Koala populations across parts of Australia are on track to become extinct before 2050 unless "urgent government intervention" occurs. Mathias Appel / Flickr
Koala populations across parts of Australia are on track to become extinct before 2050 unless "urgent government intervention" occurs, warns a year-long inquiry into Australia's "most loved animal." The report published by the Parliament of New South Wales (NSW) paints a "stark and depressing snapshot" of koalas in Australia's southeastern state.
<p>"Even before the devastating 2019-2020 bushfires, it was clear that the koala in NSW, already a threatened species, was in significant trouble," says the <a href="https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/lcdocs/inquiries/2536/Koala%20populations%20and%20habitat%20in%20New%20South%20Wales%20-%20Report%203.pdf" target="_blank">report</a>, adding that previous population estimates counting 36,000 individuals were "outdated and unreliable."</p><p>"Then came the fires. With at least 5,000 koalas lost in the fires, potentially many more, it was deeply distressing but extremely important for committee members to agree to the finding that koalas will become extinct in NSW before 2050 without urgent government intervention."</p>
<p>At least 5,000 animals were lost in the 2019 bushfires responsible for killing more than <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/australia-wildfire-deaths-2644394434.html" target="_self">1 billion animals</a>. Conservation groups <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/koalas-extinction-wildfires-australia-2645408622.html?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2" target="_self">warned</a> of the possible extinction in March after projections that the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildfires">wildfires</a> resulted in the loss of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/koala-rescue-fire-australia-2641408117.html" target="_self">80 percent of habitat</a>, forcing the charismatic marsupials into "<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/koalas-functionally-extinct-fires-2641450078.html" target="_self">functional extinction</a>."</p><p>Endemic only to the eucalyptus forests in the southeastern and eastern parts of the continent, koalas rely on the trees for both habitat and food, according to <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/k/koala/#:~:text=Koalas%20live%20in%20the%20eucalyptus%20forests%20of%20southeastern%20and%20eastern%20Australia." target="_blank">National Geographic</a>. They are threatened by the destruction of habitat through the clearing and fragmentation of their unique habitat, which is further exacerbated by <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change">climate change</a> and ongoing <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drought">drought</a> conditions that have plagued the region for years.</p>
<p>As part of their analysis, the independent committee received more than 5,700 responses and 300 submissions, in addition to nine public hearings and site visitations across several locations. Philip Spark, a wildlife ecologist, warned in the report that successive extreme events in the past had reduced one koala population by as much as half and pushed another to local extinction.</p><p>"With the trees dying and the streams drying there is a recipe for disaster. Koalas are really on the brink of not surviving," said Spark. "A crisis can happen with very little warning."</p>
<p>Citing a report published by the <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/" target="_blank">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a>, Sparks added that by 2050, one in 100-year events are expected to occur every year with 50-degree Celsius heatwaves in the next 20 years. The committee further found that climate change has a severe impact on koalas and not only affects the quality of their food and habitat, but also compounds the "severity and threats of other impacts, such as <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drought">drought</a> and bushfires."</p>
<p>The committee made 42 recommendations to ensure the future of the koala, including prioritizing the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation">conservation</a> of koala habitat, establishing more thorough approaches to monitoring koala numbers, and allocating additional resources and funding to conservation projects by calling on the government to protect and restore koala habitat on both public and private land. The report also notes that officials should investigate "without delay" the establishment of the <a href="https://koalapark.org.au/" target="_blank">Great Koala National Park</a>, a proposed public conservation area dedicated to protecting the species. An interim report on Australia's national environmental laws is expected this week and is expected to consider the findings that Australia's iconic species is in need of assistance, reports <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/30/koalas-will-be-driven-to-extinction-by-2050-in-nsw-major-inquiry-finds" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>.</p>
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In ‘Conservation Disaster,’ Hundreds of Botswana's Elephants Are Dying From Mysterious Cause
02 July
Animals
African bush elephants in the Makgadikgadi Pans Game Reserve in Botswana on Nov. 22, 2016. Michael Jansen / Flickr
More than 350 elephants have died in Botswana since May, and no one knows why.
<p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/poaching" target="_self">Poaching</a> has been ruled out, because no tusks have been removed from the elephants' bodies, but it is possible the animals are dying of a disease that could spread to the human population.</p><p>"Yes, it is a <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation" target="_self">conservation</a> disaster — but it also has the potential to be a <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/public-health" target="_self">public health</a> crisis," <a href="https://t.co/FOYIlddwzZ?amp=1" target="_blank">National Park Rescue</a> Director of Conservation Dr. Niall McCann told <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-africa-53257512" target="_blank">BBC News</a>.</p>
<div id="9deed" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="101a9cd3a64051511e2bb793a9782a58"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1278329244767137792" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">A catastrophic die-off of elephants is happing in northern Botswana, and no one knows why. It’s vital that a team o… https://t.co/G4VlI5hZJA</div> — Niall McCann (@Niall McCann)<a href="https://twitter.com/NiallPMcCann/statuses/1278329244767137792">1593612416.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Botswana's tourism ministry first said that it was investigating the deaths in mid-May, when 12 dead elephants were found over two weekends in the country's Okavango Delta, <a href="https://phys.org/news/2020-05-botswana-probes-mysterious-death-elephants.html" target="_blank">Phys.org reported</a> at the time.</p><p>By the end of May, 169 elephants had died, and that number had more than doubled by mid-June, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/01/more-than-350-elephants-dead-in-mysterious-mass-die-off-botswana-aoe" target="_blank">The Guardian reported</a>.</p><p>"This is totally unprecedented in terms of numbers of elephants dying in a single event unrelated to drought," McCann told BBC News.</p><p>But despite the scale of the deaths, the government has not yet completed testing of the animals to determine the cause, earning the criticism of conservation groups.</p>
<p>"There is real concern regarding the delay in getting the samples to an accredited laboratory for testing in order to identify the problem — and then take measures to mitigate it," <a href="https://eia-international.org/" target="_blank">Environmental Investigation Agency</a> Executive Director Mary Rice told The Guardian. "The lack of urgency is of real concern and does not reflect the actions of a responsible custodian. There have been repeated offers of help from private stakeholders to facilitate urgent testing which appear to have fallen on deaf ears … and the increasing numbers are, frankly, shocking."</p>
<p>The government, meanwhile, attributed the delay to the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coronavirus" target="_self">coronavirus</a> pandemic.</p><p>"We have sent [samples] off for testing and we are expecting the results over the next couple of weeks or so," Dr. Cyril Taolo, acting director for Botswana's department of wildlife and national parks, told The Guardian. "The Covid-19 restrictions have not helped in the transportation of samples in the region and around the world. We're now beginning to emerge from that and that is why we are now in a position to send the samples to other laboratories."</p><p>Taolo said the government had confirmed 280 out of 350 reported deaths and is working to confirm the rest.</p>
<p>Local reports indicate that animals of all ages and sexes are dying, with some spotted wandering in circles, a sign of neurological damage. The cause is likely a poison or disease, but experts are not sure which.</p><p>More than 100 elephants died in October 2019 in a suspected anthrax outbreak, Phys.org reported, but McCann told BBC News he had tentatively ruled out anthrax as the cause of the most recent deaths. Cyanide poisoning used by poachers is another possibility, but scavengers are not dying after eating the carcasses, The Guardian pointed out.</p><p>"It is only elephants that are dying and nothing else," McCann told BBC News. "If it was cyanide used by poachers, you would expect to see other deaths."</p>
<p>Botswana hosts the world's largest elephant population at more than 135,000 animals, about a third of all the elephants in Africa, Phys.org pointed out. The Okavango Delta, meanwhile, is home to 10 percent of Botswana's total population, or around 15,000 animals. African elephants are considered vulnerable by the <a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/12392/3339343" target="_blank">International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List</a>. Botswana was considered one of the safest countries for elephants until recently, <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/hundreds-of-elephants-have-died-in-botswana-for-months-and-we-still-don-t-know-why" target="_blank">Science Alert pointed out</a>. But the government made a controversial decision to <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/botswana-lifts-elephant-ban-2637907016.html" target="_self">lift</a> its elephant hunting ban in May of 2019, and poaching is on the rise. An <a href="http://elephantswithoutborders.org/" target="_blank">Elephants Without Borders</a> study <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096098221930675X" target="_blank">published in Current Biology last year</a> found that new elephant carcasses in northern Botswana had increased by 593 percent between 2014 and 2018 and that at least 385 elephants had been poached between 2017 and 2018.</p>
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Wildflowers blooming in box gum grassy woodland. Jacqui Stol, Author provided
By Jacqui Stol, Annie Kelly and Suzanne Prober
In box gum grassy woodlands, widely spaced eucalypts tower over carpets of wildflowers, lush native grasses and groves of flowering wattles. It's no wonder some early landscape paintings depicting Australian farm life are inspired by this ecosystem.
