but it's not too late to establish one.</p><p>The EU has all the cards in its hands to make the right decisions — not only to significantly reduce the risk of future major pandemics but to build a new paradigm in which we can live in harmony with nature. It published a well-thought-out strategy that provides the foundation for ambitious actions to tackle the biodiversity crisis; now it needs to put its money where its mouth is.</p><p>The EU and its member states have established bold and immediate measures to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19 on human health, wellbeing and security. Now it must do the same to tackle the biodiversity crisis — whose impacts on our society are likely to be far worse than those of the COVID-19 pandemic.</p><p>The EU has a unique opportunity to show leadership, to be a game-changer, and to be on the right side of history a model that other governments and regions across the globe can emulate. Let's hope it doesn't let us down.</p>Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
A lone burnt tree stands on a deforested area in the surroundings of Porto Velho, Rondonia State, in the Amazon basin in west-central Brazil, on Aug. 24, 2019. CARL DE SOUZA / AFP / Getty Images
By Ajit Niranjan
Civil society groups and public prosecutors in Brazil are taking President Jair Bolsonaro's government to court for failing to protect the Amazon rainforest, adding pressure to an administration already under fire for mismanaging the coronavirus pandemic.
<p>Lawsuits filed last week challenge the government on two fronts: reducing inspections of exported timber — while demoting the environment agency expert whose team advised against it — and freezing climate funds to preserve forests that other countries also rely on to offset their carbon emissions.</p><p><br/></p>
<p>They are among a series of legal challenges that have been launched in Brazil after a tumultuous year-and-a-half of Bolsonaro rule. His administration has overseen a rise in deforestation, attacked the rights of people indigenous to the Amazon and relaxed rules to prevent illegal <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/amazon-deforestation-eu-firms-linked-to-illegal-logging-in-brazil/a-48442226" target="_blank">logging</a>, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/mass-deforestation-how-trade-fells-trees-in-brazil-and-indonesia/a-48280649" target="_blank">ranching</a> and <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/brazils-amazon-rainforest-has-become-the-wild-west-for-illegal-gold-miners/a-52623368" target="_blank">mining</a>.</p><p>Bolsonaro is a climate change denier who considers the environment to be a kind of enemy, said Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of Brazil-based think tank Climate Observatory, which provided the legal analysis behind the lawsuits. "It's very hard to believe Bolsonaro will change his behavior or mindset. What we really need to do is neutralize the attacks on the environment."</p>
<p>In recent weeks, the Brazilian government has been rebuked by foreign governments, investors and businesses for enabling deforestation — and by courts and protestors at home for <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/where-could-brazils-criminal-investigation-of-jair-bolsonaro-lead/a-53284984" target="_blank">political interference</a> and its handling of the coronavirus pandemic.</p><p>Brazil's supreme court ordered the government on Monday to resume publishing <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/supreme-court-rules-brazil-must-share-virus-data/a-53754069" target="_blank">coronavirus statistics</a> after it purged the health ministry website of COVID-19 case numbers and death tolls. The virus has killed more than 37,000 people in Brazil, which has the second-most coronavirus cases in the world behind only the U.S. "The manipulation of statistics is a maneuver of totalitarian regimes," said supreme court judge Gilmar Mendes. "The trick will not exempt responsibility for the eventual genocide."</p><p>Deforestation, meanwhile, had already last year hit its highest level since 2008. On Tuesday the country's space research agency INPE revised its estimates, saying it they were higher than previously thought. Using satellite data, the scientists calculated that year-on-year <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/brazil-reports-even-more-deforestation-after-revising-data/a-53767938" target="_blank">deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon</a> rose by 34 percent between August 2018 and July 2019, felling an area of forest about as big as Jamaica.</p><p>Georg Witschel, Germany's ambassador to Brazil, told <a href="https://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2020/06/11/desmatamento-na-amazonia-faz-cada-vez-mais-dificil-acordo-ue-mercosul-diz-embaixador-alemao.ghtml" target="_blank">Brazilian news outlet G1</a> on Thursday that deforestation makes it "increasingly difficult" to ratify the free trade agreement between the EU and South American trade bloc Mercosur.</p>
Coronavirus and Deforestation
