Indigenous Artist Meryl McMaster: Lost In, and Crafted by, the Natural World

The Canadian photographer travels to remote areas to explore identity and our relationship with nature.

The first time I saw Meryl McMaster’s work was in the spring of 2022. The Ottawa-based artist was one of 12 Indigenous artists from the Arctic region exhibiting in the House of Sweden, the building on Washington, D.C.’s Georgetown waterfront that serves as the country’s embassy. Her contributions to the exhibit were enormous photographic prints — self-portraits, with dramatic costumes, set in vast, expansive and remote landscapes, the kind of art that can almost be stepped into, and the kind that leaves an impression even when they’re out of sight.

McMaster herself seems both lost in the environment, and crafted from it, which is the entire point.

Her photographs and sculptures — now on display at a solo exhibit at the Embassy of Canada and a group show at the National Museum of Women in the Arts — also strive to explore her conflicting sense of identity as a Canadian with Nêhiyaw (Plains Cree), British and Dutch lineage.

In a conversation with The Revelator, McMaster spoke of her process, her connection to the landscape, and her evolution as an artist, as well as what advice she has for people pursuing creative paths that might scare them.

Your work has this very ethereal, visceral quality. It has both a very soft, dreamy edge, but also a sharp impact. What do you want folks to leave with the experience of viewing one of your exhibits?

I really welcome the viewer to engage with the work, sometimes just as simply as using their imagination to fill in the blanks, and travel in this quick moment that they have with the work, and this own storyline in their own head.

On a simpler level, it’s just also having this moment, to escape, and forget the outside world.

I’d want them to think about our connections to each other, and also our disconnections from our cultures, and explore in their head the wonderment of these really immersive landscapes.

I just think of our natural world, and just how in awe of it I am, and how small we are in this natural world, and how it’s so important to think about protecting these spaces that we all live in.

Also I’d like them to think about how I’m representing, in these photographs, the generations before us and what these previous generations have sacrificed, and went through, in order for us to be in these spaces, and places today.

These are vastly panoramic landscapes that you’re working in, with very elaborate designs. What goes into staging your photographs?

(laughs) It’s definitely a process that’s taken many years to nail down, because it’s tricky. In a lot of cases, I have to hike into some of these locations. I don’t have a huge team that works with me. It’s usually friends or family, depending on where I’m photographing. So with the help of one or two other people, I’m carrying in the objects you’re seeing in these photographs. I try to keep my camera kit very small. I’m not taking lights or anything like that.

I’m usually up early because I’m photographing a lot in the morning, or in those golden hours.

It’s a lot of research into these site-specific locations, looking at historical photographs. When I get to these sites, I’m usually there for a couple days, to allow for contingency, for weather. A lot of times, I’m dealing with some tricky weather, high winds especially, although you can’t see that in the photograph.

 

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It’s a lot to prepare for, even just mentally and physically. It’s physically draining afterwards. Sometimes I’m photographing in the middle of winter, so it’s quite cold. Being the photographer, being the one that’s thinking about all the technical aspects, as well as also being the subject, and thinking about how to kind of get across that narrative through the image — it’s definitely not easy.

You’ve spoken previously of the conflicts between your Euro-Canadian and Indigenous identities. Why do you focus on these issues, and how do they manifest in your work?

From a really young age, I was aware of my different backgrounds, and knowing about my ancestry, family history, and stories. I was really interested in getting to know, and imagine, who those families were. That grew into learning about our broader history and how it went from these smaller family stories to these broader, more complex relationships that my ancestors had. That got me really curious, and it started to create these questions about my belonging and identity to these very different histories and cultures. Then, when I was trying to figure out what was I going to explore as an artist, I really wanted to do something that I could relate to, and, coming from a very personal place, something that I could speak to from my own personal experience.

That’s where I really gravitated toward exploring this complexity of family, and kin, and looking at this bicultural heritage of mine. I was thinking about these fuzzy edges of these multiple histories and thinking about time and memory, and those complex questions. I’m trying to create, through this influence of storytelling, these magical moments, these narratives that look at actual events and experiences mixed with these imagined experiences, in order to draw the viewer in, in a different way, to start to think about these conversations, and these harder histories that we all share.

 

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Meryl, your first professional exhibit was in 2010. How has your work as an artist grown from your first exhibition to now, when you’re exhibiting across Washington and around the world? How do you see that evolution?

Well, I didn’t expect [to be] exploring personal and direct family stories. In my earlier works, I was working more broadly with historical events, not working with site-specific locations, partly just because of budget. I was working in and around where I lived, and the costumes maybe weren’t as elaborate as what I do now, or the objects. My abilities to create the different elements within the images has grown a lot.

You know, I still in a lot of ways feel like this emerging artist, and when I think back, it’s just amazing how time flies, and all the ideas that I have explored over my work, it’s interesting to see them evolve, and maybe become more deeper, more enriched through time.

Because of grants, I’m able to travel to site-specific locations that influence the ideas that I’m working with, to travel to these places, and also back to where my family’s from in Saskatchewan. And I can see how my work has grown as a result.

 

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What advice do you have for other artists as they’re choosing subjects and themes — things that maybe are a little bit more intimate than they want, or comfortable with, or a little bit scarier, a bit of a stretch — about stepping into that space?

To really inspire, I think it has to come from something that you’re really passionate about, and interested in exploring, and lending your voice to. If you’re just really interested and passionate about exploring certain questions and ideas, I think that will shine through in the works.

Try not to listen to too many outside voices. Follow your gut as much as possible. I think something that I’ve trusted more over the years, as I’ve evolved as an artist, is just when something doesn’t feel right, don’t be afraid to pivot. When an idea is not working out for me, or a sculpture’s not working out for me, sometimes it’s heartbreaking to have to start from scratch. But taking those risks and trusting yourself, that’s part of the creative process of an artist.

Letting there be that freedom for ideas to just change and evolve, I think, is something that takes a bit of the pressure off and also puts more kind of excitement and joy into that process. I think just as a young artist, just don’t feel like you have to finish the idea at the beginning. Start experimenting and let those ideas evolve.

As an artist you express yourself through your photography and your work, and you’ve been written about over the years in different capacities. What do you want people to know about you and your work that hasn’t already been put out there?

Within my work, it’s almost like this different side of me that you see that maybe you wouldn’t when we’re just talking normally. When I make these images, it gives me a different kind of confidence, or maybe kind of different outlook on the world. I take my time with these images to have these feelings, and even these insecurities, these harder questions, that I put into this work.

Meryl McMaster’s exhibit, “On the Edge of This Immensity,” will be on display at the Embassy of Canada’s art gallery through the summer. The National Museum of Women in the Arts’ “Women to Watch” exhibit will be on display through August 11. Additional events are listed on her website. Follow her on Instagram and Facebook.

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Species Spotlight: The Laguna Mountains Skipper Butterfly — What’s in a Name, Anyway?

These butterflies are no longer present in their namesake range, but a collaboration aims to bring them back.

Species SpotlightSince 2021 the San Diego Zoo Entomology team has reared larvae of Laguna Mountains skippers in the Butterfly Conservation Lab at the San Diego Zoo. Adult female butterflies collected from Palomar Mountain lay eggs in the lab each spring, and we release them as larvae or pupae at the reintroduction site in the Laguna Mountains Recreation Area. This process is called “headstarting.” Rearing the larvae in the lab allows us to protect them from threats at a vulnerable life stage and to gather life history and behavioral data — nearly impossible to capture in the field — that inform future efforts.

Species name:

Laguna Mountains skipper, Pyrgus ruralis lagunae (LMS for short)

Description:

This tiny butterfly has a wingspan measuring about 1 inch across, with a checkered white and grayish-brown coloration. Though it isn’t likely to draw much attention from non-lepidopterists, like many small butterflies it’s a critical component of its native ecosystem’s food web. Unfortunately only one such ecosystem remains in the United States.