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<p>But box gum grassy woodlands are <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/threatened/conservation-advices/white-box-yellow-box-blakely%27s-red-gum-grassy-woodlands-derived-native-grasslands" target="_blank">critically endangered</a>. These woodlands grow on highly productive agricultural country, from southern Queensland, along inland slopes and tablelands, into Victoria.</p><p>Many are degraded or cleared for farming. As a result, <a href="https://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/resources/be2ff840-7e59-48b0-9eb5-4ad003d01481/files/box-gum.pdf" target="_blank">less than 5% of the woodlands</a> remain in good condition. What remains often grows on private land such as farms, and public lands such as cemeteries or traveling stock routes.</p><p><a href="https://publications.csiro.au/rpr/download?pid=csiro:EP154278&dsid=DS4" target="_blank">Very little is protected</a> in public conservation reserves. And the recent drought and record breaking heat caused these woodlands to stop growing and flowering.</p><p>But after Queensland's recent <a href="http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/rain/archive.jsp?colour=colour&map=totals&year=2020&month=3&period=3month&area=qd" target="_blank">drought-breaking rain</a> earlier this year, we surveyed private farmland and found many dried-out woodlands in the northernmost areas transformed into flower-filled, park-like landscapes.</p><p>And landholders even came across rarely seen marsupials, such as the southern spotted-tail quoll.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQxNzQyOC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxOTE4NDQzMX0.ndrTis2Yzw9J1MdKek84AlFuTP_k5LZR7UItOm-fZGc/img.jpg?width=980" id="ebb80" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="5afae467aca80b3eb469d18175c7cc17" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Native yellow wildflowers called 'scaly buttons' bloom on a stewardship site. Jacqui Stol, Author provided
Huge Increase in Plant Diversity
<p>These surveys were part of the Australian government's <a href="http://www.nrm.gov.au/national/continuing-investment/environmental-stewardship" target="_blank">Environmental Stewardship Program</a>, a long-term cooperative conservation model with private landholders. It started in 2007 and will run for 19 years.</p><p>We found huge increases in previously declining native wildflowers and grasses on the private farmland. Many trees assumed to be dying began resprouting, such as McKie's stringybark (<em>Eucalyptus mckieana</em>), which is listed as a <a href="https://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicspecies.pl?taxon_id=20199" target="_blank">vulnerable species</a>.</p><p>This newfound plant diversity is the result of seeds and tubers (underground storage organs providing energy and nutrients for regrowth) lying dormant in the soil after wildflowers bloomed in earlier seasons. The dormant seeds and tubers were ready to spring into life with the right seasonal conditions.</p><p><span></span>For example, <a href="https://www.qld.gov.au/environment/plants-animals/plants/herbarium" target="_blank">Queensland Herbarium</a> surveys early last year, during the drought, looked at a 20 meter (65 feet) by 20 meter plot and found only six native grass and wildflower species on one property. After this year's rain, we found 59 species in the same plot, including many species of perennial grass (three species jumped to 20 species post rain), native bluebells and many species of native daisies.</p><p>On another property with only 11 recorded species, more than 60 species sprouted after the extensive rains.</p><p>In areas where grazing and farming continued as normal (the paired "control" sites), the plots had only around half the number of plant species as areas managed for conservation.</p>Spotting Rare Marsupials
<p>Landowners also reported several unusual sightings of animals on their farms after the rains. Stewardship program surveyors later identified them as two species of rare and endangered native carnivorous marsupials: the southern spotted-tailed quoll (mainland Australia's largest carnivorous marsupial) and the brush-tailed <a href="https://bie.ala.org.au/species/urn:lsid:biodiversity.org.au:afd.taxon:b6930f29-3f26-415e-a760-c12c320c2931" target="_blank">phascogale</a>.</p><p>The population status of both these species in southern Queensland is unknown. The brush-tailed phascogale is elusive and rarely detected, while the southern spotted-tailed quolls are listed as <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicspecies.pl?taxon_id=75184" target="_blank">endangered</a> under federal legislation.</p><p>Until those sightings, there were no recent records of southern spotted-tailed quolls in the local area.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQxNzQyOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzODM0MzIzMn0.pMTp9_6GjFFC8U7m3OV8L-ZuiRYpKAbjILNwBoql0VM/img.jpg?width=980" id="34656" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="0444b5ddde89407d8fac735c1110afcc" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A spotted tailed quoll caught in a camera trap. Sean Fitzgibbon, Author provided
<p>These unusual wildlife sightings are valuable for monitoring and evaluation. They tell us what's thriving, declining or surviving, compared to the first surveys for the stewardship program ten years ago.</p><p>Sightings are also a promising signal for the improving condition of the property and its surrounding landscape.</p>Changing Farm Habits
<p>More than 200 farmers signed up to the stewardship program for the conservation and management of nationally threatened ecological communities on private lands. Most have said they're keen to continue the partnership.</p><p>The landholders are funded to manage their farms as part of the stewardship program <a href="http://nrmonline.nrm.gov.au/catalog/mql:2407" target="_blank">in ways</a> that will help the woodlands recover, and help reverse declines in biodiversity.</p><p>For example, by changing the number of livestock grazing at any one time, and shortening their grazing time, many of the grazing-sensitive wildflowers have a better chance to germinate, grow, flower and produce seeds in the right seasonal conditions.</p><p>They can also manage weeds, and not remove fallen timber or loose rocks (bushrock). Fallen timber and rocks protect grazing-sensitive plants and provide habitat for birds, reptiles and invertebrates foraging on the ground.</p>Cautious Optimism
<p>So can we be optimistic for the future of wildlife and wildflowers of the box gum grassy woodlands? Yes, cautiously so.</p><p>Landholders are learning more about how best to manage biodiversity on their farms, but ecological recovery can take time. In any case, we've discovered how resilient our flora and fauna can be in the face of severe drought when given the opportunity to grow and flourish.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQxNzQzMC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNTc0MTI2OH0.VpRVICeH1bpaokXK20ESVqFL3__B-RCyBzhk0gGSgM8/img.jpg?width=980" id="f7fb8" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c2da30c9e7ccc774444d7f57c4c38009" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
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<em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/jacqui-stol-1124670" target="_blank">Jacqui Stol</a> is a </em><em>Senior Experimental Scientist, Ecologist, CSIRO Land and Water, CSIRO.</em>
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<em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/annie-kelly-1128826" target="_blank">Annie Kelly</a> is a </em><em>Senior Ecologist, Queensland Herbarium.<br/>
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<em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/suzanne-prober-1128431" target="_blank">Suzanne Prober</a> is a </em><em><em>Senior Principal Research Scientist, CSIRO.</em></em>
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<em><em></em>Disclosure statement: </em><em>Jacqui Stol works for the CSIRO, which receives funding and was contracted by the Australian Government for the Environmental Stewardship Program. </em><em>Annie Kelly works for the Queensland Herbarium, which receives funding and was contracted by the Australian Government for the Environmental Stewardship Program. </em><em><em>Suzanne Prober works for CSIRO, which receives funding from the Australian Government to undertake monitoring for the Environmental Stewardship Program.</em></em>