<p>Brazil's environmental and health crises are closely linked. The coronavirus pandemic had given fresh impetus to land grabbers razing swathes of forests as lockdowns have kept law enforcement officers at home.</p><p>Now, the fires that typically follow the felling of trees could further strain health systems.</p><p>Blazing wildfires, like the ones that devastated the Amazon last year, spout pollutants that lower air quality and work their way into people's lungs, exacerbating the same <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-air-pollution-might-raise-risk-of-fatality/a-52977422" target="_blank">breathing diseases</a> that leave people more vulnerable to the coronavirus. A joint peak in forest fires and COVID-19 cases could overwhelm hospitals without "incisive intervention by the State to curb illegal acts," according to a report published in May by INPE.</p><p>That could collapse health systems in several Amazonian states that are already operating at the limit, the authors wrote. "If the turning point of the epidemiological curve of COVID-19 does not occur immediately, in May 2020, there will certainly be an overlap of fires with the pandemic."</p><p>This could spell disaster for indigenous peoples and uncontacted tribes, said Sarah Shenker, a campaigner with Survival International. "In Brazil, there are more than 100 uncontacted tribes and they could be wiped out if invaders are not removed from their territory."</p><p>Even before the current coronavirus crisis, scientists warned that <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/how-deforestation-can-lead-to-more-infectious-diseases/a-53282244" target="_blank">forest loss makes pandemics more likely</a> by increasing the chance that diseases jump from animals to humans. A study published in the journal PNAS in October found that deforestation of the Amazon significantly increases transmission of malaria, a different type of disease.</p>Preserving the Climate
<p>The Amazon rainforest — 60 percent of which lies in Brazil — is one of the world's great carbon sinks. Preserving its trees and plants is crucial to meeting international targets that <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/co2-emissions-gap-un-report-warns-of-collective-failure-to-act/a-51407286" target="_blank">limit global warming</a> to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.</p><p>Lawsuits that take years to complete are not going to produce results fast enough, said Ricardo Galvao, a former director of INPE who was <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/brazils-research-chief-sacked-after-deforestation-row-with-bolsonaro/a-49874119" target="_blank">fired by Bolsonaro</a> in August.</p><p>To curb deforestation in the Amazon, said Galvao, the best tools are "positive actions that show [that] exploring the forest, rather than destroying it, gives economic returns." For instance, international organizations like the UN could certify products from sustainably managed forests and countries could lower import taxes on such "green-stamped" goods.</p><p>Brazil has a legal commitment to reduce deforestation in the Amazon to a rate equivalent to about 3,900 square kilometers per year from 2020 onwards. In 2012, measures to protect the Amazon had brought deforestation down to 4,600 square kilometers, close to the target, but by 2019, it had rebounded to 9,800 square kilometers. </p><p>The Brazilian government, which in May brought in the military to <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/brazil-deploys-military-to-protect-amazon-rainforest/a-53398270" target="_blank">protect the forest</a>, has disputed its image as an environmental pariah. "We are the country that most preserves the environment in the world," said Bolsonaro on World Environment Day last week. "Unjustly, [we are] the most attacked."</p><p>Data from Brazil's Institute of Socioeconomic Studies show government spending on forest inspection dropped from R$17.4 million (US$3.5 million, €3.1 million) to R$5.3 million from the first five months of 2019 to the same period in 2020, while funding for activities under Brazil's national climate change plan were cut from R$436 million last year to R$247 million this year.</p><p>Ibama, the Brazilian environment agency, did not respond to a request for comment.</p><p>Big tracts of the rainforest have no recorded owner, making it easier to illegally grab land, and a lack of law enforcement can even mean that farmers who comply with regulations struggle to compete with those who don't.</p><p>Working with sustainable farmers and fixing land ownership structures could help Brazil slow deforestation during the coronavirus pandemic and recession, said Monica De Los Rios, Brazil coordinator at the nonprofit Earth Innovation Institute. "This is the most critical moment in the history of the Amazon."</p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/to-stop-amazon-deforestation-brazilian-groups-take-bolsonaro-to-court/a-53785160" target="_blank">Deutsche Welle</a>.<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2646172097#/" target="_self"></a></em><em></em></p>From Your Site Articles
- Indigenous Peoples Go to Court to Save the Amazon From Oil ... ›
- Leaked Documents Show Brazil's Bolsonaro Has Grave Plans for ... ›
- Amazon Deforestation Increase Prompts Germany to Cut $39.5M in ... ›
- Amazon Deforestation Rate Hits 3 Football Fields Per Minute, Data ... ›
- New Study: China and EU Soy Imports Are Increasing Brazil's Deforestation ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
Mangrove Action Project video
Along many tropical shorelines, swampy mangrove forests create habitat for fish and buffer the impact of heavy waves.
<p>
"Mangroves reduce the effects of climate change, protecting coastlines against erosion and rising sea levels and hurricanes or storm surge events," said Alfredo Quarto, cofounder of the <a href="https://mangroveactionproject.org/" target="_blank">Mangrove Action Project</a>.