Where it’s found:

Montane meadows of San Diego County in Southern California. Though it’s no longer found in the Laguna Mountains, a small population persists in the Palomar Mountain area. The Laguna Mountains skipper requires the presence of its host plant Horkelia clevelandii, a perennial herb in the rose family, to survive.

Laguna Mountains skipper eggs are laid singly on their host plant, Horkelia clevelandii. They are about the size of a pin head. © Michael Ready / San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance

IUCN Red List status:

Like most insects Laguna Mountains skippers have not been assessed by IUCN for the Red List. However, they’re protected by the U.S. Endangered Species Act and appears on the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s list of California Terrestrial and Vernal Pool Invertebrates of Conservation Priority.

Major threats:

Habitat destruction, drought, climate change, and related phenological mismatch between butterflies and host/nectar plants.

Notable conservation programs or legal protections:

These butterflies were protected under the Endangered Species Act in 1997. The San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, USDA Forest Service, Wildspring Ecology, Osborne Biological Consulting and the Urban Wildlands Group have collaborated to coordinate head starting, release and monitoring of this species, in hopes of facilitating their recovery. As the result of this partnership, the Laguna Mountains skipper butterfly took flight in its former range in 2021 for the first time since the late 1990s.

My favorite experience:

Not many people get to bear witness to every life stage of an endangered species, especially one so tiny. I remember a newly hatched LMS larva that became entangled in webbing from a spider mite and needed help getting free, something that was only possible to detect under a microscope and required a tiny paintbrush to correct! We learned quickly that helping this species required getting small — really, really small.

Larva under magnification. © Michael Ready

What else do we need to understand or do to protect this species?

As is the case for many endangered and threatened species, habitat loss is the main culprit in the decline of the Laguna Mountains skipper. Reintroduction efforts are nascent and adaptive, and progress is made each season to identify the best approach to recovery.

Key research:

Livestock Grazing Shapes the Vegetation Structure and Subsequent Habitat Use by the Endangered Skipper Pyrgus ruralis lagunae (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae)

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Share your stories: 

Do you live in or near a threatened habitat or community, or have you worked to study or protect endangered wildlife? You’re invited to share your stories in our ongoing features, Protect This Place and Species Spotlight. 

Titicaca in Crisis: Climate Change Is Drying Up the Biggest Lake in the Andes

Persistent drought has caused havoc for the Indigenous peoples who live on floating islands and depend on rains that have stopped falling.

“We call it Puno York,” says Augusto Parodi, a local architect, as the bus rolls down the hill. There’s no irony in his voice, yet the name is obviously a joke. Despite being one of the largest cities in Peru, Puno only counts around 140,000 residents, and — in Parodi’s words — “is but a speck of dust” when compared to the Big Apple.

Dust seems an appropriate word. Since the fall of 2022, the region has suffered from a drought that turned the nearby mountains into a barren wasteland and covered the crooked streets and slanted houses in a reddish-brown grime.

Like other towns peppering the Peruvian highlands, Puno is no stranger to dry spells. But this one has proved to be one of the worst in recorded history, continuing into 2023 and — thanks to the global climate phenomenon known as El Niño — even early 2024, affecting agriculture, fishing, livestock, tourism, and just about every other industry.

Some of the worst effects were felt by the Uros, an Indigenous people living on Lake Titicaca, the 3,200-square-mile body of water that stretches from Puno to the outskirts of La Paz, Bolivia. The lake — the biggest in the Andes, and the highest navigable water body in the world — shrank significantly during the past two years, with the water receding up to 1.25 miles in some areas.

“We are going through a crisis,” Nelson Coila Lujando, a member of the Uros community, told me back in February. As per custom, he and his family live on manmade floating islands in the middle of the lake. The islands, lashed together by water-resistant totora roots and reeds, have been the Uros’ refuge for centuries and allowed them to move their homes to fertile fishing grounds and avoid threats.

You can’t move a floating island to avoid droughts this bad.

Boats made of reeds, Uros Island, Lake Titicaca

The Uros, who call themselves the Guardians of Titicaca, subsist on fish, waterbirds, and the sale of handcrafted souvenirs. Their traditional existence can be traced back to the dawn of the Inca Empire, when the Uros’ are said to have moved onto the lake to escape subjugation on land. Their history and culture are now at risk of being wiped out by climate change.

“The reeds that we use to build our islands aren’t growing,” Lujando says. “The lake is drying up and we can’t move. The birds — they have gone in search of water, leaving behind only a few eggs. The fish are also gone.”

Surviving the Drought

The 2022-2023 drought rendered Titicaca almost unrecognizable. In November 2023, Flores Sancho, director of the National Meteorology and Hydrology Service of Peru (Senamhi) announced that the amount of rainfall in the region had fallen by 49%, causing the water flowing through the tributaries that feed the lake to drop by almost 80%. At its peak Titicaca’s overall water level fell by over 19 inches, with 120 metric tons evaporating per year.

As the water retreated, Puno’s bay quickly ran dry, leaving dozens of fishing and touring boats stuck in the waste-filled dirt.

In November 2023, reporters from the French newspaper Le Monde managed to make it to the floating home of Maruja Mamani, where she spoke of the growing shortage of totora reeds, a species of bulrush sage the Uros use to build their 9-feet-thick base of their islands.

“Our islands need a lot of maintenance,” she told the paper. “Every two weeks we have to add green reeds and every three months have to completely rebuild our houses.” According to Le Monde, more than 90% of the lake’s reeds had dried out, making them unusable. To harvest the remainder of fresh plants, the Uros had to sail to the far end of the lake, a journey that — on a good day — takes almost three hours, placing them far away from the resources they need.

 

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Totora forms the basis of Titicaca’s ecosystem. As the reeds disappeared, so did the animals that depend on them for food and egg laying: the native carachi, a small, yellowish fish of the Cyprinodontidae family; trout, introduced to the lake in the 20th century; the Puneño duck (Spatula puna), with its black-spotted head and green-streaked wings; and the fuzzy-haired grebe known as the Zambullidor del Titicaca (Rollandia microptera), currently endangered.

Unable to grow crops on the open water, the Uros have historically lived as hunter-gatherers, cooking their catch or trading it on the Puno market. When drought struck and there was nothing to hunt or barter, the islanders with money were forced to eat through their savings, provided they were able to make it to Puno, while those without went hungry.

The situation on the mainland wasn’t much better, though. The drought ruined harvests, shortening the supply of quinoa and potatoes, as well as the oats used to feed livestock. In neighboring Bolivia, the government attempted to irrigate crops by pumping water from the lake. Not only did this further contribute to Titicaca’s depletion, farmers say the lake water — saltier than rainfall — ended up burning many of their seeds.

In normal circumstances, Uros members travel to the city almost every day, buying food at the market, taking their children to high school and university, and picking up tourists for guided tours of the islands. Without access to Puno, the islanders were isolated from their education, food supply, and main source of income.

In late 2023 conditions got so dire that some 1,500 Uros — approximately 75% of the entire community — banded together to dig a canal that would reconnect their islands to the dried up Puno bay. They raised money to rent construction equipment, but, according to Bogotá-based photojournalist Yader Guzman, the Peruvian government forced them to quit before the project could finish. Guzman documented the aftermath of their Sisyphean endeavor: an abandoned CAT excavation machine strapped to a barge, drifting between the dried-up reeds.

 

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Beyond El Niño

This isn’t the first time El Niño has wreaked havoc in the Puno region.

“Really big El Niño events can cause dry conditions on the Altiplano,” says Paul Baker, a professor of earth and climate sciences at Duke University who studied the geological history of Lake Titicaca, referring to the Andean plateau that covers southern Peru. “In 1982-1983, a huge Eastern Pacific El Niño brought about terrible conditions at the lake. There was no rain in December, January and February. No crops survived, livestock were devastated, and people from the highlands were forced to migrate.”

Migrations also took place during El Niño cycles in 1991 and 1943, when Titicaca’s water levels fell by more than 8 feet — the largest drop in recorded history.