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<em><em></em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-drought-breaking-rains-transformed-these-critically-endangered-woodlands-into-a-flower-filled-vista-140638" target="_blank">The Conversation</a>.</em>
</p><iframe height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140638/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-advanced" width="1"></iframe>The rare hooded robin has also been recorded on stewardship sites during surveys. Micah Davies, Author provided
<p>Climate change is bringing more extreme weather events. Last year was the <a href="http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/annual/aus/" target="_blank">warmest on record</a> and the nation has been gripped by severe, protracted drought. There's only so much pressure our iconic wildlife and wildflowers can take before they cross ecological thresholds that are difficult to bounce back from.</p><p>More government programs like this, and greater understanding and collaboration between scientists and farmers, create a <a href="https://publications.csiro.au/rpr/download?pid=csiro:EP154278&dsid=DS4" target="_blank">tremendous opportunity</a> to keep changing that trajectory for the better.</p>From Your Site Articles
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An aerial view shows Lake Mead in Nevada on January 2, 2020. Daniel SLIM / AFP / Getty Images
By Brett Walton
Use of Colorado River water in the three states of the river's lower basin fell to a 33-year low in 2019, amid growing awareness of the precarity of the region's water supply in a drying and warming climate.
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<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/844750342&color=ff5500&hide_related=true&show_comments=false&show_teaser=false"></iframe><div style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/circleofblue" title="Circle of Blue" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Circle of Blue</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/circleofblue/drop-in-colorado-river-water-use" title="Drop In Colorado River Water Use" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Drop In Colorado River Water Use</a></div>
<p>Arizona, California, and Nevada combined to consume just over 6.5 million acre-feet last year, according to an <a href="https://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/g4000/4200Rpts/DecreeRpt/2019/2019.pdf" target="_blank">annual audit</a> from the Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that oversees the lower basin. That is about 1 million acre-feet less than the three states are entitled to use under a legal compact that divides the Colorado River's waters.</p><p>The last time water consumption from the river was that low was in 1986, the year after an enormous canal in Arizona opened that allowed the state to lay claim to its full Colorado River entitlement.</p><p>States have grappled in the last two decades with declining water levels in the basin's main reservoirs — Mead and Powell — while reckoning with clear scientific evidence that climate change is <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/367/6483/1252.full" target="_blank">already constricting the iconic river</a> and will do further damage as temperatures rise.</p><p>For water managers, the steady drop in water consumption in recent years is a signal that conservation efforts are working and that they are not helpless in the face of daunting environmental changes.</p>
<p>"It's quite a turnaround from where we were a decade ago and really, I think, optimistic for dealing with chronic shortages on the river in the future, knowing that we can turn the dial back and reduce demand significantly, all three states combined," said Bill Hasencamp, the manager of Colorado River resources for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, a regional wholesaler and one of the river's largest users.</p><p>Observers of the basin's intricate politics are also impressed with the trend lines for a watershed that irrigates about 5 million acres of farmland and provides 40 million people in two countries and 29 tribal nations with a portion of their water.</p><p>"It is an incredibly important demonstration of the fact that we can use less water in this incredibly important water-use region," John Fleck told Circle of Blue. Fleck is the director of the University of New Mexico water resources program.</p><p>Projections for 2020 indicate that conservation will continue, though not quite at last year's pace. Halfway through the year, the <a href="https://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/g4000/hourly/forecast.pdf" target="_blank">Bureau of Reclamation forecasts</a> water consumption to be roughly 6.8 million acre-feet. An acre-foot is the amount of water that will flood an acre of land to a depth of one foot, or 325,851 gallons.</p><p>"I have to give them credit," Jennifer Gimbel, a senior water policy scholar at Colorado State University, told Circle of Blue about the lower basin states. "They're working hard to get these numbers."</p>
Raising Lake Mead
<p>Just five years ago, in 2015, the three states were making use of their entire 7.5-million-acre-foot allotment. By statute and tradition, the basin is divided into a lower basin, where use is higher, and an upper basin, which includes Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. The basins have different water allocation systems and rules governing its use.</p><p>In the lower basin, Arizona's annual allocation is 2.8 million acre-feet, but last year it used just 2.5 million. Nevada used 233,000 of its 300,000 acre-feet. The big savings were in California, which used only 3.8 million of its 4.4 million acre-feet. California hasn't used that little water from the Colorado since the 1950s, Fleck said.</p><p>The drop in California last year is due in large part to Metropolitan Water District, which consumed only 537,000 acre-feet. Five years ago, the district's tally was around 1 million acre-feet per year. Urban conservation and development of local water sources have played a large role in the decline, but the district's Colorado River water use is also influenced by snow levels in the Sierra Nevada mountains. When more water is available to be imported from the northern part of the state, as it was last year, the district leans less heavily on the Colorado River.</p>Total Lower Colorado Basin Consumptive Use
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQxMTU1OS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MzM0NDYxM30.RVr3Rzi1jqZHweILfonMU8SWs_LGJBGqg9lMiQ-jrVY/img.png?width=980" id="d31ab" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="15ef390e64a1be66991bfd26b0f0fee5" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p>Reclamation's annual audit measures the amount of water consumed by humans, plants, and animals in the lower basin. Consumptive use equals total withdrawals minus any water that is returned to the river system, from irrigation runoff or wastewater treatment plants.</p><p>As meticulous as it is, the audit neglects a significant piece of the basin's water budget: evaporation from reservoirs and system losses, which is water consumed by riverside vegetation and absorbed by the ground. Together, these add up to about 1 million acre-feet per year, Jeremy Dodds, water accounting and verification group manager for Reclamation, told Circle of Blue.</p><p>This factor is part of the lower basin's "structural deficit," which means that total demand in the lower basin — use by Arizona, California, and Nevada, plus evaporation and required deliveries to Mexico — exceeds the amount of water that flows into Lake Mead, the lower basin's supply source.</p><p>Gimbel, who was the principal deputy assistant secretary for water and science for the U.S. Department of Interior from 2014 to 2016, said that despite the conservation efforts reflected in the audit, the lower basin still has much work to do. "They're closing the deficit, but they're not there yet," she said.</p><p>The goal of the lower basin's conservation is to keep Lake Mead from a precipitous decline into "dead pool" territory, where the reservoir is too low to send water downstream. The dead-pool threshold is at elevation 895 feet. Not using 1 million acre-feet last year most certainly helped the reservoir. Dodds said that at the current elevation of 1,089 feet, each block of 85,000 acre-feet equals 1 foot of elevation. So last year's conservation added 12 feet to Mead, compared to a scenario in which the three states use their full entitlement.