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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
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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
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Biodiversity – the diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems – is declining globally, faster than at any other time in human history. Csondy / Getty Images
By Marie Quinney
Biodiversity is critically important – to your health, to your safety and, probably, to your business or livelihood.
<p>But biodiversity – the diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems – is declining globally, faster than at any other time in human history. The world's 7.6 billion people represent just 0.01% of all living things by weight, but humanity has caused the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/21/human-race-just-001-of-all-life-but-has-destroyed-over-80-of-wild-mammals-study" target="_blank">loss of 83% of all wild mammals and half of all plants</a>. (Biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse is one of the top five risks in <a href="https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-risks-report-2020" target="_blank">the World Economic Forum's 2020 Global Risks Report</a>, too.)</p><p>In celebration of <a href="https://www.cbd.int/idb/" target="_blank">the International Day for Biological Diversity</a>, we break down the five ways in which biodiversity supports our economies and enhances our wellbeing – and has the potential to do even more.</p>
1. Biodiversity Ensures Health and Food Security.
<p>Biodiversity underpins global nutrition and food security. Millions of species work together to provide us with a <a href="https://www.cbd.int/health/doc/Summary-SOK-Final.pdf" target="_blank">large array of fruits, vegetables and animal products essential to a healthy, balanced diet</a> – but they are increasingly under threat.</p><p>Every country has indigenous produce – such as wild greens and grains – which have adapted to local conditions, making them more resilient to pests and extreme weather. In the past, this produce provided much-needed micronutrients for local populations. Unfortunately, however, the <a href="http://www.fao.org/3/a-i1620e.pdf" target="_blank">simplification of diets, processed foods and poor access to food have led to poor-quality diets</a>. As a result, <a href="https://www.bioversityinternational.org/research-portfolio/diet-diversity/biodiversity-for-food-and-nutrition/" target="_blank">one-third of the world suffers from micronutrient deficiencies</a>.</p><p>Three crops – wheat, corn and rice – <a href="https://enviroliteracy.org/food/crops/" target="_blank">provide almost 60% of total plant-based calories consumed by humans</a>. This leads to reduced resiliency in our supply chains and on our plates. For example, <a href="http://www.fao.org/3/a-i1620e.pdf" target="_blank">the number of rice varieties cultivated in Asia has dropped from tens of thousands to just a few dozen; in Thailand, 50% of land used for growing rice only produces two varieties</a>.</p><p>People once understood that the conservation of species was crucial for healthy societies and ecosystems. We must ensure this knowledge remains part of our modern agricultural and food systems to prevent diet-related diseases and reduce the environmental impact of feeding ourselves.</p>2. Biodiversity Helps Fight Disease.
<p>Higher rates of biodiversity have been linked to an increase in human health.</p><p>First, plants are essential for medicines. For example, <a href="http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_New_Nature_Economy_Report_2020.pdf" target="_blank">25% of drugs used in modern medicine are derived from rainforest plants</a> while <a href="http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_New_Nature_Economy_Report_2020.pdf" target="_blank">70% of cancer drugs are natural or synthetic products inspired by nature</a>. This means that every time a species goes extinct, we miss out on a potential new medicine.</p><p>Second, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/news.2010.644" target="_blank">biodiversity due to protected natural areas has been linked to lower instances of disease</a> such as Lyme disease and malaria. While the exact origin of the virus causing COVID-19 is still unknown, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5711306/" target="_blank">60% of infectious diseases originate from animals</a> and <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/631980-Machalaba-Anthropogenic%20Drivers%20of%20Emerging%20Infectious%20Diseases.pdf" target="_blank">70% of emerging infectious diseases originate from wildlife</a>. As human activities encroach upon the natural world, through deforestation and urbanization, we reduce the size and number of ecosystems. As a result, animals live in closer quarters with one another and with humans, creating ideal conditions for the spread of zoonotic diseases.</p><p>Simply put: <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/news.2010.644" target="_blank">more species means less disease</a>.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzMxMDYyOC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MDA4MjA5MH0.7QU59zfy44cq0wSAwMxeqjyygJi9ef1aEyYHQZ3gCts/img.png?width=980" id="77368" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="18d555bb10422495fc147f109cb72b3b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Human activity is eroding biodiversity. World Economic Forum Nature Risk Rising
3. Biodiversity Benefits Business.
<p>According to the World Economic Forum's recent <a href="http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_New_Nature_Economy_Report_2020.pdf" target="_blank">Nature Risk Rising Report</a>, more than half of the world's GDP ($44 trillion) is highly or moderately dependent on nature. Many businesses are, therefore, at risk due to increasing nature loss. <a href="https://wwf.panda.org/our_work/biodiversity/protected_areas/arguments_for_protection/goods_services/medicine/" target="_blank">Global sales of pharmaceuticals based on materials of natural origin are worth an estimated $75 billion a year</a>, while natural wonders such as <a href="https://wwf.panda.org/knowledge_hub/all_publications/living_planet_report_2018/" target="_blank">coral reefs are essential to food and tourism.</a></p><p>There is great potential for the economy to grow and become more resilient by ensuring biodiversity. <a href="http://wedocs.unep.org/xmlui/handle/20.500.11822/31813" target="_blank">Every dollar spent on nature restoration leads to at least $9 of economic benefits.</a> In addition, <a href="https://www.foodandlandusecoalition.org/global-report/" target="_blank">changing agricultural and food production methods could unlock $4.5 trillion per year in new business opportunities by 2030</a>, while also preventing trillions of dollars' worth of social and environmental harms.</p>4. Biodiversity Provides Livelihoods.
<p>Humans derive approximately <a href="https://livingplanetindex.org/home/index" target="_blank">$125 trillion of value from natural ecosystems each year</a>. Globally, <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/en/natural-sciences/environment/water/wwap/wwdr/2016-water-and-jobs/" target="_blank">three out of four jobs</a> are dependent on water while the agricultural sector employs over <a href="https://www.conservation.org/priorities/livelihoods" target="_blank">60% of the world's working poor</a>. In the Global South, forests are the source of livelihoods for <a href="https://www.conservation.org/priorities/livelihoods" target="_blank">over 1.6 billion people</a>. In India, forest ecosystems contribute <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19915547" target="_blank">only 7% to India's GDP yet 57% of rural Indian communities' livelihoods</a>.</p><p><span></span>Ecosystems, therefore, must be protected and restored – not only for the good of nature but also for the communities that depend on them.</p><p>Although some fear environmental regulation and the safeguarding of nature could threaten businesses, the "restoration economy" – the restoration of natural landscapes – provides more jobs in the United States than most of the extractives sector, with the potential to create even more. According to some estimates, the restoration economy is worth <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0128339" target="_blank">$25 billion per year and directly employs more than the coal, mining, logging and steel industries altogether</a>. Nature-positive businesses can provide <a href="https://www.greenbiz.com/article/10-things-you-need-know-about-restoration-economy" target="_blank">cost-effective, robot-proof, business-friendly jobs</a> that stimulate the rural economy without harming the environment.</p>5. Biodiversity Protects Us.