As global warming increases, scientists fear future El Niño cycles — which occur roughly every three to five years and are connected to shifting trade winds — are only going to get worse.

Asked about the severity of this particular cycle, Jhan Carlo Espinoza Villar, director at the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development, points the finger at deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.

The 2022-2023 El Niño, he says, “was characterized by an exceptional lack of moisture from the Amazon basin to the Altiplano.” Currently the Amazon is shrinking at a pace of roughly 4,466 square miles per year. If deforestation continues, as it did during the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro, the Andean highlands can expect longer, harsher droughts.

Villar’s remark about the effects of Amazon deforestation on the Altiplano highlights an important but occasionally overlooked fact: While El Niño worsened the drought around Titicaca, the drought’s underlying cause is climate change. The truth, says Flores, is that rainy seasons in the Peruvian Andes have been getting shorter since 2013. Titicaca’s fish populations have also been in steady decline, falling 90% in just 30 years, a development attributed in part to overfishing and demographic pressure, but also to pollution and climate breakdown.

While the current El Niño cycle is predicted to fizzle out in June, the drought terrorizing Lake Titicaca shows no sign of stopping. According to a report shared with the Peruvian newspaper La República, scientists expect the summer of 2024 to bring above-normal rainfall in the northwestern part of the country — possibly creating dangerous flooding — but below-average precipitation in the south, where Puno and Titicaca are located.

While Stéphane Guedron, who studies paleoenvironmental geochemistry Université Grenoble Alpes in France, told The Revelator that 2024 has thus far been “a crazy rainy one, even though it was expected to stay dry,” the Uros would beg to differ.

“We don’t know if it’s summer or winter,” Nelson says, watching passing storm clouds with the same level of anticipation and dread as one would watch the little white ball on a roulette table. “The reeds have not grown back. This is a very serious problem, as we won’t be able to maintain our houses and make handicrafts. Our future, the future of the Guardians of Lake Titicaca, is at risk.”

If the rate of global warming can’t be slowed, the communities living in and around Titicaca will be reliant on federal aid to make it through future droughts. While the Bolivian government allocated $17 million last October to purchase and distribute drinking water, people living on the Peruvian side have yet to receive such help.

There, Puno’s majority Aymara population — another Peruvian Indigenous group, larger than the Uros — hired a shaman to make an offering to Pachamama, the Mother Earth deity worshiped by the Incas.

A sacrifice was made, but when the rain finally came, it was too late and too little.

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Previously in The Revelator:

Páramos at Risk: The Interconnected Threats to a Biodiversity Hotspot

Should Tourists Swim with Endangered Sea Turtles?

Researchers in Barbados found that ecotourism sea-turtle encounters created some very human problems for the animals.

extinction countdownAnother updated article from the “Extinction Countdown” archives. Originally published in 2016, but still relevant to today.

Is wildlife tourism safe for wildlife? It all depends on how it’s done. According to one study, green turtles (Chelonia mydas) featured in eco-tourism operations can experience a few interesting benefits as well as some potentially dangerous downsides.

The study, published in the Journal of Wildlife Diseases, was conducted in Barbados, where a thriving tourist industry features numerous opportunities for visitors to jump in the water and swim with wild sea turtles. A team of researchers from the West Indies, U.S. and United Kingdom wanted to see how those endangered turtles fared amidst this well-intentioned activity. The researchers selected 29 green turtles from four sites around Barbados and gave them each a full medical workup.

The results depended on where the turtles lived. As the researchers wrote in their paper, many of these attractions allow tourists to hand-feed the animals, an activity widely promoted in official Barbados tourism marketing.

Screenshot April 9, 2024

This food — which “supplements” the turtles’ natural diet, according to the researchers — includes whole or chopped up fish, chicken, hot dogs, bread and “various other leftovers.”

The juvenile sea turtles who received this food enjoyed more than a tasty meal. They also grew bigger, faster. According to the paper, they had significantly larger carapaces and body weights about three times as heavy as the turtles that came from areas where their natural diets were not enhanced by human handouts. That rapid growth means they potentially have better chances of survival from predators.

But blood panels and other tests revealed something else. The turtles with supplemented diets also had much higher levels of triglycerides, blood urea nitrogen and cholesterol. In fact, just about everything the researchers tested for in the diet-supplemented turtles existed at higher levels. This, the researchers wrote, leaves the turtles at risk of health conditions including liver disease, gout and cardiovascular issues — you know, the same health problems humans face from our atrocious diets.

Barbados

And that’s not all: Previous research cited in the paper already indicated that feeding green turtles in Barbados puts the animals at greater risk. The animals learn that humans are a friendly food source, which makes them more vulnerable to boat strikes and other injuries, or to being captured when they swim outside of protected waters.

That doesn’t mean, however, that the researchers thought the industry should be shut down. In fact, they wrote that such an action is unlikely because tourism is an important source of income in Barbados.

But they warned that existing codes of conduct may not be enough. The authors suggested that operators should provide turtles with more natural food on a limited basis, perhaps once a day. They also recommended establishing a health-monitoring program to ensure that sea turtles who receive supplemental food aren’t suffering as a result.

So should tourists swim with sea turtles, or participate in other wildlife encounters? The paper doesn’t make a recommendation either way, but as someone who’s been writing about wildlife issues for 20 years, I think the conclusions are clear:

    • Select activities that don’t stress out or change the behavior of the animals you want to see.
    • Keep your distance. If an animal approaches you, fine. But don’t approach them on your own, and don’t chase them down just to get the perfect camera shot.
    • Pack a mask, and skip the trip if you’re sick. Many species are susceptible to human diseases.
    • Choose operations that devote a portion of their revenue to conservation efforts, research and habitat preservation. (Wildlife rescue centers or sanctuaries are often, but not always, a good option.)
    • Don’t support facilities that offer (or sell) opportunities to hold, touch, pet or pose with wild animals. These activities often support unethical breeding programs, or discard animals once they grow to big and feisty for photo ops.
    • Expect to learn something. The best ecotourism operations include an educational element.
    • Leave no trace. The last thing a wild animal needs is the plastic wrapper from your snack, or an introduced plant seed from the sole of your shoe.
    • Opt for the low-carbon option. Climate change puts many species at risk, and burning fossil fuels to see them does more harm than good in the long run.
    • Don’t share photos of people touching or holding wild animals. That encourages bad behavior.
    • And don’t feed the animals.

In other words, if you want to snorkel with green turtles, go for it — just leave the hot dogs on the boat.

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How to Account for Offshore Wind Impacts on Oceanic Wildlife? Make a Plan.

As wind energy develops in the Atlantic Ocean, experts unite to ensure it’s done in the most eco-friendly and environmentally responsible way.

Offshore wind turbines have become a major element of advancing renewable energy goals, but we still have a lot to learn about how these structures will affect the hundreds of marine species that will have to interact with them. As government agencies, nonprofits, researchers and industry representatives rush to document their scientific observations, one major hurdle looms over their efforts: These disparate groups might not traditionally talk to each other — let alone use the same timetables, technology or terminology.

Enter the Integrated Science Plan for Offshore Wind, Wildlife and Habitat in U.S. Atlantic Waters. Released earlier this year, this first-of-its-kind effort aims to provide a common framework and system to fill the gaps in our knowledge and secure a future for both wind power and ocean species.

The plan makes a striking argument for setting up a coordinated network up and down the East Coast to observe and study the organisms found in and around offshore wind farms.

The result of two years of research and a public-comment period, the plan was developed by the Regional Wildlife Science Collaborative for Offshore Wind, a coalition led by 19 offshore wind companies, 14 environmental nonprofits, 12 coastal states, and eight federal entities. It emphasizes the need for consistent funding, standardized language and current resource lists, with shared expertise from seven subcommittees, all in an effort to address wind development off the Atlantic coast of the U.S.

RWSC says all creatures — from the biggest whales to the smallest fish — stand to benefit from the plan.

