Don’t Believe the Hype: Giant Pandas Are Still Endangered

Panda habitats remain heavily fractured, while new research shows breeding centers expose the endangered animals to a hidden yet potentially deadly threat.

In September 2016 the International Union for the Conservation of Nature made a huge announcement: the giant panda, previously listed as an endangered species, had been downgraded from endangered to vulnerable. This news, covered by media around the world, was based in part on 2015 data presented by the Chinese State Forestry Administration that panda populations had risen to an estimated 1,864 wild individuals. While this action was lauded as an example of bringing a conservation icon back from the brink of extinction, we argue that the downlisting was premature and ill-advised.

Giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) now occupy only small fragments of their historic range, fragments left in the wake of human population expansion, attendant land-use change and road construction. Other threats include natural disasters such as earthquakes and landslides and ongoing climatic change, which is shifting the range of pandas’ preferred bamboo species, accelerating the flowering and aging of bamboo and simultaneously enhancing outbreaks of herbivorous insects. Indeed, wild pandas now are isolated only on six mountains in Gansu, Shaanxi and Sichuan provinces.

Habitat fragmentation stresses giant panda populations by limiting their movement. Major highways and railways crisscross southwest China and limit movement of pandas from one forest fragment to another. Fragmentation presents lethal challenges after bamboo plants flower — this monocarpic perennial plant dies after the one time in its life that it flowers and sets seed — because pandas cannot move easily from one isolated area to another. For example, 250 giant pandas starved to death following a widespread flowering episode that occurred between 1975 and 1983 in Pingwu and Nanping counties of Sichuan Province. Subsequently, the total numbers of giant pandas in China declined by more than 50 percent, from approximately 2,000 individuals in 1976 to about 1,000 less than a decade later. Thirty years later, the total number of wild pandas remaining still hasn’t fully recovered.

At the same time that wild panda populations are increasingly isolated from one another, their popularity with “ecotourists” is increasing unabated, facilitated by road construction into previously remote areas where wildlife is concentrated and easier to observe. Visitor numbers to the Foping Natural Reserve area in Shaanxi Province increased 40-fold after 2005 when a road was opened into this reserve set aside for the panda. Similarly, visitors to the Tangjiahe Natural Reserve in Sichuan Province increased from about 75,000 in 2011 to 110,000 in 2015. Noise produced by tourists and cars directly impacts the health of the giant panda. Research has shown that concentrations of cortisol in panda fecal samples, which are correlated with stress levels, increase in parallel with the numbers of tourists.

Other effects of ecological tourism include transmission of infectious diseases. In 2015 there was an outbreak of canine distemper virus — spread by domestic dogs — at the Shaanxi Wild Animal Research Center. Although the virus was eventually contained, several adult female giant pandas were killed.

Complicating matters is a little-known fact: There are actually two recognized subspecies of giant pandas, the more common Sichuan subspecies and the much rarer Qinling subspecies. Fewer than 350 Qinling pandas, which diverged from the Sichuan subspecies more than 50,000 years ago, remain alive today in small, remote habitat fragments. Ongoing efforts to restore both Qinling and Sichuan panda populations are reliant on captive-breeding programs, and all but one of the breeding centers focus on breeding Sichuan pandas (or hybrid Sichuan-Qinling pandas). Only the Shaanxi center focuses exclusively on Qinling panda breeding. A recent evaluation of the captive-breeding program revealed that genetic diversity of captive-bred pandas is quite low, because fewer than 10 individuals account for 50 percent of the current captive-panda gene pool.

And breeding centers may not be the safe refuges we think they are, either. Our research has revealed that captive pandas are exposed to high concentrations of toxic chemicals, including PCDDs (polychlorinated didenzo-p-dioxins), PCDFs (polychlorinated dibenzofurans), PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), PBDE (polybrominated diphenyl ethers) and heavy metals. These toxicants, ultimately derived from atmospheric emissions associated with rapid industrialization and urbanization, concentrate in the soil and bioaccumulate in bamboo and feedstuff manufactured for captive pandas. Exposure of Qinling pandas to these toxicants, both through their food and in the air they breathe, is associated with liver, kidney and reproductive impairment in captive pandas. These threats to panda health were not considered in the decision to downgrade the panda’s status from endangered to threatened.

It’s a long-term, arduous task to conserve the giant panda, and the 2016 decision by the IUCN to downgrade its conservation status from endangered to vulnerable appears to us to be ill-considered and premature. Successful protection of this conservation icon needs to evaluate the success of captive breeding programs not only relative to persistent failures to reintroduce it into the wild but also relative to ongoing and increasing external threats, including habitat fragmentation, mismanagement of ecotourism, interactions with domestic animals and the diseases they carry, atmospheric deposition and bioaccumulation of toxicants and heavy metals, and climatic change.

In short, the giant panda is still an endangered species, and protection effort and enthusiasm from the global conservation community should be strengthened continuously. Otherwise we’ll once again witness the truth of the Chinese proverb: The lack of one basketful of earth will spoil the entire effort to build a nine-ren mountain.

For further reading:

Chen, Y.-P., L, Maltby, Q. Liu, Y.-J. Zheng, A.M. Ellison, Q.-Y. Ma, & X.-M. Wu. 2016. Captive pandas are at risk from environmental toxins. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 14: 363-367.

Chen, Y.-P., Y. Zhao, A. M. Ellison, Q. Liu, & Y. Zheng. 2017. PBDEs pose a risk to captive pandas. Environmental Pollution 226: 174-181.

Chen, Y.-P., Y.-J. Zheng, Q. Liu, Y. Song, Z.-S. An, Q.-Y. Ma, & A.M. Ellison. 2017. Atmospheric deposition exposes pandas to toxic pollutants. Ecological Applications 27: 343-348.