</p>
<p>He says mangrove forests also store a huge amount of carbon, so they help slow global warming.</p><p>But around the world, mangrove forests have been cut down for development and agriculture.</p><p>For example, in Thailand, vast areas were destroyed to make room for shrimp farms. Many of those farms have since been abandoned.</p>
<p>So Quarto's group is helping turn those shrimp ponds back into ecosystems where mangroves can thrive.</p><p>He says the work requires more than planting seeds. For example, the group works with local communities to repair and reconnect waterways, which helps mangroves regenerate on their own.</p><p>"We're trying to establish a kind of natural restoration that will bring back a healthy forest," Quarto said. "It's important for the wild fisheries. It's important for the health of the coast, the resilience of the coast, especially in times of climate change."</p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/06/group-helps-turn-abandoned-shrimp-farms-into-carbon-storing-mangrove-ecosystems/" target="_blank">Yale Climate Connections</a>.<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2646162196#/" target="_self"></a></em><em></em></p>
Read More
Show Less
Pangolin hunting for ants. 2630ben / iStock / Getty Images Plus
By Alexander Richard Braczkowski, Christopher O'Bryan, Duan Biggs, and Raymond Jansen
Pangolins are one of the most illegally trafficked animals on the planet and are suspected to be linked to the current coronavirus pandemic.
<p>
Pangolins are also one of the world's most <a href="https://www.pangolins.org/tag/endangered-species/" target="_blank">threatened species</a> but new efforts are underway to reintroduce pangolins to parts of Africa where the animal has been extinct for decades.
</p><p>
The reintroduction of pangolins has not been easy. But it's vital to prevent this shy, mysterious creature from being lost forever.
</p>
<p>
<em>Reposted with permission from </em><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/back-from-extinction-a-world-first-effort-to-return-threatened-pangolins-to-the-wild-138621" target="_blank">The Conversation</a></em><em>.</em>
</p><script async="async" data-counter="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138621/count?distributor=republish-lightbox-advanced" id="theconversation_tracker_hook" src="https://theconversation.com/javascripts/lib/content_tracker_hook.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
A Cute But Threatened Species
<p><a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/what-is-a-pangolin" target="_blank">Pangolins</a> are the only mammals wholly-covered in scales, which they use to protect themselves from predators. They can also curl up into a tight ball.</p><p>They eat mainly ants, termites and larvae which they pick up with their sticky tongue. They can grow up to 1m in length from nose to tail and are sometimes referred to as scaly anteaters.</p><p>But <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128155073000332" title="Chapter 33 - Conservation strategies and priority actions for pangolins" target="_blank">all eight</a> pangolin species are classified as "<a href="https://www.pangolins.org/tag/endangered-species/" target="_blank">threatened</a>" under International Union for Conservation of Nature <a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/search?query=pangolin&searchType=species" target="_blank">criteria</a>.</p><p>There is an unprecedented demand for their scales, primarily from countries in Asia and <a href="https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/conl.12389" title="Assessing Africa‐Wide Pangolin Exploitation by Scaling Local Data" target="_blank">Africa</a> where they are used in food, cultural remedies and <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/141072b0" title="Chinese Medicine and the Pangolin" target="_blank">medicine</a>.</p><p>Between 2017 and 2019, seizures of pangolin scales <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/02/pangolin-scale-trade-shipments-growing/" target="_blank">tripled in volume</a>. In 2019 alone, 97 tons of pangolin scales, equivalent to about 150,000 animals, were <a href="https://oxpeckers.org/2020/03/nigeria-steps-up-for-pangolins/" target="_blank">reportedly</a> intercepted leaving Africa.</p><p>There is further evidence of the illegal trade in pangolin species openly on <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/coronavirus-pangolins-outbreak-endangered-species-wildlife-trafficking-a9504776.html" target="_blank">social media platforms</a> such as Facebook.</p><p>The intense global trafficking of the species means the entire order (<em>Pholidota</em>) is threatened with <a href="https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/conl.12389" title="Assessing Africa‐Wide Pangolin Exploitation by Scaling Local Data" target="_blank">extinction</a>. For example, the Temminck's pangolins (<em>Smutsia temminckii</em>) went extinct in South Africa's KwaZulu Natal Province three decades ago.</p>
Reintroduction of an Extinct Species
<p>Each year in South Africa the African Pangolin Working Group (<a href="https://africanpangolin.org/" target="_blank">APWG</a>) retrieves between 20 and 40 pangolins through intelligence operations with security forces.</p><p>These pangolins are often-traumatised and injured and are admitted to the <a href="http://www.johannesburgwildlifevet.com/our-hospital" target="_blank">Johannesburg Wildlife Veterinary Hospital</a> for extensive medical treatment and rehabilitation before they can be considered for release.</p><p>In 2019, seven rescued Temminck's pangolins were reintroduced into South Africa's <a href="https://www.andbeyond.com/destinations/africa/south-africa/kwazulu-natal/phinda-private-game-reserve/" target="_blank">Phinda Private Game Reserve</a> in the KwaZulu Natal Province.</p><p>Nine months on, five have survived. This reintroduction is a world first for a region that last saw a viable population of this species in the 1980s.</p><p>During the release, every individual pangolin followed a strict regime. They needed to become familiar with their new surroundings and be able to forage efficiently.</p><p>Previous releases, including early on in South Africa and in other countries such as the <a href="https://pcsd.gov.ph/igov/2020/01/30/twenty-philippine-pangolins-released-back-into-the-wild/" target="_blank">Philippines</a>, the <a href="https://newsroom.wcs.org/News-Releases/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/13877/Its-UN-World-Wildlife-Day-Today-March-3-Rare-Giant-Pangolin-Seized-from-Poachers-Rescued-and-Released-by-WCS-and-Partners-in-Congo.aspx" target="_blank">Democratic Republic of the Congo</a> and <a href="https://www.discoverwildlife.com/news/rescued-pangolin-released-back-into-the-wild/" target="_blank">Thailand</a> had minimal post-release monitoring.</p><p>Pangolins released immediately following medical treatment had a low level of survival for various reasons, including inability to adapt to their release sites.</p>