</p><p>The conservation tool box that the states have employed has a range of instruments. Cities have provided incentives to remove grass lawns and replace inefficient toilets, showerheads, and washing machines. In Imperial Irrigation District, farmers have lined earthen canals with concrete to prevent seepage and they have agreed to fallow land to save water. Those measures, in both town and country, have helped to reduce demand. Supplies, on the other hand, have been bolstered by more investment in recycling and reuse, groundwater treatment, and desalination. As a whole, the seven states in the watershed came together in 2019 to modify rules for mandatory water-use restrictions that kick in as Lake Mead drops.</p><p>The decline in Colorado River water consumption mirrors regional and national trends. In Metropolitan Water District's service area in Southern California, water use per person fell from about 181 gallons per person per day in the mid-1990s to 131 gallons in 2018, a drop of 27 percent. Colorado River consumption on the Colorado River Indian Tribes reservation, in Arizona, is down about 20 percent since 2016.</p>
<p>According to Tom Ley, a water consultant to the tribes, the decline is due to changes in farming practices and participation in a land fallowing program that will see 10,000 acres taken out of production in the next three years. The tribes' decrease in consumptive water use "may look even more dramatic once the 2020 report comes out," Ley told Circle of Blue.<br></p><p>All of these actions amount to a shift in the perception of what's possible, Fleck said.</p><p>"It shows that the expectation that a growing population and a robust agricultural economy require more water is wrong," explained Fleck, who is optimistic about the basin's capacity to wield the tools of conservation effectively. Environmental doom is not the inevitable outcome, he says. "We're seeing success in the transition away from the tragedy narrative," he added.</p><p>Still, there are minefields to navigate. There are dozens of proposals in the upper basin states to withdraw more water from the river, which, if they were built, would further stress supplies. Some of the water conserved in Lake Mead is stored as a credit that participating agencies can theoretically draw upon in the future. How agencies handle those withdrawals, especially if large requests are made as lake levels plummet, is an uncertainty. On top of that, a warming climate will suck more moisture from the basin, even before rain and snow reach the river.</p><p>A hot, dry spring this year in the upper basin is evidence of what aridity can do. Snowpack in the basin's headwaters was roughly average on April 1 and runoff into Lake Powell, a key water supply indicator, was expected to be 78 percent of normal. But then dry conditions arrived in April and May. Combined with dehydrated soils, which took their share of water, the runoff forecast by June 1 had diminished to just 57 percent of normal.</p><p>Those climate signals are the counterbalance to the conservation success so far. Water managers, now wary, know the risk.</p><p>"Just hopefully we don't get a string of dry years coming back," Hasencamp said.</p>
<p class=""><em>This story originally appeared in <a href="https://www.circleofblue.org/" target="_blank">Circle of Blue</a></em> <em>and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Non-profit organization Global Coralition draws on art, science and local communities for its coral reef restoration work. youtu.be
By David Elliott
Dive beneath the brilliant blue waters surrounding Thailand's Koh Tao island and you might come face to face with a giant sculpture of the sea goddess Mazu.
But a closer look reveals an even bigger surprise – Mazu is alive.
<p>That's because, as the 1,800kg (almost 40,000-pound) centerpiece of a large artificial coral reef, she is teeming with sea life.</p><p>Built in 2018 by non-profit organization Global Coralition with the <a href="https://oceanic.global/the-art-rising/" target="_blank">help of conservation group Eco Koh Tao</a>, the sculpture and the 36 smaller pyramid structures that surround it hold <a href="https://www.globalcoralition.org/projects/koh-tao" target="_blank">5,000 coral transplants</a>. It attracts hundreds of divers a week and helps raise funds for local restoration groups, and is maintained by these divers and the local community.</p><p>Global Coralition now plans to return to the island to work with local conservation groups and scientists from Thailand's marine resources department to build the island's first land-based coral farm. The group is currently raising funds.</p>
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8f055bac39f517e94abf83f7fe746959"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/J1b1SPUOnyA?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
Small Pieces, Big Impact
<p>Angeline Chen, Executive Director of Global Coralition – who spoke recently at the World Economic Forum's <a href="https://www.weforum.org/events/virtual-ocean-dialogues-2020/sessions/uplink-ocean-solutions-sprint" target="_blank">Virtual Ocean Dialogues</a> event – is effusive about the benefits of growing coral on land and the role it could play in rebuilding damaged ocean habitats.</p><p>Coral can be grown up to 50 times faster this way, she says, using a technique called <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925857418303094" target="_blank">microfragmentation</a>. This involves dividing a piece of coral into much smaller fragments, which<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287204400_The_cultivation_of_massive_corals_using_micro-fragmentation_for_the_reskinning_of_degraded_coral_reefs" target="_blank"> stimulates the tissue</a> to grow. The pieces are grown a short distance apart and – because<a href="https://www.bbcearth.com/blog/?article=saving-coral" target="_blank"> corals are clonal animals</a> – they fuse together when their edges meet, forming a single mass.</p><p>Combined with other scientific methods, like<a href="https://www.globalcoralition.org/our-approach" target="_blank"> larval propagation and assisted evolution</a> to increase the resilience and reproductive rate of corals, Chen believes the impact of such projects, practiced all around the world, could be massive.</p><p>"With these farms, we could be growing a diverse array of resilient coral on a huge scale," she says.</p><p>Many organizations are practicing these methods, including <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925857418303094" target="_blank">Mote Marine Laboratory</a> in Florida, US, and the government of Hawaii, which is out-planting 1 meter by 1 meter (3.2 foot) corals grown in one year – the <a href="https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/blog/2020/05/28/nr20-072/" target="_blank">largest to be grown in a land-based</a> nursery.</p><div id="507c8" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e2c57fd8c727e7692e37866d6fc81164"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1266170721882890240" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">In the world of nursery raised corals, a one-meter coral is considered big. Yesterday, a team of biologists and te… https://t.co/wNWMyaARVf</div> — DLNR (@DLNR)<a href="https://twitter.com/dlnr/statuses/1266170721882890240">1590713599.0</a></blockquote></div>
Empowering Communities