“What it signals to the general public is that scientists and funding entities are interested in answering these questions and solving these problems,” says Emily Shumchenia, director of RWSC. “And it provides a plan and a way to do that in a systematic and organized way to use public funds and private funds as efficiently as we can — and as quickly as we can — to get the answers to some of these questions.”

Collecting and Understanding Data

Although offshore wind energy is a relatively new industry, we already know some details about how it affects ocean organisms. As on land, birds and offshore migratory bats can fatally collide with turbine blades. The presence of offshore wind construction and operations can cause stress for marine mammals like whales and dolphins, while artificial reefs created by offshore wind infrastructure may attract sea turtles, bringing them into conflict with commercial fisheries. Electromagnetic fields around offshore wind power cables may affect the electro-receptive organs of sharks and rays, potentially causing changes in behavior. And sediment stirred up by pile driving, a stage of construction when a hydraulic hammer pounds turbine support structures into the seafloor, leaves little room in the water for visibility and oxygen. When that sediment settles, eggs and larvae may be buried underneath.

Wind_Turbine_Legs_2

Offshore wind could bring other threats, such as habitat deterioration or destruction, or potential introduction of nonnative species.

RWSC’s science plan addresses the potential to understand these and other risks, and not just on a site-by-site basis, as has traditionally been the case. Its data-collection toolbox allows participants to combine local information with collaborative efforts across regions.

“Sometimes there are projects that are ongoing, let’s say in Maine, and there might be similar projects in Maryland,” says Nikelene Mclean, coordinator of the RWSC habitat and ecosystem subcommittee. “It’s really important for us to be able to keep tabs on all of the research that’s ongoing and to be able to engage with all of these entities.”

That research takes numerous forms: Visual aerial surveys and underwater microphones monitor marine mammals both above and below the waves. Automated radio telemetry tagging records signals from radio transmitters to detect smaller species like birds and bats, while environmental DNA can help determine the abundance of fish.

Offshore wind companies are already collecting oceanographic data with assistance from the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System. And Mclean’s habitat and ecosystem subcommittee is working on major projects determining how to best map hard bottom habitat and deep-sea corals, as well as producing a regional habitat map from Maine to Florida.

The science plan also looks to the future, with plans to evaluate new technologies in the works for monitoring and mitigation purposes, from uncrewed aerial vehicles and thermal cameras to artificially intelligent image classification and bubble curtains that absorb sound energy during turbine construction.

“Once we start having large-scale wind farms constructed and in existence, I think we’ll start to see a shift to different types of data collection,” says Shumchenia. “Again, still doing that baseline monitoring for who’s in the area and what they’re doing — but perhaps starting to look at direct impact assessment and studies that are just a little bit more targeted.”

Responsible Development From Coast to Coast

Implementing and tracking the plan’s contents and progress remains an ongoing process. Subcommittees come together at regular intervals to discuss updates, with meetings open to the public. RWSC posts shared files and a searchable research database online for anyone to access. And as a living document, RWSC experts will revise the plan every five years as new information and data becomes available.

Part of that new information may relate to offshore wind development in general. While the federal government intends to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy in the U.S. by 2030, achieving that goal was delayed last year when several offshore wind companies and developers canceled contracts. But progress is still possible — many offshore wind leases remain active along the East Coast, and the U.S. Department of the Interior recently approved two offshore wind farms off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts.

 

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New York, in particular, stands out as a leader in offshore wind, although three projects were canceled in April. Just before that the country’s first commercial offshore wind farm opened near Montauk, with the capacity to power over 70,000 homes on Long Island. Other states are following in New York’s footsteps; New Jersey recently announced $3.7 million in funding to study the effects of offshore wind on marine mammals, other wildlife and the environment.

New York was the first state to mandate that offshore wind projects contribute $10,000 per megawatt toward regional research, says Kate McClellan Press, a senior project manager with the environmental research team at New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, a founding member of RWSC and a member on its steering committee this year.

“We have seen New Jersey put that requirement into their contracts, as well as some other states who have offshore wind solicitation coming, so it’s exciting to see some of the standards that New York has developed be adopted by other states,” says McClellan Press.

Those working in other parts of the United States share the science plan’s overarching goal to help advance environmentally responsible offshore wind through research and data collection. For instance, as California finalizes its Offshore Wind Strategic Plan and invests $4.59 billion in transmission lines to transport offshore wind energy to major metropolitan areas, the environmental nonprofit Point Blue Conservation Science has released its own updated report about where to best site the state’s offshore wind for maximum energy potential and minimum environmental impact.

According to Cotton Rockwood, senior marine ecologist with Point Blue’s California Current Group, the report — for which he served as lead author — was not necessarily spurred by the East Coast plan, but it does share similar sentiments regarding regional collaboration. And the California Ocean Protection Council is spearheading an effort to establish best practices and guidelines with scientific experts for offshore wind development, echoing the structure of RWSC.

“It’s important to make sure that there are focused components of a broader effort like the RWSC to address the West Coast versus other regions,” Rockwood says. For example, the geography of the West Coast makes the use of floating offshore wind turbines more feasible. “That’s a big difference in and of itself,” he adds.

Climate Change Still on Top

Compared to the rest of the world, U.S. offshore wind farms are lagging at 13th place as of 2023. Experts say one of the reasons for this is the continued use of barges for transporting turbine blades, as opposed to specialized wind turbine installation vessels the country has yet to finish building. On the bright side, the delay in deployment may allow U.S. wind farms to take advantage of data from elsewhere, including information on wildlife impacts.

“There’s a lot of offshore wind that’s been developed in the North Sea and the United Kingdom and elsewhere,” says Rockwood. “We can see the results of the studies that have happened there, and the reality is that there can be impacts, but for the most part, they appear to be quite minimal.”

Understanding the intensity of offshore wind impacts remains a priority in a world exacerbated by global warming. For example, RWSC’s plan recommends collecting data on a host of factors related to offshore wind infrastructure, from food availability and water quality to wave effects and light penetration. And while climate change does modify a great many of these characteristics, the lines between the climate crisis and offshore wind can often turn blurry.

When humpback whales began stranding and dying in greater numbers along East Coast shorelines last year, many mistakenly claimed it was due to offshore wind operations. In truth, the whales had been moving closer to shore in search of prey like menhaden fish whose distribution had shifted in response to warming temperatures, according to NOAA. This put the whales in the path of shipping lanes and fishing fleets, which brought at least 40% of attributable deaths — many whale bodies were too decomposed for forensic analysis. The false claim that offshore wind structures kill whales, which many attribute to misinformation from fossil-fuel industry-linked groups — compared to the actual leading cause of vessel strikes — serves only to demonstrate how the two issues can become entangled.

“We do always have to think about the potential impacts of offshore wind in the context of a dynamic ocean environment, and climate is one of those factors,” says McClellan Press. “We are seeing changing ocean temperatures and differences in oceanographic processes, and that is happening at the same time as other industries are operating in the ocean and as offshore wind is being developed.”

 

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In addition, scientists observe the interlink between climate change and offshore wind more acutely on the sub-regional level. The Gulf of Maine, which is warming faster than 99% of the global ocean, serves as a key feeding habitat for critically endangered North Atlantic right whales, of whom fewer than 400 remain. As the whales’ preferred prey — copepod crustaceans — shift their distribution in response to the heat, the whales must change the timing of their movements to follow them.

At the same time, few federal buoys collect data in the offshore wind planning area of the Gulf, and once development ramps up, threats like noise exposure and entanglement in fishing gear attached to structures could make life even harder for the whales. So the combined impacts of offshore wind and climate change could result in an environmental “double whammy.”

Still, there’s hope on the horizon: if a responsible offshore wind industry can safeguard the ocean and its inhabitants, then the science plan will have done what it set out to do.

“It’s really a landmark study, and there hasn’t been a publication of this caliber,” says Mclean. “It provides a one-stop-shop for the data and research that’s needed to ensure that offshore wind development is done in a manner that is not detrimental to the wildlife and the ecosystems upon which they depend.”