A ‘Soft Release’ in to the Wild
<p>The process on Phinda game reserve involved a more gentle ease into re-wilding a population in a region that had not seen pangolins for many decades.</p><p>The soft release had two phases:</p><ol><li>a pre-release observational period</li><li>an intensive monitoring period post release employing GPS satellite as well as VHF tracking tags.</li></ol><p>The pre-release period lasted between two to three weeks and were characterised by daily walks (three to five hours) of individuals on the reserves. These walks were critical for acclimatising individuals to the local habitat, its sounds, smells and possible threats. It also helped them source suitable and sufficient ant and termite species for food.</p><p>Following that, the post release period of two to three months involved locating released pangolins daily at first, and then twice per week where they were weighed, a rapid health assessment was made and habitat features such as burrows and refuges monitored.</p><p>Phinda reserve manager Simon Naylor said:</p><blockquote>A key component of the post release period was whether individuals gained or maintained their weight.<br>The way the animals move after release also reveals important clues to whether they will stay in an area; if they feed, roll in dung, enter burrows. Much of this behaviour indicates site fidelity and habitat acceptance.<br></blockquote>
<p>Following nine months of monitoring and tracking, five of the seven survived in the region. One died of illness while the other was killed by a Nile crocodile.</p>
Why Pangolin Reintroduction is Important
<p>We know so little about this group of mammals that are vastly understudied and hold many secrets yet to be discovered by science but are on the verge of collapse.</p><p>The South African and Phinda story is one of hope for the Temminck's pangolin where they once again roam the savanna hills and plains of Zululand.</p><p>The process of relocating these trade animals back into the wild has taken many turns, failures and tribulations but, the recipe of the "soft release" is working.</p>From Your Site Articles
- 10 Facts About Pangolins on World Pangolin Day - EcoWatch ›
- Meet the 'Pangolin Men' Saving the World's Most Trafficked Mammal ... ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
The Sumatran rhino is one of 515 endangered species of land animals on the brink of extinction. Mark Carwardine / Photolibrary / Getty Images
The sixth mass extinction is here, and it's speeding up.
<p>A new study, <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/05/27/1922686117" target="_blank">published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Monday</a>, found that 515 land <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/animals/" target="_self">animals</a> are currently on the brink of extinction. That's slightly less than the at least 543 species that disappeared last century. However, these extremely <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/endangered-species" target="_self">endangered species</a> are expected to disappear in the next two decades, <a href="https://news.stanford.edu/press/view/34340" target="_blank">Stanford University explained in a press release</a>.</p><p>"When humanity exterminates populations and species of other creatures, it is sawing off the limb on which it is sitting, destroying working parts of our own life-support system," study coauthor and Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich said in the press release. "The <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation" target="_self">conservation</a> of endangered species should be elevated to a national and global emergency for governments and institutions, equal to <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate</a> disruption to which it is linked."</p>
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8768fc2a38d4601fb0f3f9fbfae1718c"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vES3YlXcrrc?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<p>Ehrlich helped to write a 2015 study confirming that a sixth mass extinction had begun, and he now says the extinction rate is likely higher than previously thought. Species are going extinct at rates hundreds or thousands of times faster than the "background" rate for the last tens of millions of years, and are being killed off by one overriding factor: us. Several specific human actions are behind these losses, including habitat loss, hunting, the introduction of invasive species, pollution, the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildlife" target="_self">wildlife</a> trade and the climate crisis.</p><p>"The massive losses that we are experiencing are being caused, directly or indirectly, by the activities of <em>Homo sapiens,</em>" the study authors wrote.</p>
<p>To draw their conclusions, the researchers looked at data on 29,400 land vertebrate species compiled by the <a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/" target="_blank">IUCN Red List of Threatened Species</a> and <a href="https://www.birdlife.org/" target="_blank">BirdLife International</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/01/sixth-mass-extinction-of-wildlife-accelerating-scientists-warn?CMP=twt_a-environment_b-gdneco" target="_blank">The Guardian explained</a>. Of those species, 515 had populations of fewer than 1,000, and about half of the 515 were down to less than 250 individuals.</p><p>Most of the at-risk species live in the tropics or subtropics. They include the Sumatran rhino, the Clarión wren, the Española giant tortoise and the harlequin frog.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzM2NjEyOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwMTE4NDI1MX0.2WWSb0c89DNXcCCPJ1goB36-HAqJ3BcWogNMRMHbSL8/img.jpg?width=980" id="18b32" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="0d1e4850694f3b468f7ee20744b33763" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Terrestrial vertebrates on the brink (i.e., with 1,000 or fewer individuals) include species such as (A) Sumatran rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis; image credit: Rhett A. Butler [photographer]), (B) Clarion island wren (Troglodytes tanneri; image credit: Claudio Contreras Koob [photographer]), (C) Española Giant Tortoise (Chelonoidis hoodensis; image credit: G.C.), and (D) Harlequin frog (Atelopus varius; the population size of the species is unknown but it is estimated at less than 1,000; image credit: G.C.).