<p>Biodiversity makes the earth habitable. Biodiverse ecosystems provide <a href="https://www.nature-basedsolutions.com/" target="_blank">nature-based solutions</a> that buffer us from <a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/coral_protect.html" target="_blank">natural disasters such as floods and storms</a>, <a href="https://digital.iucn.org/water/nature-based-solutions-for-water/" target="_blank">filter our water</a> and <a href="https://www.naturebasedsolutionsinitiative.org/publications/the-superior-effect-of-nature-based-solutions-in-land-management-for-enhancing-ecosystem-services/" target="_blank">regenerate our soils</a>.</p><p>The <a href="https://blogs.worldbank.org/voices/miracle-mangroves-coastal-protection-numbers" target="_blank">clearance of over 35% of the world's mangroves for human activities</a> has increasingly put people and their homes at risk from floods and sea-level rise. If today's mangroves were lost, 18 million more people would be flooded every year (an increase of 39%) and annual damages to property would increase by 16% ($82 billion).</p><p>Protecting and restoring natural ecosystems is vital to fighting climate change. Nature-based solutions could provide <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/114/44/11645" target="_blank">37% of the cost-effective CO2 mitigation needed by 2030</a> to maintain global warming within 2°C (35.6 F).</p><p>Natural ecosystems provide the foundations for economic growth, human health and prosperity. Our fate as a species is deeply connected to the fate of our natural environment.</p><p>As ecosystems are increasingly threatened by human activity, acknowledging the benefits of biodiversity is the first step in ensuring that we look after it. We know biodiversity matters. Now, as a society, we should protect it – and in doing so, protect our own long-term interests.</p>From Your Site Articles
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The Ebo Forest in Cameroon, Africa, is a biodiversity hotspot, home to an amazing range of wildlife, including forest elephants, gorillas, drills, chimpanzees, grey parrots and the goliath frog. San Diego Zoo Global
By Lamfu Fabrice Yengong and Sylvie Djacbou Deugoue
Biodiversity loss is a global crisis. In May last year, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) warned that over 1,000,000 species are threatened with extinction worldwide. On May 22, the International Day of Biodiversity, it is important to recall the silent victims of our country's obsession for industrial growth at the expense of our forests.
<p>Tropical rainforests are estimated to harbor more than half of the world's plant and animal species. They are also essential for access to water, regulating temperature and preventing soil erosion. It's time to return the forests to indigenous and local communities. </p><p>In our country, Cameroon, the conservation of biodiversity, global climate goals and human rights of indigenous and local communities are all put at stake for industrial exploitation of the rainforest, driven by short-sighted thinking. Biodiversity hotspots are put at risk by industrial logging and agriculture, as trees are cut for the tropical timber market and entire forests cleared to make room for oil palm and rubber plantations. The government tries to assure conservationists that some space will be reserved for the wildlife in the forest it trashes, but even protected areas are not truly safe. </p><p>Companies, usually foreign-owned, are rapidly destroying rainforests that have existed for years. Local communities are left poorer after their traditional source of livelihood is desecrated. The only ones getting rich are a small group of beneficiaries that are close to the circles of power. </p><p>Some low-income countries that are rich in forests are resorting to quick solutions like logging and industrial agriculture. But industrial logging concessions and rubber and palm oil plantations are never the job-creating mechanism they promise to be. That has been demonstrated over and over again in forest countries around the world.</p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/407/" target="_blank">the Dja Faunal Reserve</a>, a UNESCO world heritage site in the South of Cameroon, is home to more than 100 species of mammals, including at least 14 primates, such as the endangered western lowland gorilla, chimpanzee, and white-collared mangabey, as well as species such as the endangered forest elephant, and the African grey parrot, bongo antelope and leopard.</p><p>The Dja Faunal Reserve is adjacent to the Sudcam rubber plantation, mainly owned by rubber giant Halcyon Agri. Sudcam has cleared more than 10,000 hectares (approximately 25,000 acres) of dense tropical rainforest in the South region of Cameroon – an equivalent of 10 football pitches a day – to make way for a rubber plantation between 2011 and 2018. The rubber plantation has rattled the lives of several indigenous communities, namely the Baka, but it has also aggravated the lives of those numerous protected species in the Dja Reserve.</p><p>To indigenous and local forest dependent communities, the rainforest serves as a source of nutritious foods and traditional medicine, much of which science has yet to explore. The forest is also the foundation of their social life, from recreational to ritual practices. Furthermore, biodiversity loss itself is a direct and immediate threat to the livelihood of indigenous peoples like the Baka next to the Sudcam plantation.</p><p>Upon the arrival of rubber company Sudcam, the indigenous community has lost access to its forest and specifically to the animals and plants they rely on. As Sudcam gets richer, it leaves entire communities in impoverishment, abjectness and destitution. </p>
<p>That is the fate which the chiefs of the Banen people of the Littoral region in Cameroon are trying to avoid <a href="http://www.cameroon-info.net/article/cameroun-denonciation-le-peuple-banen-du-littoral-soppose-a-la-confiscation-de-ses-terres-371484.html" target="_blank">in their current struggle</a> against the destruction of large parts of the Ebo forest. </p><p>The <a href="https://www.globalwildlife.org/blog/ebo-forest-a-stronghold-for-cameroons-wildlife/" target="_blank">Ebo Forest</a> is a biodiversity hotspot, one of the intact forest ecosystems in the Gulf of Guinea, stretching over 2000 square kilometers (approximately 772 square miles). Ebo Forest is home to an amazing range of wildlife, including forest elephants, gorillas, drills, chimpanzees, grey parrots and the goliath frog – the largest living frog on the planet. Accordingly, it was designated over a decade ago by the Cameroon Government as a National Park. </p><p>However, on February 4, the same government of Cameroon authorized two logging concessions (<a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1P8O3pc1JeLaAnDF1ERXvRrIAzjnw09SG/view" target="_blank">UFA07005</a> and <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1n2cgvavirDdYmApiTd5vLV0hQRova6Ed/view" target="_blank">UFA07006</a>) inside the area of Ebo Forest. The planned concessions are enormous – about the size of London. Again, the government of Cameroon wants to convince us that conservation can be done with chainsaws. </p><p>Biodiversity loss doesn't only mean our children would get to see some of the world's most marvelous creatures only in documentary films. The consequences are far greater and more tangible.</p>