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Previously in The Revelator:

The Race to Build Solar Power in the Desert — and Protect Rare Plants and Animals

Goldenrod Isn’t Causing Your Spring Allergies — But It Is Killing Europe’s Ants and Butterflies

The North American plants look pretty, but they also causes havoc in places where humans have allowed them to spread.

extinction countdownAnother article from the “Extinction Countdown” archives. Originally published in 2016, but still painfully relevant.

Here in North America, the ubiquitous plants known as goldenrod (from the genus Solidago) get a bad rap for causing spring allergies. They don’t, though — you’re thinking of ragweed. Goldenrod are actually incredibly valuable plants to their local ecologies, where they play host to literally hundreds of insects, providing shelter or food to bees, butterflies, spiders, praying mantises and all kinds of other species. They’re also culturally important; in the 18th century, American revolutionaries brewed goldenrod into so-called “liberty tea” as a protest against British taxation. (You can still buy goldenrod tea. It’s quite good.)

In other parts of the world, however, the relationship is more complex. Goldenrod is beloved as an ornamental plant, and many people grow it thinking local bees will produce honey with special medicinal qualities (FYI: that, like the allergies you think you’re experiencing, is misinformation).

But at the same time, goldenrod — a remarkably adaptable group of plants — have taken over fields throughout Europe and Asia, putting native species at risk wherever they grow. Goldenrod can reach more than six feet in height, so they block the sun from reaching smaller plants. They’re also prodigious reproducers, with each adult plant capable of releasing up to 10,000 tiny, wind-dispersed seeds. Finally, their roots produce a group of chemicals that can inhibit the growth of other plants around them, a process called allelopathy. Those three factors alone have been enough to label goldenrod as some of the world’s worst invasive plants.

Recent research shows that the effect of goldenrod invasions is even more dangerous than we previously knew. According to a paper published in 2016 in the Journal of Insect Conservation, invasive goldenrod in Europe are killing off ant and butterfly species.

Researchers from Poland’s Jagiellonian University discovered this insect decline by examining ten semi-natural grasslands located southeast of Krakow. Five of those meadows, the authors wrote, have “a serious problem with uncontrolled spreading of goldenrod populations.”

The researchers looked at a total of 60 plots within those meadows. And within each plot, they looked at ants, finding seven different species, the most common of which came from the genus Myrmica.

Well, they were the most common ants in the plots that didn’t contain goldenrod. In plots where the misplaced plants were present, Myrmica populations were reduced by at least 50% and up to 81%.

Myrmica scabrinodis. Photo: Gillies San Martin (CC BY-SA 2.0 Deed)

The most striking effect was on a species called M. scabrinodis, which the authors wrote should have adapted to the cool shade provided by goldenrod. Unfortunately goldenrod produces nectar later in the season than native plants, which apparently forces the ants to travel further and use more energy to search for food.

Why does that matter? For one thing, ants play an important role in the ecosystem. As the authors wrote in their paper, ants in general consume 3% of a meadow’s biomass each season and in the process affect the chemical composition of the surrounding soil. Their corridors and nests also serve to make the soil more porous, enhance decomposition, and allow colonization of microbiota and fungi that plants need as parts of their diet.

More pressingly, the three Myrmica ant species also play an important part in the lifecycle of three threatened or endangered butterflies in the Phengaris genus, which lay their eggs in ant nests and often feed on the ants. Two of the three species fully depend on this parasitic relationship for their survival.

Phengaris butterfly. Photo: David Short (CC BY 2.0 Deed)

The authors wrote that a change in Phengaris butterflies had not yet been observed in the area of the study, although warned that it could cause declines in at least two species. A more recent study, published in 2023, did document Phengaris butterfly declines in the same region due to goldenrod crowding out the insects’ traditional host plants.

Goldenrod is just one piece of the picture of Europe’s declining meadowlands. A paper published in 2014 estimated that Europe has lost as much as 80% of its ecologically important meadows over the past century due to development, mowing and cattle grazing.

The full effect of that meadow loss is still being determined, but the ants and the butterflies are just the beginning, and the goldenrod is still spreading. The authors warn that Europe needs to take serious attempts to stem goldenrod before the ecological damage can no longer be undone.

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Previously in The Revelator:

Trump’s Border Wall Threatens Rare Butterflies and Native Bees

Water and Cooperation Breathe New Life Into Klamath Basin Wildlife Refuges

Agriculture drained this ecosystem. Now, under the specter of future drought, the same systems have started to bring back both water and wildlife.

Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge, located in far Northern California, harbors what remains of a once vast, shallow lake. On a recent April morning, I toured the area with John Vradenburg, supervisory fish and wildlife biologist for the Klamath Basin Refuges. A few months earlier, birds had all but abandoned Tule Lake. Now they were back in the thousands: clumps of eared grebes; dipping swallows; black-necked stilts with their impossibly spindly legs.

As we drove along the edge of the refuge’s largest wetland — evocatively called “Sump 1A” — pairs of Canada geese swam away from shore, followed by fluffy goslings. Vradenburg stopped the truck to rescue one that was trapped behind a headgate. He gently tossed the ball of fluff into the water, where it made a beeline for its two siblings.

 

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A few yards later Vradenburg stopped again to point out a pair of western grebes. Facing each other, they took turns dipping their needle-like bills into the water, then shook them off. They were getting ready to dance, side by side, across the water — part of their spectacular courtship ritual.

“It’s just so good to see birds moving around in here again,” he said.

A Transformed Ecosystem

The Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuges are a complex of six refuges straddling the Oregon-California border — remnants of vast wetlands that once expanded and contracted with the seasons, breathing an almost unfathomable abundance of life into the dry region. A century or so ago, flocks of geese and swans darkened the sky. There were masses of white pelicans; hordes of grebes, ducks, and ibises; eagles and hawks in profusion. On Lower Klamath Lake, which sprawled nearly 100,000 acres, boats conveyed tourists from the Klamath River to the lake’s southern tip.

In typical early 20th century fashion, the Bureau of Reclamation remade the basin into a network of dikes, canals, drains, sumps and pumps called the Klamath Reclamation Project. Both Lower Klamath Lake and Tule Lake were drained to feed new farms established by homesteaders, including veterans returning from both World Wars.

[CALIFORNIA-J-0025] Tule Lake farms

To preserve what remained of the shrinking habitat, President Theodore Roosevelt in 1908 established the Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge. At nearly 47,000 acres, it was the nation’s first wildlife refuge dedicated to waterfowl. The 39,000-acre Tule Lake refuge was established in 1928 to protect what was left of the drained expanse.

Though a fraction of their former splendor, these wetlands still serve as a vital stopover for the millions of birds that use the Pacific Flyway every year.

The region has always experienced periodic drought, but the past 20 years have been drier than usual, culminating in several years of extreme to exceptional drought. Between 2019 and 2022, the Lower Klamath and Tule Lake refuges received essentially no water. Wetlands like Sump 1A turned to cracked expanses of dry mud. The birds disappeared.

Now, thanks to two decent water years in a row and a surge of funding for restoration projects across the Klamath Basin, a new optimism about reconnecting this broken ecosystem has emerged.

Reconnecting the Pieces

On March 24 members of the Tulelake Irrigation District gathered in front of a blocky concrete building for an unlikely ceremony: the revving up of “D plant,” a series of pumps that route water from Tule Lake to the Lower Klamath refuge via a 6,000-foot tunnel. The plant used to run nearly continuously, moving some 80,000 acre-feet of water per year, but it had been silent since 2020. (One acre-foot of water is about 326,000 gallons.)

Ironically, this ecosystem now needs D Plant, says Brad Kirby, manager of the Tulelake Irrigation District. In this remade basin, the Lower Klamath refuge is cut off from the Klamath River; D Plant functions like a heart, powering an artificial artery that delivers lifeblood to the refuge. This water also helps recharge the aquifer and eventually drains back to the Klamath River underground.