<p>Because ecosystems are so interconnected, the disappearance of any of these at-risk species would put other species at risk. For example, when sea otters were overhunted in the Bering Sea, the population of sea urchins bloomed, devouring kelp forests and driving the Steller's sea cow to extinction. Eighty-four percent of species with populations under 5,000 live in the same regions as species with populations under 1,000, making such a domino effect more likely.</p><p>"Extinction breeds extinction," the researchers wrote.</p>
<p>The eradication of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/biodiversity" target="_self">biodiversity</a> is also a major threat to human civilization. The most timely example is the spread of the new <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coronavirus" target="_self">coronavirus</a>, which originated in bats and is believed to have passed to humans through another animal at a wildlife market, the press release explained.</p><p>"Based on our research and what we're seeing, the extinction crisis is so bad that whatever we do in the next 10 to 50 years is what will define the future of humanity," study coauthor professor Gerardo Ceballos of the National University of Mexico in Mexico City told <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52881831" target="_blank">BBC News</a>.</p><p>The researchers called for a ban on the international wildlife trade, according to Stanford. They have also started an initiative called <a href="https://stopextinctions.org/" target="_blank">Stop Extinction</a> to raise awareness of the biodiversity crisis.</p><p>"In view of the current extinction crisis and the lack of widespread actions to halt it, it is very important that scientists should metaphorically take to the streets," they wrote.</p>
From Your Site Articles
- Humanity 'Sleepwalking Towards the Edge of a Cliff': 60% of Earth's ... ›
- New Border Wall Construction Threatens 8 Species With Extinction ... ›
- The Insect Apocalypse Is Coming: Here Are 5 Lessons We Must Learn ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
Trending
Green living spruce and gray dead spruce in the Harz mountain region on May 7, 2020 near Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany. Jens Schlueter / Getty Images
More than a third of the world's old growth forests died between 1900 and 2015, a new study has found.
<p>In the study, <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6494/eaaz9463" target="_blank">published in Science</a> Friday, nearly two dozen scientists used satellite data combined with more than 160 previous studies to show that <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/deforestation" target="_self">deforestation</a> and the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a> are killing off older, taller <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/trees" target="_self">trees</a> and leaving forests younger and shorter, <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/05/grand-old-trees-are-dying-leaving-forests-younger-shorter/" target="_blank">National Geographic explained</a>. And the trend is likely to continue.</p><p>"We will see fewer forests," University of Wisconsin forest ecologist and study coauthor Monica Turner told National Geographic. "There will be areas where there are forests now where there won't be in the future."</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">More than 20 <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/scientists?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#scientists</a> show global conditions lead to younger, shorter trees: <a href="https://t.co/KR2Tnwx4Af">https://t.co/KR2Tnwx4Af</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/deforestation?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#deforestation</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/forests?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#forests</a> 🎄<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/science?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#science</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/researchhighlight?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#researchhighlight</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/environment?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#environment</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/LosAlamosNatLab?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@LosAlamosNatLab</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/ORNL?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ORNL</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/NASA?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NASA</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Stanford?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Stanford</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/LBNL?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@LBNL</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/ScienceMagazine?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ScienceMagazine</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/McDowell_Trees?