<p>Driving the work of Global Coralition and organizations like it is a simple fact: coral is vital to the planet.</p><p>Coral reefs are among the <a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/tutorial_corals/welcome.html" target="_blank">most diverse ecosystems</a> on Earth, and they support nearly<a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Coral" target="_blank"> 1 million species of fish</a>, invertebrates and algae. They're crucial to humans, too. They<a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/coral_protect.html#:~:text=Coral%20reefs%20provide%20a%20buffer,%2C%20property%20damage%2C%20and%20erosion." target="_blank"> protect our coasts from storms</a> and floods, and<a href="https://scripps.ucsd.edu/projects/coralreefsystems/about-coral-reefs/value-of-corals/" target="_blank"> provide work, medicine and food</a> to more than 1 billion people. In fact, coral <a href="https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/coral-reefs-we-continue-take-more-we-give#:~:text=Coral%20reef%20ecosystems%20provide%20society,the%20tourism%20and%20fisheries%20industries." target="_blank">reef ecosystems give society resources</a> and services worth $375 billion per year, according to the United Nations.</p><p>But coral faces myriad threats, including overfishing, pollution and climate change. Almost <a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/17126/reef-building-corals-under-threat/" target="_blank">half of reef-building coral species are under threat</a>, according to UN figures. And scientists predict we'll lose up to <a href="https://phys.org/news/2020-02-acidic-oceans-coral-reef-habitats.html" target="_blank">90% of all reefs</a> in the next 20 years if something isn't done soon.</p><p>For Chen and the Global Coralition, the answer lies in engaging and empowering local communities with the knowledge, tools and resources to reduce the local impacts of reef degradation while increasing key habitats and species.</p><p>The organization uses art, like the sculpture of Mazu, to bring people together around cultural themes that are <a href="https://www.globalcoralition.org/our-approach" target="_blank">meaningful to their communities</a>.</p><p>It then works with parties including local officials, marine ecologists, fisherman, students and dive centers to foster the unique skills to rehabilitate their local ecology. This work in turn improves quality of life, water quality, food security, income and employment opportunities and education in the region.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQwNzg0My9vcmlnaW4uZ2lmIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NTAxNTU4MX0.qvqASgEfINGbVu5_go4_Si0Co-M0EpPYnGX86s1VpJQ/img.gif?width=980" id="cb0f0" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f63e56eecee01b4b439631e10261f3cf" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
The world's reef-building corals. Statista
Global Effort
<p>Global Coralition is currently building a marine farm in a fishing village in the Dominican Republic. It consists of an expansive underwater sculpture garden inspired by Taino wisdom, a land-based coral farm, mangrove and oyster restoration and a community education center.</p><p>As part of this project, Chen says, it used the World Economic Forum's <a href="https://uplink.weforum.org/uplink/s/uplink-contribution/a012o00001G7i5TAAR/global-coralition" target="_blank">UpLink</a> platform to connect the community with a recycling facility that pays locals to collect trash, which can be turned into material to be sold back into the economy.</p><p>The organization wants to create <a href="https://www.weforum.org/events/virtual-ocean-dialogues-2020/sessions/uplink-ocean-solutions-sprint" target="_blank">200 of these marine hubs</a> across the globe in collaboration with local communities and governments, fishing villages, dive communities, restoration groups, hotels and local officials.</p><p>"Based on recovery rates, scientists predict we can rebuild marine life by 2050 if we can mitigate climate change, reduce local pressures and increase the abundance of our keystone habitats and species," Chen says.</p><p>"If these methods were applied all over the world, we could scale our collective rates of restoration."</p>
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An aerial view of Miami, Florida. Ann Baekken / CC BY 2.0
By Tara Lohan
With its white-sand beaches and glittery high-rises, Miami is still a vacation hotspot. But lapping at those shores is another reality. The city is also a "possible future Atlantis, and a metonymic stand-in for how the rest of the developed world might fail — or succeed — in the climate-changed future," wrote Miami journalist Mario Alejandro Ariza in his forthcoming book, Disposable City: Miami's Future on the Shores of Climate Catastrophe.
<p>This may not be news to some. The city's plight has been the subject of <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/miami-how-rising-sea-levels-endanger-south-florida-200956/" target="_blank">investigative reporting</a> and even viral news stories after an <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2016/11/supermoon-tide-miami-sea-level-octopus-garage/#:~:text=The%20recent%20supermoon%20created%20difficult,along%20the%20South%20Florida%20coast." target="_blank">octopus showed up in a parking garage</a> following an especially high tide.</p>
<p>But Ariza takes a much deeper, more personal dive into the slowly unfolding disaster. Along the way he finds that the central question is whether South Florida — home to 6.5 million people — can <em>equitably</em> withstand what's coming. To do so it will need to reckon with its past sins. "Miami is a damn beautiful city, and it rests on a sodden foundation of merciless racial and environmental exploitation," he wrote.</p><p>The first step is figuring out how much sea-level rise there may be and when it's coming — but even that isn't easy, and there's no one definitive number. The regional climate change compact predicts two to six feet of sea-level rise by the end of the century; a NASA scientist has said eight to 10 feet.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQwNjkxNy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMzg4Mzk1NH0.7OV9mAqMYmMFtuXovCirxAic2DnEvGjzKu03NdxZMMY/img.jpg?width=980" id="c0b56" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f92297ec36700237885d6b9112edfd96" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p>One thing is certain, though: 20 percent of Miami-Dade County sits less than two feet above the sea. And by some estimates, the water could get that high in just 40 years.</p><p>The time to determine what future Miami may have is now.</p><p>After detailing that grim if uncertain reality, Ariza takes a detailed journey through South Florida's vulnerabilities, what actions the region is taking, and those it isn't. The first-person narrative follows Ariza through smelly, flooded city streets; a rigorous paddle to assess the risks to local infrastructure by kayak; and a day traipsing through thick swamps with two veterans to capture invasive Burmese pythons slithering amok.</p><p>This drives home a few points: South Florida's environmental problems aren't limited to sea-level rise — although the rising water could make much of it worse.</p><p>The draining of swamps, altering of water courses and brazen development have taken a mighty ecological toll. The Everglades are dying, and restoration efforts are painfully slow. The Miami River is choked by nutrient pollution — from leaking septic systems and fertilizer runoff — that's killing seagrasses, a keystone species of shallow marine ecosystems, and an important buffer against storms.</p><p>Environmental collapse is just part of the problem, though. There's also economic distress.</p>
<p>"If you expect to survive into the middle of the 21st century, you might just get to watch Miami die," Ariza wrote. "But not before the changing climate stretches the city's already yawning gap between rich and poor past its breaking point."</p><p>Miami-Dade is a majority-minority county with half its residents foreign-born. It also has an enormous wealth gap, with 6 in 10 residents spending more than one-third of their income on housing. And most of those who are struggling to make ends meet are black and Hispanic service-sector workers, Ariza explains.</p><p>It's precisely those communities with the fewest resources that will be hardest hit by stronger storms, hotter temperatures and rising tides. These inequities "are as dangerous as the city's low-lying topography and porous geology," he wrote.</p><p>Already a kind of climate gentrification is underway.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQwNjkxOC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwMTM2NjQ2N30.prNLB71aP9lmgef6N0nfm4tb6CV-SuwU26pAc0w3FXE/img.jpg?width=980" id="50ce2" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="84b419fd9ff9294df51b00f3551c89cc" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/miami-climate-ariza/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>. </em><em></em></p><a href="https://therevelator.org/" target="_blank"></a>Flooding in Miami's Brickell neighborhood in 2017. Phillip Pessar / CC BY 2.0