A man stands in front of large industrial equipment
D Plant. Photo: Juliet Grable

Typically, irrigators want to conserve every drop. Encouraging the “flow through” of water among farmland, wetlands, and the river is a “new goal, counter to when I first started, when our goal was to minimize drainage,” says Kirby.

The Klamath Refuge system and farmers of the Klamath Project have long been intertwined. Farmland surrounds the refuges; in addition, 21,000 acres within the refuges are leased for agriculture.

Even though the refuges hold a senior water right — an older right with higher priority — they are the last to receive water.

First priority goes to three endangered species. The Bureau of Reclamation must manage flows in the Klamath River to protect coho salmon and levels in Upper Klamath Lake to ensure the survival of c’waam and koptu — sucker fish that are of critical importance to the Klamath Tribes.

Next the agency must fulfill contracts with irrigators. The refuges largely depend on drain water from the irrigation districts — and that’s in good years.

The Klamath Basin has a fraught history, with Tribes, irrigators, and wildlife advocates fighting over scarce and precious resources. The recent drought showed everyone — refuge staff, irrigators, tribes, hunters — the unthinkable: the “Everglades of the West” transformed into a desert. This vision scared stakeholders to the table to hammer out solutions that benefit the landscape as a whole, and, they hope, everyone.

“It’s the first time — at least since I’ve seen here — where you see everyone interested in what everyone else has going on, and everyone participating in a proactive, collaborative way,” says Vradenburg. “You hear a lot about co-benefits.” Wetlands absorb and slowly release water, filter out pollutants, recharge groundwater, and provide habitat for birds and fish.

 

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“The thing that’s different from the historic Klamath Basin to today is the connectivity,” says Vradenburg. “Can we look at the infrastructure that we have in this highly modified system and bring that connectivity back?”

Across the basin working groups are looking at ways to restore wetlands and “re-wet the sponge.” Ducks Unlimited, which helped secure funding to run D Plant, is working with area irrigation districts to improve water conveyance and management. The nonprofit has secured funding from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to install new pumping stations to deliver agricultural drain water to the Lower Klamath Wildlife Refuge. Money from that same pot will go to improve management of the wetlands — or “sumps” — on Tule Lake refuge.

The current infrastructure “is not set up to handle this new paradigm of less water,” says Amelia Raquel, a regional biologist at Ducks Unlimited.

It’s not just the quantity of wet ground that’s important — it’s the timing. Prolonged drying can be devastating, allowing invasive species to take root and even causing land to sink, or subside. But managing wetlands so they go dry for shorter periods “resets the whole health of that wetland,” says Raquel. “This allows the seedbank in wetland soils to germinate, starts succession [and] brings in invertebrates food for waterfowl and fish.”

A man in a baseball cap stands on cracked, dry ground
Photo: Juliet Grable

The Klamath Drainage District has proposed modifying one of the main diversions that delivers irrigation water from the Klamath River so that it first enters a large wetland in the Lower Klamath Wildlife Refuge. This would provide important habitat for ducks and other waterfowl, especially during spring and summer molting and breeding seasons. It would also benefit fish, including salmon that will have access to the Upper Basin once dams on the Klamath River are removed this year.

“The reason we started thinking about this is we had a dry refuge,” says Scott White, general manager of the Klamath Drainage District. Birds need habitat in spring. “If they’re not going to the refuge, then they’re out in the fields as the little baby plants are starting to grow, munching away. They just wreak havoc on a crop.”

The district is also looking at using some of their private farmlands as floodplain habitat, similar to the way rice fields in California’s Central Valley function.

This project is one part of a new memorandum of understanding signed between the Klamath Water Users Association, Klamath Tribes, Yurok Tribe, and Karuk Tribe. In it the parties agreed to work together on projects that support their common goals, and the Department of Interior pledged to help secure funding.

Some of the old tension remains. Irrigators are disappointed with the Bureau of Reclamation’s latest water allocation, announced in April; they feel they should have received more water on the heels of such a wet winter. Clayton Dumont, chairman of the Klamath Tribes, is also worried about the allocation. He supports projects that restore wetlands and functionality of the ecosystem, but he also wants to make sure none of these projects further compromise c’waam and koptu in Upper Klamath Lake.

“We’re not interested in having the refuges fill at the expense of suckers in the upper basin,” he says.

And the shadow of the next drought is never far.

A Resilient Landscape

The refuge wetlands are still recovering from being dry for so long. At Tule Lake submerged aquatic vegetation is starting to return — a good sign, says Vradenburg. “That’s a really a big driver for a lot of our waterbird communities, especially diving ducks and grebes, those birds that like to nest on top of the water.”

On our way back to refuge headquarters, we stopped to watch a small flock of ibis pick through the mud, their glossy backs flashing green and rust. Then we stopped yet again to listen to the insistent murmur of hundreds, maybe thousands, of white-fronted geese. While the Canada geese are already rearing families, these birds still have to make it all the way to their breeding grounds in Alaska.

It’s a different landscape from just two years ago. During the drought going to work every day was heartbreak, says Vradenburg. “The refuge staff was so beaten down. Now people are grabbing keys to a work vehicle just so they can see the birds flying at sunrise.”

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Previously in The Revelator:

The Monumental Effort to Replant the Klamath River Dam Reservoirs

Can Collecting Stamps Help Rare and Endangered Species?

One scientist’s passion for owl stamps shows: It’s not just about the collection. It’s about what you do with it.

extinction countdownAnother article from the “Extinction Countdown” archives. Originally published in 2016, but still relevant to today.

Like a lot of folks out there, I’m a collector. I spend much of my free time tracking down rare comic books, out-of-print novels, animal-themed carvings and artwork by my favorite cartoonists. I even tried stamp collecting a few years back, but I just never found the bug.

Maybe I was doing it wrong. You see, my small stamp collection was achingly random. I had stamps from around the world, but they were collected willy-nilly, without much thought or planning. A theme, on the other hand, might have not only grabbed my long-term attention, it might have done some good in the world.

That’s the point made by M. Eric Ramanujam, principal investigator for Pitchandikulam Bioresource Centre in India, in a delightful paper published in 2016 in the Journal of Threatened Taxa.

Ramanujam, you see, is a researcher studying the Indian eagle owl (Bubo bengalensis). He’s also a philatelist, the term for a person who collects rare stamps.

Stamps are where Ramanujam’s two passions collide. He doesn’t have an un-themed, easily neglected collection. The stamps he has acquired over the years all depict owls from around the world.

Their images, and their stories, illustrate almost every page of Ramanujam’s paper. There’s the greater sooty owl (Tyto tenebricosa), depicted with haunting eyes in a stamp from Papua New Guinea. A stamp from Zimbabwe presents us with an image of the mysterious-looking African scops owl (Otus senegalensis). Another stamp from Tanzanian honors the extinct South Island whekau (Sceloglaux albifacies albifacies) of New Zealand. A Blakiston’s fish owl (Bubo blakistoni) sits atop a snow-covered tree in a stamp from Japan. An entire series showcases the owls of Namibia.

Photo: Owl stamps collected by M. Eric Ramanujam. Source: Journal of Threatened Taxa

Of course, a scientific paper such as this isn’t the only opportunity philatelists have to share their collections. As the paper points out, philatelists can join philatelic societies and display or even competitively exhibit their stamps. Many collectors have unique niches — Ramanujam says he’s one of the few owl-stamp collectors — so displaying them draws attention and maybe even awards.

The display may also inspire a broader message. As he writes, the satisfaction one gains from a collection — especially an owl-themed one such as his — may derive from the “impact it has on those who view and appreciate a collection.” He doesn’t mention if his own collection has had that particular impact, but he cites a 16-year-old philatelist named Jesse Chevrier of Canada whose own owl-themed collection exhibit “was given the 2013 ‘Youth Grand Champion of Champions’ award by the American Association of Philatelic Exhibitors.” (You can see Chevrier’s collection and his notes about each stamp here.)

I don’t know how many people will suddenly become philatelists upon reading this paper, but I can say that Ramanujam’s collection presents a wonderful opportunity for education and illumination. His captions for the illustrations in his paper bring both the stamps and the owls they depict to life.