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@McDowell_Trees</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/poulterlab?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@poulterlab</a> <a href="https://t.co/NN7k7qcEaW">pic.twitter.com/NN7k7qcEaW</a></p>— PNNL (@PNNLab) <a href="https://twitter.com/PNNLab/status/1266087442081296390?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 28, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p>The study was led by Nate McDowell of the U.S. Department of Energy's <a href="https://www.pnnl.gov/" target="_blank">Pacific Northwest National Laboratory</a> (PNNL), who explained why this change was such a big deal.</p><p>"A future planet with fewer large, old forests will be very different than what we have grown accustomed to," he said in a <a href="https://www.pnnl.gov/news-media/global-environmental-changes-leading-shorter-younger-trees" target="_blank">PNNL press release</a>. "Older forests often host much higher <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/biodiversity" target="_self">biodiversity</a> than young forests and they store more carbon than young forests."</p>
<p>Old growth tree loss is being driven by a number of factors, many of them linked to the climate crisis in some way. Warmer temperatures limit photosynthesis, both stunting and killing trees. Increased <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drought" target="_self">droughts</a> both kill trees directly and lead to attacks by <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/insects" target="_self">insect</a> pests. <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildfires" target="_self">Wildfires</a> and infestations by insects, fungi and choking vines are all on the rise. Humans have also killed old growth trees more directly by chopping them down.</p><p>These factors combine to alter forest makeup, PNNL explained:</p><blockquote>Known as deforestation, the phenomenon has led to an imbalance of three important characteristics of a diverse and thriving forest: (1) recruitment, which is the addition of new seedlings to a community; (2) growth, the net increase in biomass or carbon; and (3) mortality, the death of forest trees.</blockquote>
<p>"Mortality is rising in most areas, while recruitment and growth are variable over time, leading to a net decline in the stature of forests," McDowell said.</p><p>While previous scientists had predicted increased carbon dioxide would lead to more tree growth, McDowell's team found this was only the case in younger forests with lots of nutrients and water. Otherwise, he explained to National Geographic, hotter temperatures reduce moisture, causing trees to shed leaves and close pores to retain water, which makes it harder for them to absorb carbon dioxide.</p><p>"[It's like] going to an all-you-can-eat buffet with duct tape over their mouths," he said.</p>
<p>Tree loss is truly a worldwide problem. In the Western U.S., Canada and Europe, where data is most abundant, the rate of tree death has doubled in the last four decades, and older trees have disproportionately been affected. Worldwide, humans have cut down 12 percent of the world's forests since 1900, and the proportion of the world's forests that are more than 140 years old has declined from 89 to 66 percent during that time, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/28/climate-crisis-world-forests-shorter-younger-study" target="_blank">The Guardian reported</a>.</p><p>The study spells bad news for trees' ability to help combat the climate crisis.</p><p>"When old trees die, they decompose and stop sucking up CO2 and release more of it to the atmosphere," McDowell told National Geographic. "It's like a thermostat gone bad. Warming begets tree loss, then tree loss begets more warming."</p>
<p>However, professor Simon Lewis of University College London, who was not involved in the study, pointed out that while forests are getting younger on average, some crucial old growth forests are actually increasing their area.</p><p>"The world's intact tropical and boreal forests are both globally important as carbon sinks, and are getting larger," he told The Guardian. "The world's forests currently slow climate change, and while future mortality trends could reverse this, the ideas in the new report don't change what the world needs to do: stabilise the climate by quickly driving fossil fuel emissions to zero and protect the world's forests."</p>
From Your Site Articles
- Family Forests Are Key to Fighting Climate Change. - EcoWatch ›
- Amazon Deforestation Is Causing 20% of Forests to Release More ... ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
A young monk seal underwater in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands. NOAA / PIFSC / HMSRP
By Tara Lohan
The Sargasso Sea, an area of the Atlantic Ocean between the Caribbean and Bermuda, has bedeviled sailors for centuries. Its namesake — sargassum, a type of free-floating seaweed — and notoriously calm winds have "trapped" countless mariners, including the crew of Christopher Columbus's Santa Maria.