<p>Ariza explains how decades of racist policies and real-estate practices have pushed communities of color away from the beach and the newly emerging suburbs. They ended up sandwiched in between, in an area of high ground that now looks enticing to developers.</p><p>This new pressure is increasing gentrification in communities already barely surviving. It's liable to get worse, too, Ariza explains. Between $15-$23 billion worth of property may be underwater in 30 years. The market has yet to broadly reflect that, but developers are building on borrowed time, even as the lower-income communities are already feeling the pinch.</p><p>"Everything we know about climate change indicates that it pulls at society's loose ends," said Ariza. These cracks in vulnerability could become chasms if the right policies aren't enacted as the city works to mitigate and adapt.</p><p>By the end of <em>Disposable City, </em>it's likely readers won't be wildly optimistic about Miami's chances. But they will be armed with a deeper view of what's at stake and the complexities of trying to solve an environmental and social challenge of this magnitude. Even if the city itself does everything right, it still needs the state of Florida to embrace climate reality and the rest of the world to meet science-based targets for greenhouse gas reductions. Efforts are underway, including a <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article243276326.html" target="_blank">newly released draft plan</a> from the Army Corps of Engineers to spend $4.6 billion on sea walls and other projects to protect businesses and homes from storm surges. But much more will be needed.</p><p>In Miami these next decades will be fight or flight. Or a combination of both. And he muses on what that would look like. And feel like. Ariza himself is an immigrant, having come to Miami from the Dominican Republic as a kid. He already carries the grief of having left a homeland — a feeling that half the city's population also knows intimately.</p><p>"Now we have to face the fact that climate change may well force us to scatter again," he wrote.</p><p>The end of the book turns from this hard reality to a future vision as Ariza shifts to a fictional envisioning. No spoilers, but it's safe to say Miami in 2100 will be a changed place. And that's at least one thing we know for sure about this warming world — it is a changing one.</p><p>Ariza's deep dive into Miami is an intricate look at <em>his</em> vulnerable city, but it's likely to get readers thinking about their own. What will your hometown look like in 80 years? What do you want it to look like? What will you do to make that hope a reality?</p>From Your Site Articles
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St. Peter's Square and St.Peter's Basilica on May 20, 2020 in The Vatican, after it reopened following a lockdown aimed at curbing the spread of the COVID-19 infection. ANDREAS SOLARO / AFP via Getty Images
The Vatican urged Catholics to closely consider where they invest their money and to take a close look at the environmental impact of the companies they may be shareholders in, as Reuters reported.
<p>Pope Francis has frequently criticized wanton greed that has led to environmental degradation and a <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis" target="_self">climate crisis</a> that is uprooting the lives of the world's most vulnerable and impoverished people. On Earth Day, the Pope gave a speech in which he said that humans have sinned against the earth, as <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/pope-francis-earth-day-speech-2645811438.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1" target="_self">EcoWatch</a> reported at the time.</p><p>To follow up on the pontiff's works, the Vatican released a 225-page manual for church leaders and workers that included the guidance to end investments in weapons manufacturing and defense systems, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels">fossil fuels</a>, and to closely monitor companies in the energy sector to see if their actions are causing environmental harm, according to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-vatican-environment/vatican-urges-catholics-to-drop-investments-in-fossil-fuels-arms-idUSKBN23P1HI?utm_source=reddit.com" target="_blank">Reuters</a>.</p>
<p>The manual, called <em>Journeying Towards Care For Our Common Home</em>, is a follow up to the Pope's <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/pope-francis-encyclical-urges-swift-action-on-climate-change-ahead-of--1882051686.html" target="_self">landmark encyclical </a>on climate change called "<a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html" target="_blank">Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home</a>," which gave the official Catholic Church seal of approval to the pope's environmental concerns. The new compendium offers practical steps to follow up on the Laudato Si, which translates from Latin to Praise Be.</p><p>As <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-vatican-environment/vatican-urges-catholics-to-drop-investments-in-fossil-fuels-arms-idUSKBN23P1HI?utm_source=reddit.com" target="_blank">Reuters</a> reported, the manual's finance section said that shareholder action "could favor positive changes ... by excluding from their investments companies that do not satisfy certain parameters." It listed these as respect for human rights, bans on child labor, and protection of the environment.</p>
<p>"The Vatican's call for divestment is a breath of hope in times when faith is more needed than ever," said Bill McKibben, author and co-founder of <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/18/new-vatican-document-urges-fossil-fuel-divestment-serve-planet-and-common-good" target="_blank">350.org</a> in a statement, as <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/18/new-vatican-document-urges-fossil-fuel-divestment-serve-planet-and-common-good" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a> reported. "It is also one of the handful of great moments in this decade-long campaign. It is a powerful statement that attempting to profit off the destruction of the planet is plainly and simply immoral and unethical."</p><p>The Vatican bank has insisted it does not invest in fossil fuels and many Catholic dioceses and educational institutions around the world have taken similar positions, including a move last month by more than 40 Catholic institutions globally that pledged to divest from fossil fuels, according to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-vatican-environment/vatican-urges-catholics-to-drop-investments-in-fossil-fuels-arms-idUSKBN23P1HI?utm_source=reddit.com" target="_blank">Reuters</a>.</p>
<p>One action point in the manual called on Catholics to "shun companies that are harmful to human or social ecology, such as abortion and armaments, and to the environment, such as fossil fuels," as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-vatican-environment/vatican-urges-catholics-to-drop-investments-in-fossil-fuels-arms-idUSKBN23P1HI?utm_source=reddit.com" target="_blank">Reuters</a> reported. Another section called for stringent monitoring of the mining and extraction industry to make sure they were not adding harmful contaminants to the air, land and water.</p><p>Journeying Towards Care For Our Common Home sees the climate crisis as "a profound environmental, ethical, economic, political, and social 'relevance'" which "impacts the poor above all," according to the <a href="https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2020-06/vatican-interdicastery-document-laudato-si-safeguarding-creation.html" target="_blank">Vatican News</a>. It calls for a new model of development that links the fight against the climate crisis and the fight against poverty to church doctrines.</p><p>The document calls for a commitment to low-carbon, sustainable development, reforestation of the Amazon region, and humanitarian protections for climate refugees, according to the <a href="https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2020-06/vatican-interdicastery-document-laudato-si-safeguarding-creation.html" target="_blank">Vatican News</a>.</p>
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The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument is the only marine national monument in the Atlantic Ocean. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
President Donald Trump sparked the ire of conservationists earlier this month when he opened the country's only marine national monument in the Atlantic to commercial fishing.