Ramanujam writes that stamp collecting can be financially draining, but the emotional satisfaction created by a successful display can help to offset that cost. And as people read about the stamps in philatelists’ collections, it may also inspire them to learn more about the creatures they depict. Will that turn them into conservationists? That’s hard to say, of course, but it certainly can’t hurt.

Do you have a nature-themed collection? Email me. We may showcase your answers in an upcoming article.

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Previously in The Revelator:

Project Animalia: A Year in 365 Animal Paintings

Could Brazil’s Catastrophic Flooding Cause Extinctions?

Rising sea levels may cause the local extinction of three small, threatened vertebrates in southern Brazil.

In southern Brazil, especially the state of Rio Grande do Sul, severe flooding has caused an emergency being reported around the world. Human losses and homelessness there represent the biggest socioenvironmental catastrophe affecting the country.

One aspect that hasn’t yet garnered much media attention is the impact of these floods on rare and at-risk wildlife. For 11 years I worked on Marinheiros Island, situated on the estuary of Patos Lagoon in the heart of the now-flooded areas. On this island I identified the presence of three species of small vertebrates threatened with extinction, whose populations there are of great conservation importance.

Patos Lagoon is the most extensive lagoonal system in the world. Within this estuary Marinheiros is the largest island, covering an area of about 62 square kilometers (24 square miles).

The marginal belt, vegetated dunes, and a seasonal lagoon of Marinheiros Islands. Photo: Rafael M. Pinheiro. Used with permission.

Even before the current crisis, over the past few years, Marinheiros has experienced harsh flooding associated with massive rainfall. The floods are even more intense during El Niño phenomena, which produce heavy rain in southern Brazil. Three main factors there, together, result in the rapid rise of estuarine water levels and consequent flooding of the lagoon’s islands and marginal mainland:

    1. The low elevations of marginal areas.
    2. Heavy rains that increase the flow of rivers into the Patos Lagoon system and the subsequent discharge of water in the choked estuary.
    3. Wind directions against the water flow from the estuary to the Atlantic Ocean, acting as a barrier for water discharging into the ocean.

The year 2023 saw a severe flood in Marinheiros Island and the marginal mainland of the Patos Lagoon estuary. This year has been even more calamitous. Flooding of 70% of the municipalities of Rio Grande do Sul — which includes the whole extension of the Patos Lagoon marginal zone — has, as of this writing, caused 149 people to lose their lives and forced more than 615,000 to leave their homes. Many of the more than 1,100 inhabitants of Marinheiros Island were rescued and sent to temporary shelters.

But rescuing the wildlife of Marinheiros Island has not become a priority. Three species deserve to be highlighted due to their very restricted distribution, habitat specificity, and conservation status.

A Toad, a Glass Snake and a Guinea Pig

The tiny red-bellied toad (Melanophryniscus dorsalis) — with a body length about 2 centimeters (just .78 inches) — can be considered a flagship species of Marinheiros Island.

The species’ existence on the island was only discovered in 2006, and it’s the southernmost known population of the species. Red-bellied toads are restricted to the coastal, marshy fields of the Brazilian states of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina and are considered threatened both regionally and nationally.

A black toad with red streaks against a sandy background
Red-bellied toad (Melanophryniscus dorsalis). Photo: Jorge S. Bernardo-Silva. Used with permission.

The estuarine glass snake (Ophiodes enso) was described only in 2017, and it is known from only three localities in the estuary of Patos Lagoon, one of which is Marinheiros Island. Like other reptiles commonly known as “glass snakes,” these animals are, in fact, legless lizards.

This species’ conservation status has not yet been officially evaluated by specialists at national and global levels. In the paper on the species description, however, Ophiodes enso is suggested as “critically endangered” given the small area of occurrence and the human-induced impacts on its habitats.

A close-up of a legless lizard head and part of its body, green with yellow and blue stripes, against a leaf-litter background
Estuarine grass snake (Ophiodes enso). Photo: Fernando M. Quintela. Used with permission.

Finally, the greater guinea pig (Cavia magna) is a medium-sized rodent with a body length reaching 30 centimeters (about 1 foot). It lives on the borders of marshes and wet fields of a narrow coastal strip of Uruguay and southern Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina states.

The species is classified as “endangered” in Uruguay and “vulnerable” in Rio Grande do Sul. Importantly, greater guinea pigs from Marinheiros Island are genetically distinct from other populations in terms of the number of chromosomes (individuals from Marinheiros Island have 64 chromosomes, while mainland populations have 62).

A small, brown rodent against a sandy ground with a few leafs or plants nearby
Greater guinea pig (Cavia magna). Photo: Klaus Rudloff. Used with permission.

Floods, Vulnerability to Sea-Level Rise, and Loss of Habitats

Marinheiros Island is located in a low-elevation region. The estuarine glass snake and greater guinea pig are found in wet fields of the island’s marginal zone, where elevation does not exceed three meters (10 feet) above sea level. The red-bellied toad occurs in the marginal zone, in addition to more interior sandy fields and dunes, where elevations can reach about 10 meters (33 feet).

While the current rain-related floods are expected — and desired — to be a short-term condition, rising sea levels could cause the island to be permanently submerged. A study conducted in 2010 found that the entire marginal zone of Marinheiros Island — the area where these three species live — is highly susceptible to sea-level rise. This suggests that the ecosystems inhabited by these three small vertebrate species may be completely underwater in the next few decades.

The impacts of short-term floods on the red-bellied toad, estuarine glass snake and greater guinea pig remain unknown. These events induce disturbances to the species’ habitats, causing the loss of shelters and nesting sites and forcing individuals to migrate to more elevated island areas. In the tragic scenario of the sinking of the marginal lands, the species’ populations will indeed be forced to move to higher grounds.

The question remains: Will these areas of higher elevation present environmental suitability for establishing the three species?

The lands of higher elevation within Marinheiros Island currently comprise sand fields and dunes, which consist of drier habitats due to the high porosity of sandy soils. These conditions are difficult mainly for red-bellied toads and greater guinea pigs, who are associated with wet (palustrine) habitats.

Even if new wet areas appear in the remaining emerged lands, salinization is a major factor. Studies have demonstrated that seawater intrusion leads to the salinization of surface freshwater systems and groundwater of coastal zones.

So will red-bellied toad tadpoles develop in waters with increased salinity? Will the vegetation consumed by greater guinea pigs grow in salinized soils? Will the invertebrates consumed by estuarine glass snakes occur in a habitat drastically modified by seawater intrusion? I raise these ecological questions in hopes that species will successfully adapt to the new conditions. Otherwise, I expect, local extinctions will occur.

As has been observed in oceanic islands, rising sea levels will cause the loss of emerged lands and habitats on Marinheiros and other islands in the Patos Lagoon estuary. Populations of unique animal species from subtropical domains of South America are left to their own devices. Currently there’s no management plan aimed at local populations of endangered species in Marinheiros and other estuarine islands of Patos Lagoon. Local officials have ignored proposals for studies on the feasibility of a conservation unit establishment in interior areas of higher elevation and more suitable hydrological and phytophysiognomic conditions. Although it wouldn’t be a guarantee for the maintenance of the threatened populations, such a strategy could open paths for translocation and other conservation interventions.

The effects of climate change on the Marinheiros Islands go far beyond the local extinction of red-bellied toads, estuarine glass snakes and greater guinea pigs. The cultivation areas of the island’s marginal belt provide a livelihood to many families, whose way of life is now threatened. So the sinking of the Marinheiros Islands is of social as well as biological concern.

Marinheiros Island may seem large now, but rising sea levels threaten to make it a far smaller place.

The opinions expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Revelator, the Center for Biological Diversity or their employees. 

Previously in The Revelator:

Storms and Rising Seas Threaten Coastal Ecosystems — Here’s What We Can Do

Burning Trees: As the Biomass Industry Grows, Its Carbon Emissions Go Uncounted

Wood-pellet companies have devastated forests in the Southeast and New England. Now they’re looking to expand.