<p>For the past 500 years, most of the stories that have come from the Sargasso have been about stranded ships and sunken vessels. But in recent years scientists have rewritten the sea's narrative. It's not a life-stealing sea, but a life-giving one. The seaweed alone helps support 100 species of invertebrates, 280 species of fish and 23 species of birds.</p><p>That's one of the reasons why a team of scientists from 13 universities and institutions included the Sargasso Sea as one of 10 biodiversity hotspots in the high seas — areas of the ocean outside of national boundaries — that their research indicates should be considered for designation as marine protected areas.</p><p>Their <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X19309194#!" target="_blank">recommendations</a>, published earlier this year in the journal <em>Marine Policy</em>, took more than a little bit of work to develop.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/ocean-biodiversity-mpa/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>. </em><em></em></p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzMxMzEwNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTU5OTkwNzAyM30.Np_V-1lN3jiRrejo8GI3dZ0C7rzIbgCQr2vaV-U3-Xk/img.jpg?width=980" id="ef11e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a71193b1578c9a9b1b6edd21ccdbd716" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Results from the global data-driven conservation planning analysis showing priority areas to be considered for protection (green) in marine areas beyond national jurisdiction. Visalli et al
Quantifying the Great Unknown
<p>The high seas make up two-thirds of the ocean, much of which is remote. Scientists are still learning about the diversity and complexity of life there.</p><p>"We're discovering new species in the high seas all the time," said Morgan Visalli, lead author of <em>Marine Policy</em> study and a project scientist with U.C. Santa Barbara's <a href="https://boi.ucsb.edu/" target="_blank">Benioff Ocean Initiative</a>.</p><p>But at the same time, her colleague and study coauthor Douglas McCauley, director of the Benioff Ocean Initiative, said there's also a lot we <em>do</em> know that can help guide conservation.</p><p>They began their study by reaching out to networks of colleagues across the world to help gather data.</p><p>"I was really impressed by how much we actually know — how much data we have for what is out there, biologically speaking," he said. "And also what people are doing in that space. We can't fall back on the excuse of not knowing enough."</p><p>The researchers ended up analyzing 22 billion data points — a huge data-processing challenge — to identify areas of the high seas that could warrant protection.</p><p>That included looking at indicators such as seafloor habitat, ocean productivity, diversity and richness of species, and extinction risks. They also identified certain physical features — like seamounts and hydrothermal vents — where changes in elevation and temperature help foster biodiversity.</p><p>Their results identified <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/reports/2020/03/a-path-to-creating-the-first-generation-of-high-seas-protected-areas" target="_blank">priority regions</a> in nearly all the major ocean basins, with the largest areas in the South Pacific Ocean. Key areas also included the Sargasso Sea, as well as the Costa Rica thermal dome in the Pacific Ocean; the South Tasman Sea; the Emperor Seamount Chain northwest of the Hawaiian Islands; the Mascarene Plateau in the Indian Ocean; and the Walvis Ridge, an undersea mountain range off southwestern Africa.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzMxMzEwNi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNDI4NDYwN30.QFfMyJCTEjL8D37O12PIkoBxHP_Pb9DNEnRV6eiEiKo/img.jpg?width=980" id="9c6dd" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7261fcecfef2fae3263eb06f1e3f8b1c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
UCSB analysis; Marineregions.org; Natural Earth. © 2020 The Pew Charitable Trusts
<p>Their model avoided areas of high fishing activity in order to avoid what the study calls "real or perceived negative socioeconomic impacts" of setting aside conservation areas. It also took into consideration how climate change could alter biodiversity by selecting areas critical today and ones likely to be important in the future as well.</p>The Need for Protection
<p>The research comes at a critical time for the future of the ocean — and the high seas, specifically.</p><p>A new United Nations treaty to protect and conserve biodiversity in the high seas is<a href="https://therevelator.org/high-seas-treaty/" target="_blank"> currently being negotiated</a>, and a focus of those talks is how to create a framework for establishing marine protected areas outside of national waters. This could help ensure that unique ecosystems like the Sargasso Sea and others identified in the <em>Marine Policy</em> study aren't overexploited.</p><p>The current law that governs the high seas, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, was finalized in 1982. But since then, our collective impact is starting to reveal gaps in governance.</p><p>Marine shipping traffic is up 1,600 percent and plastic pollution has increased 100-fold. At least one-third of fish stocks are being overharvested, and many migratory fish species, such as tuna, have declined more than 60 percent. Technological advances have led to more prospecting in the ocean's depths for minerals and other genetic resources, as well as more destructive practices, like trawling along the ocean floor. Climate change, which is warming waters and increasing acidification, poses even more risks to ocean life.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzMxMzEwOC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNzE3NTg0MX0.Hg5Z-qf8B0rThFdYtITYNyBUPqsoWm8f-xxVHKV0MhY/img.jpg?width=980" id="2c686" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="60a28fa3ad6adf7e3397251af13e1ccf" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Coral bleaching in the Gulf of Thailand. Petchrung Sukpong / CC BY-SA 2.0