<p>The extinction of forest elephants, for example, small relatives of African Savanna elephants, might also reduce the number of large trees that they support, trees that excel at storing carbon. In the Congo Basin forest, the disappearance of forest elephants might mean a loss of about three billion tons of carbon – equivalent to France's CO2 emissions over more than 25 years, according to a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/19/science/elephants-climate-change.html" target="_blank">New York Times article</a> on recent research published in the journal <em>Nature Geoscience.</em> </p><p>Cameroon's government has made public commitments to preserve and protect biodiversity. Positive declarations and ambitious plans may win applause and some international funding, but all eyes should be on implementation. <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/africa/en/press/8593/we-were-told-not-to-go-into-the-forest-anymore-greenpeace-investigation-exposes-human-rights-violations-by-halcyon-agri/" target="_blank">Field investigations by Greenpeace Africa</a> and others clearly show how far we are from protecting biodiversity. </p><p>In Cameroon's government, as well as in the meeting rooms and corridors of development agencies, decision makers often hold outdated views. Too often we hear that only through rapid and massive removal of the rainforest in favor of large-scale logging and industrial agriculture plantations can the country emerge out of poverty. </p><p>Yet that model has repeatedly failed the people, as short-term high profits always remained accessible only to a small circle of beneficiaries. On the contrary, local communities who have lived in harmony with nature for many generations are likely to face poverty, abuse, hunger and alcoholism <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-sustainable-development-ravaged-the-congo-basin/" target="_blank">wherever</a> forests are suddenly destroyed. It is becoming increasingly clear that the best solution for both human rights and the planet is for forests to be managed by local communities. They do so much better than the industrial loggers or plantation owners. </p>
<p>The Cameroonian government needs to realize that trashing forests is not the way to make the economy grow. Rapid and intensive exploitation of nature has more far-reaching consequences than short-term economic growth. To prevent the extinction of fauna and flora species, indigenous communities that live among them need the rights to manage their forest.</p>
<p>Standing for biodiversity means communities should get the rights to manage their forests, instead of the corporations that destroy them. </p>
<p class=""><em>Lamfu Fabrice Yengong is a Congo Basin researcher. </em></p><p><em>Sylvie Djacbou Deugoue is a forest campaigner for Greenpeace Africa.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Since prehistoric times, purslane has been grown by humans around the world, from Australia to the Middle East to Asia. Nik West / Getty Images
By Jared Kaufman
This Friday, May 22, marks the International Day for Biological Diversity. Every year, the United Nations uses this day as an opportunity both to celebrate the Earth's stunning biodiversity and to recognize our task to protect it.
<p>Unfortunately, due to biodiversity loss from industrialization and unsustainable land use, the planet's health is threatened. Nearly a quarter of wild food species—plant and animal—are decreasing in abundance, <a href="http://www.fao.org/state-of-biodiversity-for-food-agriculture/en/" target="_blank">according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization</a>. Biodiversity is not only important for the planet—but it's important for human health, too. Eating a range of fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains can help immune systems by providing the full range of nutrients, from vitamins C and D to zinc and iron. And COVID-19 is revealing the urgency of improving immunity—and the power of food to protect us. </p><p>"There's a range of vitamins, of flavanols, of minerals that have been looked at, that we know improve the immune system function. … Several specific nutrients seem to have activity against COVID-19-specific proteins," Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and the dean of the Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, <a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/05/new-on-the-podcast-dr-dariush-mozaffarian-on-creating-healthier-american-diets-and-nutrition-programs/" target="_blank">told me on Food Talk Live this week</a>. "What's really interesting, beyond the general immune-boosting effects and the COVID-specific protein effects, many of these same nutrients or other nutrients blunt or soften this excessive inflammatory response that's really what's causing deaths in COVID."</p><p>These 15 indigenous crops, among countless others, are prized in traditional agriculture systems for their resiliency, diversity, versatility, and most of all, nutritious value.</p>
<p>1. <strong>Amaranth</strong> <em>(Amaranthus)</em></p><p>The more than 75 species of amaranth grow across nearly every continent, from the humid lowlands of Africa to mountainous countries in South America. Amaranth, which grows quickly in hot weather, is cultivated both as a leafy green and a cereal-like grain. It's an excellent source of protein, vitamins, and essential minerals, including calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium, and zinc.</p><p>2. <strong>Arracacha</strong> <em>(Arracacia xanthorrhiza)</em></p><p>An important South American root crop, Arracacha is best described as somewhere between a carrot and celery root. It was originally cultivated in the Andes, but because of its versatility and low-input costs, is now an important crop in many lower regions of Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela. Arracacha is typically prepared similarly to potatoes, but contains four times the calcium as potatoes and significant carotenoid pigments, the precursor to vitamin A.</p><p>3. <strong>Bay of Fundy Dulse</strong> <em>(Palmaria palmata)</em></p><p>Dulse is a red seaweed that's been used for culinary and medicinal purposes across Ireland, Iceland, and Canada's Atlantic coast. Dulse that grows in the Bay of Fundy, between the provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, was once a popular snack food and an important ingredient in traditional chowders and stews for many First Nations communities. Dulse has a high protein content, and contains iodine, iron, and many other trace vitamins and minerals.</p>
<p>4. <strong>Chaya</strong> <em>(Cnidoscolus aconitifolius)</em></p><p>Chaya, an evergreen plant native to the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico, has been a staple of indigenous diets for centuries in Mexico and Central America. Chaya grows very easily and is resistant to insects, heavy rains, and droughts. The leaves must be cooked to be safe to eat, but chaya is rich in protein, vitamins A and C, calcium, iron, phosphorus, and many minerals and enzymes.</p><p>5. <strong>Chayote</strong> <em>(Sechium edule)</em></p><p>The chayote, a green, pear-shaped member of the squash family, has been an important part of diets across mesoamerica since pre-Columbian times. The plant is extremely versatile and can be grown in warm climates from sea level to more than 2000 meters above sea level. Most parts of the plant may be eaten, including the fruit, stems, and leaves, and it's a good source of vitamin C and folate.</p><p>6. <strong>Desert Lime </strong>(Citrus glauca) </p><p><a href="https://anfab.org.au/main.asp?_=Desert%20Lime" target="_blank">Desert lime</a> grows naturally in the semi-arid regions in eastern Australia in a range of soil types. It is tolerant of heat, frost, drought, and salinity, and it can withstand extreme temperature conditions from -12 degrees C to 45 degrees C (10.4 degrees F to 113 degrees F). Desert lime has high levels of vitamin C, folate, calcium, and antioxidants.</p>
<p>7. <strong>Fonio</strong> <em>(Digitaria)</em></p><p>The two species of fonio — white and black — grown across West Africa are versatile and gluten-free varieties of millet. Fonio is fast-growing and suitable for dry conditions, although very labor-intensive to harvest. The grain has been cited as a path toward greater food security in Africa and is high in iron, calcium, and several essential amino acids.</p><p>8. <strong>Kakadu Plum</strong> <em>(Terminalia ferdinandiana)</em></p><p>The Kakadu Plum—also called the Gubinge, Billygoat Plum, or Murunga—grows across northern Australia and has the <a href="http://anfab.org.au/edit/research_publications/14-115_KakaduPlum.pdf" target="_blank">highest recorded natural vitamin C</a> content of any plant in the world. Suited to its natural hot and coastal environment, the kakadu plum can grow in a variety of dry and saline habitats, from dry creek beds to cliff tops and ridges.</p><p>9.<strong> Kumara/Sweet Potato</strong> <em>(Ipomoea batatas)</em></p><p>Sweet potatoes, also known as kumara in many Polynesian languages and in New Zealand's indigenous Māori language, are a staple crop across Africa, Asia, and many cultures within and surrounding the Pacific Ocean. The starchy vegetable is a great source of protein, vitamins A and C, iron, calcium, and dietary fiber.</p>