The port of Longview, Washington has served as a bustling hub of commerce for more than a century. Ships carrying everything from grain to wind turbine parts pass through it every day headed for distant places — but it’s to the timber industry that Longview owes its existence. Located at the confluence of the Columbia and Cowlitz rivers, this town of 38,000 was founded by the Long-Bell Lumber Company in the early 1920s to house workers at its nearby mills.

Today the community is at the center of a political debate with immense implications for the region’s forests.

Longview is one of at least four locations on the U.S. West Coast where companies hope to begin manufacturing wood pellets — compressed wood used as fuel for power generation or home heating — for export on an industrial scale. By turning trees into energy, this growing biomass industry seeks to benefit from subsidies established in Europe and Asia to encourage renewables. If the UK-based Drax Group gets its way, Longview will house a plant capable of producing 450,000 metric tons of pellets annually, enough to run a small power plant for a year.

Piles and piles of logs and cut trees by a river
Logs awaiting export at the port of Longview. Photo: Sam Beebe (CC BY 2.0 Deed)

Drax and other biomass companies say they’re promoting carbon neutral energy while practicing sustainable forestry to harvest the wood fuel referred to as biomass energy. However, the industry’s behavior in places where it has long operated appears to undermine this claim.

“It starts with logging whole trees and grinding them up in polluting plants,” says Brenna Bell, forest climate manager for 350PDX, an environmental group based in Portland that opposes the Longview project. “The resulting pellets are shipped overseas.” The pellets are then often burned, or “cofired,” with coal, supposedly reducing coal’s emissions, and have more recently replaced coal in some power plants. “The most counterintuitive part is none of the associated carbon emissions are counted by governments who classify biomass as clean energy.”

Faulty accounting methods have allowed biomass companies to sell themselves as climate-friendly even as they seek to convert carbon-rich natural forests into tree plantations in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. Nowhere are the on-the-ground impacts clearer than in the Southeast, where large wood biomass export projects have operated longer than anywhere else in the United States.

Selling the Biomass Story

The Drax power generating station looms over North Yorkshire, England, tall as a city high-rise. For decades the plant was Western Europe’s largest coal polluter, but in 2003 Drax began converting the first of four boilers to cofire wood. Last year the company finished replacing coal at its plant with wood pellets, hailing the milestone as a step toward a “zero-carbon energy future.”

Drax

Communities in the American Southeast, where Drax sources much of the wood for its plant, weren’t celebrating.

“The biomass industry in the Southeast expanded from barely anything 15 years ago to exporting over 9 million tons of wood pellets annually today,” says Adam Colette of Dogwood Alliance, which works to protect southern forests. “We’re talking over 100,000 acres of forest being cleared solely for this purpose every year. And that’s a conservative estimate.”

The South has long been among the most logged regions in the country, but the arrival of biomass companies put new pressure on remaining natural forests. A study commissioned by the Southern Environmental Law Center showed forest loss has increased significantly in the area surrounding biomass pellet plants in Virginia and North Carolina.

“The industry calls biomass a climate solution,” Colette says. “Smart people in government, even some well-intentioned people in the climate movement, support giving it hundreds of billions in subsidies. You’ve got to ask, how is that possible? It’s not that biomass is as powerful as the fossil fuel industry.”

Fossil fuel companies amassed immense political clout over centuries. By contrast, the biomass industry is only decades old. Yet biomass companies have won political favor by peddling a narrative with immense allure for policymakers who want quick fixes to the climate crisis.

On paper, converting existing coal plants to run on wood pellets looks like an easy climate win. But burning wood produces even more carbon than coal per unit of energy generated. Because this carbon can theoretically be reabsorbed if forests grow back, some governments consider the process carbon neutral — but continually cut and regrown forests never achieve the carbon storage potential of older trees. And even if the carbon released during deforestation is eventually reabsorbed, it stays in the atmosphere for decades in the meantime. None of this is accounted for by policymakers who see biomass as green energy.

Nor is it only foreign governments subsidizing the industry. In parts of the United States, too, trees are burned for electricity. Ironically these include jurisdictions that regard themselves as among the world’s greenest.

Burning the Forest

“We’ve been deluded about biomass in Burlington, Vermont,” says Zack Porter, executive director of the New England-based Standing Trees. “We’re supposedly America’s first city to run entirely on carbon-neutral renewable electricity. Yet our leaders tout that title knowing we still rely on Vermont’s largest point source of carbon emissions: the McNeil biomass power plant.”

Burlington’s Joseph C. McNeil generating station pumps close to half a million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year but is considered carbon neutral energy under Vermont’s Global Warming Solutions Act. This designation has been justified partly by biomass companies’ claim that they burn mainly “waste wood,” or branches and other tree parts leftover from logging, as well as wood residues such as sawdust.

A series of off-white buildings and a tall smokestack against a cloudy sky. A few bare trees on either side.
The McNeil generating station. Photo: Nick Engelfried

“The problem is, to timber companies ‘waste’ is any wood they can’t find a higher value use for,” says Porter. “They see old or crooked trees that can’t be sold for lumber as waste. But we actually have a scarcity of ecologically important logs and snags in New England forests, and creating more demand to remove them worsens the problem.” Wildlife species that depend on woody debris for habitat include marbled and Jefferson salamanders, both of whom are considered imperiled across parts of their New England range.

At a hearing in Burlington last year, a proposal to heat University of Vermont medical center buildings with steam from McNeil drew intense opposition, suggesting climate groups have momentum as they push policymakers to rethink the role of biomass in Vermont’s grid.

There would be precedent for such a move. New York and Massachusetts have taken steps to exclude forest biomass from benefiting off clean energy incentives, and advocates like Porter think other Northeast states should follow suit.

In fact, there’s a growing national movement to make climate policies more accurately reflect the carbon footprint of wood biomass, both in U.S. circles and beyond. This goal has taken on increased importance as the industry seeks to expand beyond the South and Northeast into regions where it has yet to establish a major presence.

Stopping the Expansion

Back in Longview, climate activists prepare to fight what could become the state’s first industrial-scale wood-pellet manufacturing plant. Locals plan to speak out against Drax’s Longview project at a hearing expected later this year. Across the Columbia River, 350PDX has been educating the public about impacts of the biomass industry by tabling at public events and hosting a screening of the documentary Burned. Other West Coast biomass plants have also drawn opposition.

At the port of Grays Harbor, two hours’ north of Longview, Pacific Northwest Renewable Energy wants to build a pellet plant comparable in size to the Drax project. Two more plants, with a combined ability to produce about a million tons of pellets annually, are proposed by Golden State Natural Resources in California.

To bolster political support for these plants in green-leaning West Coast states, the companies involved have leaned into a new talking point: that removing “waste” wood from forests will somehow blunt increasingly devastating fire seasons.

“This industry is playing on people’s justified fear of fire,” said Rita Vaughan Frost, an Oregon-based forest advocate with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “But their demand for a product to constantly deliver to customers will actually shift resources away from fire-management regimes based on the best science, such as Indigenous practices that include prescribed burns.”

 

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Despite purporting concern about fire, the biomass industry on the West Coast has proposed doing something very similar to what it’s already done in the Southeast and New England: turning carbon-rich, biodiverse forests into tree plantations whose purpose is to grow wood as fast as possible for conversion into fuel.

Ironically, this is happening even as the climate benefits of intact forests are drawing unprecedented attention.

In December the Biden administration announced it will amend national forest management plans all over the country with the intent of protecting old-growth forests. And in Washington State there’s a growing movement to protect mature “legacy forests” that don’t yet qualify as old growth but provide significant carbon storage benefits. The biomass industry’s goals complicate such efforts.

“I want people to know we have a precious opportunity right now to keep this destructive industry out of our region before it gets established and expands,” says Bell of 350PDX. “We need to focus on that, because if we let them gain a foothold our work will get that much harder.”

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Previously in The Revelator:

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