<p>This has all taken a toll.</p><p>A <a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-decline-unprecedented-report/" target="_blank">landmark report</a> last year from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services found massive declines in biodiversity globally — including in the ocean, with one-third of all reef-forming corals and marine mammals threatened with extinction.</p><p>A recent study in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2146-7" target="_blank" style="">Nature</a>, published just a few days after the <em>Marine Policy</em> study, suggests that we've come to a critical crossroads.</p><p>"We are at a point at which we can choose between a legacy of a resilient and vibrant ocean or an irreversibly disrupted ocean, for the generations to follow," wrote the researchers, led by Carlos Duarte, a professor of marine science at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology.</p><p>They posited that with enough resources and global will, we can see a "substantial recovery of the abundance, structure and function of marine life" by 2050. But to do that, we need to scale up efforts to protect vulnerable species and habitats, reduce pollution and — most critically — curb climate change.</p><p>That's why Visalli and McCauley believe efforts like the emerging high seas treaty are important.</p><p>So far fully implemented marine protected areas span just 5 percent of the ocean. And the vast majority of these reserves are in national waters, which are only one-third of the ocean. But a high seas treaty would help create a framework to more easily set aside conservation-rich areas in a much greater expanse.</p><p>"Even though there is industry out there and it has been increasing over the past several decades," said Visalli, "there is still a lot of wilderness in the high seas, and we are at this moment where we have an opportunity to protect these wild places before industry continues to expand even further."</p><p>To truly protect and restore ocean health, scientists have been calling for a bare minimum of 30 percent of the ocean to be protected. More protected areas in the high seas are important for meeting that goal. But just as crucial as how much space, is also <em>where</em> that space is.</p>The Need for Protected Spaces
<p>The major driver for changing and threatening biodiversity in the long term is climate change, said McCauley, which makes protecting these spaces vital in the short term.</p><p>"We are already seeing the first manifestation of these threats and we need to think about climate change and always manage the oceans — from fishing regulations to ocean parks — with that in mind," he said. "Climate change is changing where biodiversity will be in the high seas, and we can use data to plan for that."</p><p>Duarte and authors of the <em>Nature</em> study wrote that "Climate change is the critical backdrop against which all future rebuilding efforts will play out." But well-managed marine protected areas, they said, can help ecosystems be better equipped to handle threats from climate change, like warming temperatures and changing ocean chemistry.</p><p>Getting there won't be cheap. A global network of marine protected areas that conserves 20–30 percent of the ocean could cost $5–19 billion a year, the researchers write in <em>Nature</em>.</p><p>But supporting local economies, feeding communities, and fostering biodiversity don't have to be mutually exclusive. The money spent on conservation will be more than returned in economic gains from the new jobs, revenue from ecotourism, restored fisheries, and protections for coastal areas, their research found.</p><p>But establishing the policy and international agreements, like the high seas treaty, to set plans in motion will require a lot of compromise, said McCauley.</p><p>"We need that space to have an ocean economy and we need that space to have biodiversity," he said. "Can we find a sweet spot?"</p>From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
Charlie Rogers / Moment / Getty Images
As the COVID-19 virus was spreading around the world, deforestation in the world's rainforests rose at an alarming rate, the German arm of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said in a study published on Thursday.
<p>The study, which analyzed satellite data of 18 countries compiled by the University of Maryland, found that deforestation rose by 150% this March compared 2017-2019 average for the same calendar month.</p>
<p>Around 6,500 square kilometers (2,510 square miles) of rainforest were felled in March alone — an area seven times the size of Berlin, the WWF said.</p><p>"This indicates that we're dealing with a coronavirus effect on the exploding rates of deforestation," Christoph Heinrich, the head of nature conservation with WWF Germany, said in a statement.</p>
Indonesia Forests Hit Hardest
<p>The forests most heavily hit by deforestation in March were in Indonesia, with more than 1,300 square kilometers lost. </p><p>The Democratic Republic of Congo saw the second-largest forest loss with 1,000 square kilometers followed by Brazil with 950 square kilometers.</p><p>The Brazilian non-profit research institute Imazon told news agency DPA that deforestation was up in April as well. The institute recorded a loss of 529 square kilometers in the Amazon in April, a rise of 171% compared to last year.</p>Tied to COVID-19
<p>The WWF says there's ample evidence to suggest the boom in rainforest deforestation is being fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic.</p><p>With stay-at-home orders and strict lockdowns in place in countries around the world, authorities haven't been able to patrol nature preserves and indigenous territories as often — a situation that criminal organizations and illegal loggers have been using to their advantage.</p><p>The virus has also prompted massive job losses in many countries, leaving many newly-unemployed people increasingly desperate for sources of income.</p><p>The WWF noted that the legal timber trade is a substantial source of income for several African countries but is virtually on ice amid various coronavirus shutdowns. The broken supply chains have led to concerns that the forests are losing their value and forest conservation efforts are losing their foothold.</p><p>Along the Mekong River in southeast Asia, tourists have disappeared and with them a substantial source of income for local merchants selling forest products like honey, nuts or berries. Many have left the cities and returned to their home villages and are cutting down trees for firewood or a source of income.</p><p>The WWF said governments providing financial and technological support to locals could help reduce the rise in deforestation.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/wwf-rainforest-deforestation-more-than-doubled-under-cover-of-coronavirus/a-53526064" target="_blank">Deutsche Welle</a>.</em><em></em></p>From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less