<p>10. <strong>Målselvnepe Turnip</strong> <em>(Brassica rapa </em>subsp.<em> rapa)</em></p><p>This old Norwegian landrace of turnip has been improved over the years through selective cultivation. It has an excellent, yet strong and distinct, taste compared to other turnip varieties. It can be eaten raw, roasted, baked, and boiled, and is frequently used to enhance the flavor of soups, salads, stir-fries, and side dishes. The Målselvnepe turnip is an excellent source of vitamin C and potassium.</p><p>11. <strong>Mung Bean</strong> <em>(Vigna radiata)</em></p><p>The mung bean is important in Asian diets and valuable for its easily digestible protein. High levels of iron in the vegetable help improve the diets of the most vulnerable women and children, and mung bean production offers an opportunity for increased income for small-scale farmers. The vegetable can also fix nitrogen in the soil, making it valuable for crop rotations.</p><p>12. <strong>Northern Wild Rice</strong> <em>(Zizania palustris)</em></p><p>Northern wild rice (<em>manoomin</em> in Anishinaabe languages), one of four global wild rice species, grows across the Great Lakes region in the U.S. and in aquatic areas of Canada's Boreal Forest. Wild rice has been central to Indigenous foodways in the region, particularly in Minnesota, for millennia. Although it is now domesticated and cultivated largely for commercial sale, much of it is still harvested using traditional methods. Wild rice is rich in vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and fiber, and contains more protein than most other whole grains.</p>
<p>13. <strong>Pawpaw</strong> <em>(Asimina triloba)</em></p><p>The pawpaw fruit is the largest edible fruit indigenous to North America, and has a tropical flavor reminiscent of a mix between mangoes and bananas. It was grown and eaten by Native Americans and early European settlers, although it has proven difficult to commercialize due to its very short shelf life after harvesting. However, the fruit is high in vitamin C, magnesium, and iron, and also contains some vitamin A.</p><p>14. <strong>Purslane</strong> <em>(Portulaca oleracea)</em></p><p>Since prehistoric times, purslane has been grown by humans around the world, from Australia to the Middle East to Asia. It's still common in Mediterranean countries and in aboriginal Australian foodways. Purslane is capable of <a href="https://www.khanacademy.org/science/biology/photosynthesis-in-plants/photorespiration--c3-c4-cam-plants/a/c3-c4-and-cam-plants-agriculture" target="_blank">CAM photosynthesis</a> in extreme conditions, which allows the plant to grow while saving water, making it a very successful plant across many climates. Purslane also contains more essential omega-3 fatty acids than any other leafy green, and the plant is also extraordinarily high in vitamin E.</p><p>15. <strong>Tepary Beans </strong><em>(Phaseolus acutifolius)</em></p><p>Tepary beans have been a staple crop for thousands of years and remain important for Indigenous farmers across North America, including in Tohono O'odham communities in the American southwest. They grow quickly in arid desert conditions and are resistant to alkaline soils, making them one of the most drought- and heat-tolerant crops in the world. Although related to standard beans, tepary beans actually contain more protein, calcium, fiber, iron, and zinc, and have a low glycemic index.</p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/05/15-indigenous-crops-to-boost-your-immune-system-and-celebrate-biodiversity/" target="_blank">Food Tank</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Beekeeper Younes Kheir shows Julia Klöckner, federal minister of Food and Agriculture, honeycombs on World Bee Day, May 20, 2020 in Berlin, Germany. Carsten Koall / picture alliance via Getty Images
By Ajit Niranjan
Coronavirus lockdowns that keep farmers from fields and suppliers from markets are restricting another cornerstone of the agriculture industry: bees.
<p>Responsible for pollinating about a third of the plants we eat, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/bees" target="_self">bees</a> are in short supply and their numbers are <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/insect-apocalypse-dying-ecosystem-species-loss-a-52160360/a-52160360" target="_blank">declining globally</a>. In large, food-exporting countries like the U.S. and China, there are too few local bees to pollinate crops — so beekeepers truck hives thousands of kilometers to pollinate fields.</p><p>Now, travel restrictions to halt the spread of the coronavirus are hurting the pollination industry by keeping bees at home. They are also stopping some beekeepers from feeding their hives, grounding flights that could import bees from abroad, and making it harder to hire seasonal workers to transport them, said Etienne Bruneau of Apimondia, the international federation of beekeepers. Some farmers "arrive in the [pollinating] season without bees and nobody to help them."</p>
<p>In the U.S., which is the world's biggest agricultural exporter but has fewer beehives than Spain, farmers rely on bees trucked long distances on pallets and forklifted into fields. California grows more than 3 in 4 of the world's almonds and each spring about two-thirds of the country's bee population is mobilized to pollinate them. The bees are then loaded onto trucks and sent elsewhere to fields of cherries, apples, blueberries, cranberries, pumpkins and other foods.</p><p>Pollination services contribute $15-20 billion (€13.7- €18.3 billion) to the value of U.S. crop production and, for many beekeepers, it is more lucrative than making honey. When bees gather nectar, pollen sticks to their bodies and rubs off onto other plants they land on. Harvest losses without their help can range from 5-10% for grains like rapeseed to as high as 80% for almonds and cherries, said Bruneau. </p>
<h3>Food Security</h3><p>Bees, together with pollinators like bats and birds, underpin the global food system. But their populations are dwindling and colonies collapsing as a result of human activity like building settlements, overusing pesticides, farming with monocultures and changing the climate through greenhouse gas emissions. A UN-backed assessment of <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/why-biodiversity-loss-hurts-humans-as-much-as-climate-change/a-48579014" target="_blank">life on earth</a> last year found that pollinator loss threatens $235-$577 billion in annual crop output.</p><p>While experts say the food security risk from restrictions to bee movements is small, it represents yet another coronavirus-induced shock to a global food system already reeling from the pandemic. The <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/world-food-program-act-now-to-prevent-coronavirus-famine/a-53219305" target="_blank">World Food Programme</a> warned last month that COVID-19 could double the number of people facing acute hunger — currently estimated at 135 million people — by the end of 2020.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change">Climate change</a>, conflict and poverty have worked together to drive food crises.</p><p>Across East Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/locust-swarm-africa-wildfires-australia-climate/a-52208213" target="_blank">swarms of locusts</a> have ravaged vegetation after a year of weather extremes that included abnormally heavy rains and strong cyclones. While African bees have not been greatly affected by <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/do-coronavirus-lockdowns-in-africa-make-sense/a-53228689" target="_blank">lockdowns</a> — unlike in North America and Asia, beekeepers typically use fixed hives and do not move them large distances — pesticides to fight locusts have, in turn, hurt pollination, said David Mukomana, Apimondia's Africa president.</p><p>"Many [farmers] resorted to aerial sprays that had serious effects on many pollinating insects, bees included."</p><p>Meanwhile, across Asia and South America, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/food-security">food security</a> is particularly threatened by a growing dependence on <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pollinators">pollinators</a>, according to a study published in the journal Global Change Biology last year. Areas that are more biologically diverse encourage pollination, researchers say, but countries are farming in ways that hurt <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/biodiversity">biodiversity</a>.</p><p>What's more, the increase in pollinator dependency has not been matched by a rise in managed honeybees, the authors wrote, adding that this was an "alarm call" for pollinator-friendly farming methods such as targeted use of insecticide and planting hedgerows next to crops.</p><p>"The picture is worse for wild pollinators that are in decline in several regions," the authors wrote.</p>