<p>Now, some of them are suing to stop him and preserve the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, which protects 5,000 square miles of unique <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oceans" target="_self">ocean</a> habitat off Cape Cod.</p><p>"Trump has once again eliminated critical natural resource protections on a whim, and with no legal authority," Brad Campbell, president of the Boston-based <a href="https://www.clf.org/" target="_blank">Conservation Law Foundation</a> (CLF), said in a <a href="https://www.clf.org/newsroom/clf-taking-trump-administration-to-court-for-decimating-monument-protections/" target="_blank">press release</a> announcing his organization's decision to sue. "This lawless act upends over a century of practice by presidents of both parties, and puts all national monuments on the block for the highest political bidder."</p>
<div id="00ad0" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1f599999b403493ff99aeef310278552"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1273713391367073795" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">President Trump illegally gutted protections for New England’s marine monument. We’ll see him in court.… https://t.co/UWgRF6P7q8</div> — Conservation Law Foundation (@Conservation Law Foundation)<a href="https://twitter.com/CLF/statuses/1273713391367073795">1592511911.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>The monument was created by President Barack Obama in 2016 using the Antiquities Act, <a href="https://www.clf.org/blog/snowball/trump-atlantic-marine-monument/" target="_blank">CLF said</a>. It protects an estimated 54 species of deep sea coral and hundreds of other marine animals, including <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/endangered-species" target="_self">endangered species</a> like North Atlantic right <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/whales" target="_self">whales</a> and Kemp's ridley <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-turtles" target="_self">sea turtles</a>, <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/06/17/metro/environmental-group-sues-trump-administration-allowing-commercial-fishing-protected-waters/" target="_blank">The Boston Globe reported</a>. It is also home to four underwater mountains and three underwater canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon.</p><p>The commercial fishing industry had argued that the creation of the monument was an overreach of federal authority that hurt livelihoods. Before its formation, fisherman said as many as 80 boats fished the area.</p>
<p>"President Obama swept aside our public, science-based fishery management process with the stroke of a pen," Bob Vanasse, executive director of fishermen lobby group Saving Seafood, told The Boston Globe. "That was a mistake, and whatever anyone thinks about President Trump is irrelevant."</p><p>But, in a <a href="https://www.clf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/2020.06.16-NE-Canyons-complaint-final.pdf" target="_blank">lawsuit</a> filed in Washington, DC Wednesday, CLF, the <a href="https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/" target="_blank">Center for Biological Diversity</a> (CBD), and the <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/" target="_blank">Natural Resources Defense Council</a> argued that Trump's reversal was the overreach: A president may use the Antiquities Act to designate a monument, but only Congress can undo protections.</p><p>"Trump's order was illegal because he can't just declare commercial fishing is allowed in a protected marine monument," CBD attorney Kristen Monsell said in a <a href="https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/lawsuit-challenges-trump-ok-commercial-fishing-atlantic-marine-monument-2020-06-17/" target="_blank">press release</a>. "The Seamounts monument was created to permanently safeguard this amazing ecosystem and vulnerable species like the endangered sperm whale. Presidents can't be allowed to gut protections by decree as a favor to commercial fishermen."</p>
<div id="f9e3c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f5c6d6868df7e73680e28f750fa9ffa9"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1273342928304422920" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">The Center and allies just filed a lawsuit challenging President Trump's executive order allowing commercial fishin… https://t.co/6vr6gIG7v4</div> — Center for Bio Div (@Center for Bio Div)<a href="https://twitter.com/CenterForBioDiv/statuses/1273342928304422920">1592423586.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>CBD pointed out that, before Trump reversed the commercial fishing ban, courts had twice rejected the industry's attempt to challenge it.</p><p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation" target="_self">Conservation</a> groups also argue that the monument ultimately protects commercial fisheries by preserving the species that support them, according to The Boston Globe.</p><p>Further, not all business interests oppose the monument. <a href="http://blueplanetstrategy.com/" target="_blank">Zack Klyver</a>, a Maine marine scientist who has led more than 600,000 people on whale watching tours with the Bar Harbor Whale Watch Company, has also joined the suit.</p><p>"I spend lots of time on the water so I know how important it is to protect this marine monument. My business depends on a healthy ocean," Klyver, who has also co-founded ocean conservation company Blue Planet Strategies, said in the CBD release. "Trump's attack on New England's prized marine monument is one I take personally. We need to protect our oceans and their abundance of marine life for future generations to experience."</p>
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A Sumatran orangutan is prepared for release into the wild at Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program's rehabilitation center in North Sumatra, Indonesia. Ulet Ifansasti / Getty Images
By Jessica Corbett
"Humanity's broken relationship with nature comes at a cost."
That cost is new zoonotic diseases, which are passed from animals to humans and "are emerging at an alarming rate." That is according to a World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) report released Wednesday as the coronavirus pandemic continues to devastate communities and economies across the globe.
<p>The report, entitled <a href="https://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/press_releases/?364416/Conditions-are-rife-for-next-pandemic-unless-urgent-action-is-taken-WWF-warns" target="_blank"><em>Covid-19: Urgent Call to Protect People and Nature</em></a>, issues a call for global action "to reduce the risk of future pandemics and heal our broken relationship with nature," detailing specific moves that governments, companies and industries, civil society organizations, and the public should take to help create a healthier world.</p><p>"The increased emergence of zoonotic diseases," the report explains, "is linked to two widespread environmental risks."</p><ul><li>Driven by unsustainable food systems, the large-scale conversion of land for agriculture is increasing interactions between wildlife, livestock, and humans. Land conversion is destroying and fragmenting forests and other natural habitats around the world, resulting in higher levels of contact between wildlife, livestock, and humans. This problem is only set to worsen as the challenge of feeding a growing population increases and diets shift.</li><li>Poor food safety standards, including permitting the trade and consumption of high-risk wildlife species, are increasing human exposure to animal pathogens. Globally, demand for wild meat is growing, as either a delicacy or a necessity, driving increased sale and consumption, and increasing the potential for exposure to diseases during high-risk sourcing, handling, and preparation practices.</li></ul><p>Given the increased emergence of such diseases and the threats pandemics pose to health, economies, and global security, the report treats the current Covid-19 crisis as a signal to the international community that rapid "systemic changes must be made to address the environmental drivers of pandemics."</p>
<div id="8bf27" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="abcfdcc8ebf06dbba43a9b5295022d5b"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1273245890652901377" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">#COVID19 is the greatest health, economic and social crisis in a century. How we respond to it will shape the futur… https://t.co/aXOKL2N0Vb</div> — WWF (@WWF)<a href="https://twitter.com/WWF/statuses/1273245890652901377">1592400450.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>As WWF International director general Marco Lambertini <a href="https://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/press_releases/?364416/Conditions-are-rife-for-next-pandemic-unless-urgent-action-is-taken-WWF-warns" target="_blank">put it </a>in a statement Wednesday: "We must urgently recognize the links between the destruction of nature and human health, or we will soon see the next pandemic."</p><p>"We must curb the high risk trade and consumption of wildlife, halt deforestation and land conversion, as well as manage food production sustainably," said Lambertini. "All these actions will help prevent the spillover of pathogens to humans, and also address other global risks to our society like biodiversity loss and climate change."</p><p>"There is no debate, and the science is clear; we must work with nature, not against it," he said. "Unsustainable exploitation of nature has become an enormous risk to us all."<em><br></em></p><p>Along with commenting on his group's new report, Lambertini on Wednesday co-authored a related <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/17/coronavirus-warning-broken-relationship-nature" target="_blank">op-ed</a> in the <em>Guardian</em> with Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, executive secretary of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, and Maria Neira, director of the World Health Organization (WHO) department of environment, climate change, and health.</p>