<h3>Learning From Bees</h3><p>Even as lockdowns keep industrial bees grounded, wild bees may benefit from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-air-pollution-might-raise-risk-of-fatality/a-52977422" target="_blank">a drop in pollution and traffic</a> as humans stay at home. A study published in the <em>Journal of Insect Conservation</em> in 2015 estimated that billions of pollinating insects were killed on roads each year in North America alone. A global fall in transport may have kept some bees safe.</p><p>Yet despite these short-term benefits, "lockdown will do virtually nothing to reverse the major causes of bumblebee declines, which are habitat loss and degradation," a spokesperson from the Bumblebee Conservation Trust said.</p><p>Bees also have their own viruses to deal with. Like people, honeybees live in large groups and thrive on social interactions.</p><p>"That poses risks when it comes to pathogen transmissions," said Adam Dolezal, an insect scientist at the University of Illinois. "If a pathogen evolves that can circumvent those risks, the bees have to respond or become more infected."</p>
<p>Honeybees may be in an "evolutionary arms race" with the deadly Israeli acute paralysis virus, according to a study published in the journal <em>PNAS</em> last month. While bees are known to socially distance from infected nest mates and touch each other less, the virus has evolved a way of sneaking sick bees past guards of other colonies and spreading itself into new hives.<br></p><p>In the wild, where beehives are sparsely spread and there is little interaction between colonies, this evolutionary trait offers little advantage. But in industrial farms — with up to thousands of bees per square kilometer — it gives viruses a greater chance of starting new outbreaks.</p><p>It suggests that intensive agriculture can increase the danger of pathogens that target insects, as well as humans and other animals. Modern farming practices have come under scrutiny since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic as scientists have sounded alarm bells about the dangers of <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-pandemic-linked-to-destruction-of-wildlife-and-worlds-ecosystems/a-53078480" target="_blank">habitat destruction and zoonotic diseases</a>.</p><p>This doesn't mean we should stop keeping bees this way, but it does show how manipulating natural environments can give advantages to viruses, said Dolezal, who co-authored the study. "We should be on the lookout for places where pathogens can find chinks in the armor of the organism."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/bees-coronavirus-lockdowns-pollination/a-53500622?maca=en-VAM_volltext_ecowatch-28485-html-copypaste" target="_blank">DW</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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The USDA announced it would leave oversight on GMOs to the companies producing the organisms. D-Keine / E+ / Getty Images
By Eoin Higgins
Food safety advocacy groups objected to the Trump administration's latest assault on the country's agricultural regulatory framework as the Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced Thursday it would leave oversight on GMOs to the companies producing the organisms.
<p>"There is a need for adequate safeguards and effective regulatory oversight to ensure that there aren't unintended consequences to <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/biodiversity">biodiversity</a> from these new technologies," Aviva Glaser, director of agriculture policy at the National Wildlife Federation, said in a statement responding the rule, "but unfortunately, USDA's rule falls short of achieving this."</p>
<p>The new "<a href="https://www.aphis.usda.gov/biotechnology/340-secure-rule.pdf" target="_blank">SECURE rule</a>" would allow companies involved in gene editing (GE) to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-agriculture/usda-limits-review-requirements-of-some-biotech-farm-products-idUSKBN22R04P" target="_blank">avoid</a> government oversight if the companies themselves determine the editing involves modifications that could be achieved through traditional breeding. Critics charge that the new rule leaves that determination up to the companies themselves, removing two regulatory checks in one swoop.</p><p>"While some genetically engineered products are safe and beneficial, the federal government needs a regulatory system that tracks product development and ensures safety before products are marketed," said Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) biotechnology project director Gregory Jaffe. "We support science- and risk-based federal oversight of genetically engineered plants to ensure they are safe to humans and the environment before they are released for cultivation or restoration, but today's final regulation does not achieve that result."</p>
<p><a href="https://cspinet.org/news/trump-administration-usda-limits-oversight-genetically-engineered-and-gene-edited-crops" target="_blank">According to</a> the CSPI, the rule change flies in the face of the desires of a broad coalition of interested groups:</p><blockquote>Despite a unified position from environmental groups, consumer organizations, biotech crop developers, and food industry stakeholders imploring USDA to eliminate a provision allowing crop developers to self-determine whether their products are regulated, the Trump administration refused to require developers to even notify the agency of products they believe are exempt under the new regulations.</blockquote>
<p>Center for Food Safety senior attorney Sylvia Wu said in a statement Friday that the USDA was trying to use a needed update to an outdated set of rules to push through yet another industry-friendly policy that could have ramifications for the country's food supply.</p><p>"While revisions to USDA's regulations—first drafted in 1987—are necessary in order to ensure that the regulatory scheme adequately addresses the harms associated with current GE technology, the new regulations finalized by USDA, paradoxically named the SECURE rule, are anything but secure," said Wu.</p><p>"Instead of fixing long-standing deficiencies and strengthening the regulatory system to guarantee proper oversight of new GE technologies and their associated risks, the revised regulations dramatically scale back USDA's regulatory authority, leaving most GMOs unregulated," Wu added.</p><p>Bottom line, said Consumer Federation of America director of food policy Thomas Gremillion, "consumers have a right to know how gene editing is being used to produce the foods they buy in the market."</p><p>"This rule will undermine public confidence in the food supply," Germillion said, "and ultimately set back beneficial uses of this technology."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/05/15/anything-secure-advocates-decry-usda-rule-allowing-big-ag-set-its-own-regulations" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em><br/></p>From Your Site Articles
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A blue bee on a firebush in Palm Beach, Florida on Sept. 10, 2016. Bob Peterson / CC BY 2.0
Scientists have "rediscovered" a rare blue bee that they feared was extinct.
<p>Until this spring, the "ultra-rare" blue calamintha bee (<em>Osmia calaminthae</em>) had only been observed in four locations in central Florida, and it hadn't been seen at all since 2016. So when <a href="https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/" target="_blank">Florida Museum of Natural History</a> research team Chase Kimmel and Jaret Daniels set out to document the bee's population status and habits, they weren't sure what they would find.</p><p>"I was open to the possibility that we may not find the bee at all so that first moment when we spotted it in the field was really exciting," Kimmel, a postdoctoral researcher, said in a museum <a href="https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/floridas-rare-blue-calamintha-bee-rediscovered/" target="_blank">press release</a>.</p>
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<p>Kimmel first spotted the bee March 9, he told <a href="https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/05/16/rare-blue-calamintha-bees-spotted-lake-wales-ridge-florida/5207086002/" target="_blank">USA TODAY in an email</a>. Since then, he has spotted the elusive pollinator in three of its previous locations and six additiona locations, according to the museum.</p><p>The research could have important implications for the bee's chances of survival. Florida's State Wildlife Action Plan lists the bee as a species of greatest <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation" target="_self">conservation</a> need, and the study will help determine if it warrants <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/endangered-species-act" target="_self">Endangered Species Act</a> protections.</p><p>The bee is so vulnerable in part because it is thought to rely on a threatened plant called Ashe's calamint and live only in Florida's Lake Wales Ridge region, a hotspot of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/biodiversity" target="_self">biodiversity</a> that the museum calls "one of the nation's fastest-disappearing ecosystems."</p>
<p>The ridge hosts so much unique life because, when most of Florida was underwater, it was raised above the waves in high sand dunes that acted like islands, giving isolated ecosystems a chance to flourish. Now, these habitats are islands of pine scrub in a sea of orange groves.</p><p>"It's one thing to read about habitat loss and development and another to be driving for 30-40 minutes through miles of orange groves just to get to a really small conservation site," Kimmel said. "It puts into perspective how much habitat loss affects all the animals that live in this area."</p>
<p>The bee also exhibits unique behaviors. It gathers pollen by bobbing its head side to side to collect it on its facial hairs. The very first time he saw the bee, Kimmel got a chance to see this in action.</p><p>"We observed a shiny little blue bee grabbing the flower and rubbing its head on the top portion of the flower two or three times before moving on to another flower," <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/16/us/florida-blue-calamintha-bee-trnd/index.html" target="_blank">Kimmel told CNN</a>. "In reading about this unique behavior we were pretty shocked to see it."</p><p>Kimmel and Daniels' research is set to last two years and determine the bee's feeding and nesting habits. So far, the team has found another plant the bee will use if it can't find Ashe's calamint.</p>
<p>The research has been hampered somewhat by the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coronavirus" target="_self">coronavirus</a> pandemic, since travel restrictions mean Kimmel is in the field alone during the bee's flight season from mid-March to early May.</p><p>"It's a very time-limited flight. Now is when the bulk of that activity has to take place," Daniels, who is acting as Kimmel's adviser and is also the director of the museum's <a href="https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/index.php/mcguire/home/" target="_blank">McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity</a>, said in the press release. "Chase is doing a fantastic job and we're getting a lot of great data, but if it wasn't for the COVID-19 virus we would have had more people in the field, so it has definitely scaled back what we're able to do."</p>
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A cave at the Mediterranean Sea in Sicily. ClaraNila / iStock / Getty Images Plus
Not even underground ecosystems are safe from human pollution.
<p>New research <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0232742" target="_blank">published in PLoS ONE May 6</a> examined how <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/water" target="_self">water</a> runoff from the surface impacted the communities of microbes in the Monte Conca cave system in Sicily. The answer? Quite a lot. Potentially human-introduced bacteria made up less than 4 percent of the microbial community during the dry season, but shot up to almost 90 percent during the wet season, after heavy rains.</p><p>"Anthropogenic microbial contaminants originating from outside of the cave environment can replace endemic cave communities," the researchers concluded.</p>
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<p>The Monte Conca cave system is one of many caves formed by a process called sulfuric acid speleogenesis, by which <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/groundwater" target="_self">groundwater</a> containing sulfur dissolves limestone. Communities of microbes within the caves contribute to this process, the researchers explained.</p><p>But the study, carried out by a team of microbiologists and geoscientists at the University of South Florida (USF), indicates that bacteria from urban and agricultural areas can enter these unique communities via runoff from surface water, the <a href="https://www.usf.edu/news/2020/researchers-find-human-driven-pollution-alters-environment-even-underground.aspx" target="_blank">university press release explained</a>. This happens despite the fact that the Monte Conca system sits below a nature preserve.</p>
<p>To assess the impact of surface-level bacteria on the cave's microbial communities, the researchers compared their composition between the dry and wet seasons.</p><p>During the dry season, more than 90 percent of the microbes were sulfur oxidizers. These are bacteria uniquely adapted to use both oxygen from the cave and sulfur from its spring pool. But during the wet season, when large amounts of rainwater enter the cave, the composition radically changed. <em>Escherichia</em> and <em>Lysinibacillus</em> bacteria jumped from 3.7 percent of the microbial community to 89.5 percent. These are fecal and soil bacteria researchers identified as influenced by human activity, including the fecal bacteria <em>Escherichia coli, or E. coli.</em></p>
<p>Researchers also found evidence of a transition period between the wet and dry seasons in a sample taken when rains were 50 percent of typical wet season levels. During this period, the human-introduced bacteria made up 67.3 percent of the microbes, while sulfur-oxidizing bacteria and nitrogen-fixing bacteria were also present.</p><p>More research is needed to understand the impact of these changes on the cave ecosystem itself and on groundwater, lead author Dr. Madison Davis of USF's Department of Cell Biology, Microbiology and Molecular Biology said in the press release.</p><p>However, the pollution of caves and the groundwater that springs from them is already a known problem across the U.S., as <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/pollution-caves-water-wildlife-trout/" target="_blank">Scientific American reported</a> in 2009:</p><blockquote>Examples abound, including raw sewage flowing into Shalers Brook inside Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky, an animal feedlot in eastern Missouri washing waste down sinkholes into Crevice Cave and dirt runoff from logging activity choking Whispering Canyon Cave at Tongass National Forest in Alaska.</blockquote>"People need to be aware that there's a subterranean ecosystem and that what happens on the surface impacts these unique ecosystems in a very real way," American University in Washington, DC cave expert and biologist David Culver told Scientific American at the time.
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The North Carolina Zoo announced the birth of five critically endangered American red wolves as part of its American red wolf breeding program. North Carolina Zoo
The population of the most endangered canid in the world just got a little bit bigger.