<p>As of Wednesday afternoon, there <a href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html" target="_blank">were</a> more than 8.2 million confirmed Covid-19 cases and over 444,000 deaths worldwide. The trio put the pandemic into a broader context:</p><blockquote>We have seen many diseases emerge over the years—such as Zika, Aids, Sars, and Ebola—and although they are quite different at first glance, they all originated from animal populations under conditions of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/25/coronavirus-nature-is-sending-us-a-message-says-un-environment-chief" target="_blank">severe environmental pressures</a>. And they all illustrate that our destructive behavior towards nature is endangering our own health—a stark reality we've been collectively ignoring for decades. <a href="https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/174012/9789241508537_eng.pdf?sequence=1" target="_blank">Research indicates</a> that most emerging infectious diseases are driven by human activities.<br></blockquote><p>The op-ed's authors echoed WWF's calls to reform global food systems and stop destroying natural habitats, and endorsed <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/05/26/hundreds-medical-professionals-and-groups-say-covid-19-stimulus-plans-must-be" target="_blank">demands</a> that governments and international bodies have faced throughout the pandemic, writing that "we must embrace a just, healthy, and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/24/covid-19-economic-rescue-plans-must-be-green-say-environmentalists" target="_blank">green recovery</a>, and kickstart a wider transformation towards a model that values nature as the foundation for a healthy society, and a well-resourced and equitable economy."</p><p>"This means shifting to more sustainable practices, such as regenerative and diversified agriculture and diets, sustainable animal farming, green urban spaces, and clean forms of energy," they continued. "Not doing so, and instead attempting to save money by neglecting environmental protection, health systems, and social safety nets, has already proven to be a false economy. The bill will be paid many times over."</p>
<div id="7facd" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="0d96b0f1be500e1be6fa1b430334a062"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1273174411399626752" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Nature provides food & water, powers our economies & underpins our health. Yet we are pushing it to the brink.… https://t.co/8A2wAvIKwN</div> — WWF (@WWF)<a href="https://twitter.com/WWF/statuses/1273174411399626752">1592383408.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Lambertini, Mrema, and Neira expressed hope that the U.N. biodiversity <a href="https://www.cbd.int/article/Summit-on-Biodiversity-2020" target="_blank">summit</a> currently scheduled for late September will serve as an opportunity for world leaders to "signal their support for a new relationship with our natural world" and "accelerate action through to next year when they are scheduled to take critical decisions on the environment, climate, and development."</p><p>The WWF report and op-ed follow a series of similar demands to reform humanity's relationship with nature on and leading up to World Environment Day earlier this month. Activists, scientists, policymakers, and other global figures <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/05/world-environment-day-provokes-warnings-care-humanity-we-must-care-nature" target="_blank">declared</a> that "the emergence of Covid-19 has underscored the fact that, when we destroy biodiversity, we destroy the system that supports human life."</p><p>In a webinar about pandemics, wildlife, and intensive animal farming a few days before World Environment Day, primatologist and conservationist Jane Goodall <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/03/jane-goodall-warns-humanity-will-be-finished-after-covid-19-without-ending-absolute" target="_blank">warned</a> of the dire consequences of failing to overhaul unsustainable global food systems and end the destruction of nature. "If we do not do things differently, we are finished," she said. "We can't go on very much longer like this."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/17/top-global-experts-say-humanity-must-heal-our-broken-relationship-nature-prevent" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>
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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>
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Yosemite National Park in the western Sierra Nevada of Northern California on April 13, 2017. Jorge Láscar / Flickr
The Senate overwhelmingly approved a major conservation bill worth billions on Wednesday. The Great American Outdoors Act provides a stimulus to nationwide conservation projects, outdoor recreation and maintenance of national parks and other public lands, according to AP News. The bill's supporters say the legislation would be the most significant conservation legislation enacted in nearly half a century.
<p>The bill passed the U.S. Senate in a bipartisan 73-25 vote. It would permanently provide $900 million in oil and gas revenues for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), which helps secure land for trails and parks.</p><p>Proponents, including the bill's sponsor, Republican Cory Gardner of Colorado, tout the Great American Outdoors Act as a way to get people back to work after millions have been laid off in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, as <a href="https://www.outsideonline.com/2414708/great-american-outdoors-act" target="_blank">Outside Magazine</a> reported.</p>
<p>"Years of bipartisan work have led to this moment and this historic opportunity for conservation," said Gardner, according to <a href="https://www.outsideonline.com/2414708/great-american-outdoors-act" target="_blank">Outside Magazine</a>. "Today the Senate passed not only the single greatest conservation achievement in generations but also a lifeline to mountain towns and recreation communities hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic."</p><p>As <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/06/17/national-parks-bill-addresses-long-deferred-maintenance-projects/3205195001/" target="_blank">USA Today</a> reported, West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, who helped craft the measure, called it "one of the most important things we've done in the conservation world in the last 50 years. So we're very proud of that."</p><p>In total, federal lands may receive up to $1.9 billion per year over the next five years, which would make an enormous difference in maintaining parks and national forests. Right now, federal public lands are suffering from $20 billion in deferred maintenance costs, with $12 billion of that accumulated by the National Park Service, according to <a href="https://www.outsideonline.com/2414708/great-american-outdoors-act" target="_blank">Outside Magazine</a>.</p>
<p>"Park roads and bridges are collapsing, water systems are failing, and visitor centers are crumbling," said Theresa Pierno, president and CEO for National Parks Conservation Association, as <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/06/17/national-parks-bill-addresses-long-deferred-maintenance-projects/3205195001/" target="_blank">USA Today</a> reported. "This momentous bill not only provides an opportunity to better care for these treasured places, it will help to increase access to public lands across the country, provide jobs and bring much-needed relief to local communities suffering through hard times."</p><p>"[This] will be a monumental victory for conservation and the places where we all get outside," said Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM). He cited studies showing that each dollar spent by the fund creates an additional four dollars in economic value.</p>
<p>Outside of parks, communities around national parks suffer from high unemployment rates since many of their economies are deeply affected by the COVID-19 lockdowns, according to <a href="https://apnews.com/5796d62b4d9600744d1a277ea3745b44" target="_blank">AP News</a>.</p><p>Montana Republican Stephen Daines also pushed for the bill. Both he and Gardner are extremely vulnerable incumbents in November's election. It seems Republicans may have pushed forward and supported the bill to help the Colorado and Montana senators in the next election, especially since they each represent a state where the outdoor economy and tourism at sites such as Rocky Mountain and Yellowstone national parks play an outsize role, according to <a href="https://apnews.com/5796d62b4d9600744d1a277ea3745b44" target="_blank">AP News</a>.</p><p><a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign-polls/488454-poll-shows-daines-bullock-neck-and-neck-in-montana-senate-race" target="_blank">Daines is tied</a> with his Democratic opponent, and Gardner trails his opponent, in the <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2020/05/06/colorado-poll-hickenlooper-gardner-senate-polis/" target="_blank">most recent polls</a>, as <a href="https://www.outsideonline.com/2414708/great-american-outdoors-act" target="_blank">Outside Magazine</a> reported.</p><p>Maintaining federal lands, where deferred projects are in every state, is popular with the American public. A <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2019/08/09/americans-want-congress-to-act-to-fix-national-parks" target="_blank">Pew survey last year</a> found that eight of 10 registered voters support using oil and gas revenues to cover the maintenance backlog, as <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/06/17/national-parks-bill-addresses-long-deferred-maintenance-projects/3205195001/" target="_blank">USA Today</a> reported.</p>
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