<p>The North Carolina Zoo <a href="https://www.nczoo.org/news/north-carolina-zoo-announces-birth-five-critically-endangered-american-red-wolves-0" target="_blank">announced</a> the birth of five American <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/red-wolves" target="_self">red wolf</a> pups on Friday. This is an especially big deal because there are only 15 to 20 red wolves left in the wild, in eastern North Carolina.</p><p>"Congratulations to the North Carolina Zoo for playing an essential part toward helping this critically endangered species recover," North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources secretary Susi H. Hamilton said in the birth announcement. "It's yet another example of the Zoo doing amazing work to conserve <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildlife" target="_self">wildlife</a> and wild places."</p>
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<p>The pups were born April 21 to a mother named Piglet and a father named Jewell. This is the couple's first litter.</p><p>"The pups and their mother are all healthy and doing well," the zoo said.</p><p>The new babies were all named for plants found in North Carolina, the zoo explained:</p><blockquote>The names for the males are Oak (Appalachian Oak), Cedar (Red Cedar) and Sage (Azure Sage). The females are named Lily (Carolina Lily, the state's wildflower) and Aster (Piedmont Aster).</blockquote><p>American red wolves have struggled in the wild in recent years, as <a href="https://www.heraldsun.com/news/state/north-carolina/article242592926.html" target="_blank">The Herald-Sun reported</a>. They were declared extinct in the wild in 1980 due to hunting and habitat loss, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) began efforts to reintroduce them to the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge as part of the American Red Wolf Recovery Program. Their numbers swelled to more than 130 by 2006, but then began to decline between 2013 and 2015 after FWS introduced a policy allowing landowners to shoot and kill wolves, as EcoWatch <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/red-wolves-extinction-fws-judge-2618251132.html" target="_self">previously reported</a>.<br></p><p>In 2018, a federal judge ruled that the killing violated the endangered species act and had to stop.</p><p>In zoos, however, the species has fared better. There are around 240 red wolves in breeding programs across the U.S., the zoo said.</p>
<p>The North Carolina Zoo has been part of the American Red Wolf Recovery Program since 1994 and has bred 34 wolves since the program started. The birth of the new pups brings the zoo's wolf population up to 25, meaning it has the second-biggest red wolf pack in U.S. after the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in Tacoma, Washington.</p><p>Six red wolf babies were also born at the The Museum of Life and Science in Durham, North Carolina in April 2019, The Herald-Sun reported. However, most of the museum's red wolves were moved to Virginia in January, and no babies were born there this spring, <a href="https://www.wral.com/baby-news-nc-zoo-welcomes-five-red-wolf-pups/19090065/?fbclid=IwAR0mA9K6ZKRXwUZKMB0uM4HpB8qQiGU4t91XkNBi9qUyt4J50K-luh80d1Q" target="_blank">WRAL reported</a>.</p><p>The North Carolina Zoo is currently closed to visitors because of the coronavirus pandemic, though you can still <a href="https://www.nczoo.org/virtual-visit" target="_blank">visit</a> virtually. However, the new arrivals won't know the difference right now.</p><p>"The pups are being kept in a quiet, non-public viewing area of the Zoo and have minimal contact with staff and keepers," the zoo said. "This allows their mother to raise the pups with the least amount of stress in a natural habitat."</p>
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The green sea turtle's range extends throughout tropical and subtropical seas around the world. Constanza S. Mora / CC BY 2.0
By Tara Lohan
Most of us have never been to the world's immense last wilderness and never will. It's beyond the horizon and often past the limits of our imaginations. It contains towering underwater mountain ranges, ancient corals, mysterious, unknown forms of life and the largest seagrass meadow in the world.
<p>Yet it begins just 200 nautical miles off our shores. Technically referred to as "areas beyond national jurisdiction," these remote expanses are known to most people simply as "the high seas."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/high-seas-treaty/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>. </em><em></em></p>
<p>Their vast, dark waters encompass roughly two-thirds of the ocean and half the planet and are the last great global commons. Yet just 1 percent are protected, leaving these <a href="https://therevelator.org/ocean-outlaw-book-urbina/" target="_blank">vital but relatively lawless expanses</a> open to overfishing, pollution, piracy and other threats.</p><p>That could change soon.</p><p>In 2018, after more than a decade of groundwork at the United Nations, negotiations officially began for a new treaty focused on conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in the waters beyond national jurisdiction.</p><p>The proposed treaty is being developed under the <a href="https://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/convention_overview_convention.htm" target="_blank">U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea</a>, which was signed in 1982 and defined nations' rights and responsibilities for use of the world's oceans. The Convention itself is a landmark agreement that established many key environmental protections and policies, but over the years it's become obvious that some gaps in its governance policy have left the ocean's ecosystems open to ongoing and emerging threats.</p>
<p>The new treaty is intended to help fill those gaps, although, as with any international agreement, that presents challenges. Representatives of world governments gathered in 2018 and 2019 for three rounds of negotiations, but many parts of the key issues remained unresolved. Among them are plans to establish a framework for evaluating and implementing area-based management tools, which include marine protected areas, since no such systems exist now for the high seas.</p><p>Other items requiring agreement include establishing uniform requirements for conducting environmental impact assessments; how benefits from marine genetic resources may be shared among nations; and capacity building for management and conservation.</p><p>Many experts hoped the fourth negotiation session, originally scheduled to begin March 23 at the U.N. headquarters in New York, would lead to the finalization of the treaty's text, but the meetings were postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.</p><p>That pause gives us an opportunity to understand what's at stake a bit better.</p><p>"This is the first time that there's been a treaty process devoted to marine biodiversity in the high seas and the first ocean treaty really to be negotiated in over 30 years," said Peggy Kalas, director of the <a href="http://www.highseasalliance.org/" target="_blank">High Seas Alliance</a>, a coalition of more than 40 environmental nonprofits and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. "It's a big deal, and it's been a long time coming."</p>
<p>But this historic opportunity is also one that could be squandered if the treaty fails to enact protections strong enough to actually safeguard ocean life.</p><p>"It has the potential to be a gamechanger for the oceans," said Douglas McCauley, a professor of ecology, evolution and marine biology at U.C. Santa Barbara and director of the <a href="https://boi.ucsb.edu/" target="_blank">Benioff Ocean Initiative</a>. "But it's still to be determined whether it will be just the treaty version of lip service."</p>
The Need for Protection
<p>We're all connected to the high seas, even if we never actually see them, says Morgan Visalli, a project scientist at Benioff Ocean Initiative at U.C. Santa Barbara. "It's incredibly important for helping to regulate the climate, for providing oxygen, food and jobs."</p><p>Even on land we depend on a healthy ocean. Phytoplankton in the ocean <a href="https://therevelator.org/phytoplankton-climate-change/" target="_blank">generate half our oxygen</a>, and the ocean plays a key role in mitigating climate change — absorbing 25 percent of our CO2 emissions and 90 percent of heat related to those emissions. It's also home to a rich diversity of species, some of which we're still discovering.</p><p>But marine ecosystems face grave threats from an onslaught of abuses: chemical, plastic and noise pollution; deep seabed mining and other kinds of resource extraction; increased shipping; overfishing and illegal fishing; and <a href="https://therevelator.org/ocean-climate-change/" target="_blank">climate change</a>, which is altering both the temperature and chemistry of the waters.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzI2ODY4NC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwNDA2MDM1N30.-ljbryulwGu6Xug0ADHXyDtXz747eqw65fTq7fTy4uY/img.jpg?width=980" id="26d57" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4db6779cc8a42ec188116ac51f7968a9" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Cargo ship at sea. Bernard Spragg / public domain
<p>Numerous strategies are needed to tackle these problems, including the bedrock component of reducing greenhouse gases.</p><p>But a key tool that scientists have identified to help restore biodiversity is establishing reserves, often referred to as ocean parks or marine protected areas.</p><p>We know pretty well how to do this in national waters — there are <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2018/02/22/how-much-of-the-ocean-is-really-protected" target="_blank">more than 15,000</a> of them already in places like Australia's Great Barrier Reef and the Florida Keys. But few such protected areas exist in the high seas because there is no international framework to guide the process. One such effort to establish a marine protected area in Antarctica's Ross Sea took years of research and diplomacy to implement.</p><p>It's simply not feasible to scale the process — especially in the time we'd need to do it. That's why creating such a framework for marine protected areas in waters outside of national waters is a key part of the new high-seas treaty negotiations.</p><p>And that fits into a larger global vision.</p><p>The participant nations in another international treaty, the Convention on Biological Diversity, are set to convene this fall. The agenda includes a goal of enacting an international framework to protect 30% of the oceans by 2030.</p><p>It's a goal that scientists call a bare minimum. And it's one that may be impossible to meet without the high-seas treaty.</p><p>"The science is clear, if we're going to sustain a healthy, functioning ocean ecosystem, we need to be protecting at least 30% of the world's oceans," said Liz Karan, who leads <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/projects/protecting-ocean-life-on-the-high-seas" target="_blank">efforts to protect the high seas</a> for Pew Charitable Trusts, a member of the High Seas Alliance.</p><p>In anticipation of the treaty's passage, scientists like Visalli and McCauley have already started modeling how new <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X19309194#!" target="_blank">priority areas could be identified</a>.</p><iframe width="100%" height="150" scrolling="no" class="rm-shortcode twitter-embed-1247637692298309632" id="twitter-embed-1247637692298309632" lazy-loadable="true" src="/res/community/twitter_embed/?iframe_id=twitter-embed-1247637692298309632&created_ts=1586294980.0&screen_name=UCSBenioffOcean&text=The+high+seas+are+our+last+global+commons+%26amp%3B+essential+to+life+on+earth.+As+the+UN+weighs+a+groundbreaking+%23HighSeas%E2%80%A6+https%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2FRZM4DToxhU&id=1247637692298309632&name=Benioff+Ocean+Initiative" frameborder="0" data-rm-shortcode-id="2be6714cacbdb1a5a33ef1e44e7b6e2d"></iframe><p>The other parts of the treaty, including environmental impact assessments and genetic resources, remain vital areas of discussion, but conservation groups have stressed the importance of protected ocean reserves for protecting the planet.</p><p>"If we want the ocean to continue its role in climate adaptation and being able to absorb the excess heat that it does, we need to create areas of resilience for the ocean," said Kalas. "And the best way to do that is marine protected areas."</p>
The Challenges
<p>Of course the devil is in the details.</p><p>While thousands of marine protected areas already exist, they come with varying levels of protections — much like we see with public lands. Some can be very restrictive, like national parks, or continue to allow extractive activities, such as in national forests.</p><p>Current marine protected areas range from no-take reserves that ban all extraction to areas allowing multiple uses — the latter are more common. Not surprisingly, though, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/icesjms/article/75/3/1166/4098821" target="_blank">scientific studies</a> have shown that the no-take reserves do a much better job at protecting and restoring biodiversity.</p><p>Whether the treaty will be a landmark conservation effort or enshrine the status quo has yet to be determined, said Karan. "Both potential pathways are currently reflected in the draft treaty text" at this time.</p><p>From a scientific standpoint, McCauley says, marine protected areas should actually protect the wild character of the area and that means no activities — like mining or bottom trawling — that would disturb habitat. And the protections need to extend down from the ocean's surface, through the water column, to the seafloor.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzI2ODY4Ni9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNzg3OTEzMH0.44V4UQHFCCVNqSVetbbgJ9SxA6Ahs1MizLc4PQmJqlw/img.jpg?width=980" id="c7ad5" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="147defbdf27fe8adf69b6db35a7d1d04" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A kelp forest in a marine protected area off the coast of California. Camille Pagniello / CC BY 2.0
<p>To do that means figuring out how the new treaty would fit with a tangle of more than 20 existing governance organizations that regulate seabed mining, fisheries management and shipping regulations.</p><p>"One of our hopes is that this treaty would knit those pieces together and provide a little bit more coherence and compatibility with those issues, particularly with regards to conservation and sustainable use," said Karan.</p><p>There would also need to be a process for scientifically evaluating areas proposed for protections, and how the established reserves would be managed, and the restrictions enforced.</p><p>"The whole process, the whole vision and opportunity to think about doing something smarter and better — for the ocean, for biodiversity, for us — ends if we don't get strong language in the treaty and get that treaty to pass," said McCauley. "There's historical potential for the oceans, but we need to make sure people on the outside are watching the people on the inside [at the United Nations] in New York."</p>Road Ahead
<p>Even though official treaty negotiations are on hold awaiting a decision on rescheduling the talks, work continues among governments as they review and refine their positions on numerous proposals submitted by states and NGOs.</p><p>The United States has been a participant in the talks, but the treaty process has largely flown under the radar among the general public so far. Given President Trump's position on <a href="https://therevelator.org/environment-deregulation-trump-two-years/" target="_blank">environmental protections</a> and distain for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/climate/trump-paris-agreement-climate.html" target="_blank">multilateralism</a> (like the Paris climate agreement), that's been pretty intentional on the part of environmental NGOs.</p><p>But as efforts may be nearing the finish line, this is starting to shift. Karan says there's more interest from legislators about high seas governance and more need to have an engaged public who can advocate for strong conservation protections.</p><p>Things are complicated, though, by the fact that the United States never ratified the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention, widely considered a "Constitution" for the ocean.</p><p>There is hope from some of the participants that the United States could ratify the high seas treaty if it comes to fruition, say Karan. But no one is holding their breath for that. Kalas says the goal is that the treaty, once completed, would be widely supported, although it remains to be seen how many countries will sign on. "If only 40 countries ratify it, that wouldn't make it as strong of an agreement as if all the United Nation's 193 nations ratified the agreement," she said.</p><p>But there's a fine line between having an agreement that's universally supported and one that establishes concrete conservation actions and protections.</p><p>"Our concern is that in trying to get everyone in the tent as it were, we're going to wind up with a status-quo agreement," said Karan. "As much as we want a treaty, we want one that will make concrete change on the water."</p><p>And it's worth remembering, we're talking about a lot of water. When the next session convenes, she said, "states will decide the ocean's fate."</p>
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