Koerth-Baker, M. 2017. The complicated legacy of a panda who was really good at sex. FiveThirtyEight.com, November 28, 2017. Available online:

Liu, J.G. 2015. Promises and perils for the panda. Science 345: 642.

Xu, W., A. Viña, L. Kong, S.L. Pimm, J. Zhang, W. Yang, Y. Xiao, L. Zhang, X. Chen, J. Liu, and Z. Ouyang. 2017. Reassessing the conservation status of the giant panda using remote sensing. Nature Ecology & Evolution 1: 1635-1638.

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.

Bundy Trial Dismissed: “A Sad Day for America’s Public Lands”

Experts warn this could lead to further threats of violence and “religious war” against federal officials.

Shock, disappointment and warnings of potential for more armed standoffs over U.S. public lands were among the reactions Monday from two academic experts and a former Oregon county judge to a federal judge’s order dismissing the government’s criminal charges against Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, two of his sons and a fourth man linked to militia groups.

“This is a very sad day for America’s public lands,” says Peter Walker, a University of Oregon geography professor who studies the social and political environmental aspects of the American West and is writing a book on the Bundy family’s conflicts with the federal government.

“Even though this was a procedural decision based on mistakes made by the prosecution, the Bundy family and their supporters will spin it as validation of their ideology,” Walker says.

The Revelator published an investigative report in November detailing the Bundy family’s far-right Mormon extremism in the family’s effort to instigate an armed rebellion to force the federal government off public lands in the West.

On Monday U.S. District Court Judge Gloria M. Navarro dismissed the case against the men in a ruling from the bench in her Las Vegas, Nev. courtroom. The decision could be appealed by prosecutors. But they would only be able to bring charges again if they won the appeal and the ruling was reversed — and they then got a new indictment from a new grand jury, the New York Times reported.

The four defendants — Cliven Bundy, his sons Ammon and Ryan, and militia leader Ryan Payne — were charged with threatening a federal officer, carrying and using a firearm, and engaging in conspiracy stemming from a 2014 showdown with federal officers near Bunkerville, Nev. The government was attempting to remove patriarch Cliven Bundy’s cattle from federal land after more than 20 years of trespassing and failing to pay more than $1 million in grazing fees.

Hundreds of Bundy supporters rallied to their call for assistance, many of them armed. Several Bundy supporters pointed high-powered rifles at federal law-enforcement officers who were trying to execute a court order to remove the trespassing cattle from U.S. Bureau of Land Management property northeast of Las Vegas. The government withdrew from the armed confrontation.

Ammon and Ryan Bundy, along with Ryan Payne, later led an armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in south-central Oregon in January 2016. The armed standoff eventually ended but only after the group’s spokesman, LaVoy Finicum, was shot and killed by police after appearing to be reaching for a gun.

Cliven Bundy wasted no time in declaring victory after Navarro’s ruling Monday as he walked out of the courtroom a free man for the first time in 700 days.

“My defense is a 15-second defense: I graze my cattle only on Clark County, Nev., land and I have no contract with the federal government,” he said according to the Los Angeles Times. “This court has no jurisdiction or authority over this matter. And I’ve put up with this court in America as a political prisoner for two years.”

Bundy’s claims were never put to a test in the courtroom because Judge Navarro ruled the prosecution’s failure to share evidence with the defense made it impossible for the defendants to receive a fair trial.

Walker says the Bundy religious ideology is drawn from fringe Mormon theologians including W. Cleon Skousen, as well as mainstream church leaders including former Mormon Church President Ezra Taft Benson, who was agriculture secretary in the Eisenhower administration.

The Bundy family, Walker says, believes the U.S. Constitution does not allow the federal government to own land outside of Washington D.C. and, that under the Second Amendment, citizens have an obligation to force the federal government off public land.

“This court decision will cause every person who agrees with the Bundy ideology to believe they can threaten federal employees on public land with firearms and pay no cost,” Walker said. “Every hardworking federal employee on federal public lands now has a huge target painted on their back.”

In Burns, Ore., former Harney County Judge Steve Grasty tells The Revelator he is “very disappointed” that the case ended before it was presented to a jury. Grasty tangled with Ammon and Ryan Bundy and Ryan Payne when the men led the armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Harney County in January 2016.

Grasty said the Bundy family’s efforts to trigger an armed insurrection against the federal government in Harney County was a terrorist act that drew overwhelming opposition from most of the rural, ranching community.

“No matter what the outcome of the trial was, I think it would have been beneficial, even to the Bundys, to have gotten all the way through the trial and have all the evidence out in front…and have jurors make a decision,” Grasty says.

Betsy Gaines Quammen, an expert on the impact of Mormonism and public lands, says the court ruling “will glorify Cliven Bundy” in the minds of his followers.

“It could well convince his supporters that the Bundy family stands in God’s favor,” she says. “He has always said that he was waging a religious war and with that rationale, this mistrial makes it appear as if Bundy has heavenly approval.”

Quammen wrote a doctoral thesis at Montana State University entitled “American Zion: Mormon Perspectives on Landscape, from Zion National Park to the Bundy Family War.” She is currently writing a book about Mormon worldview and U.S. public lands called “American Zion.”

She predicts that the mistrial will provide “momentum to the current agenda of developing federal lands and the push towards privatization.”

Quammen says a potential flashpoint in the near future could be related to ongoing litigation to stop President Donald Trump’s executive order sharply reducing the size of two national monuments located in southwest Utah, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante.

“If there is litigation that puts a ‘stay’ on national monument reduction, I wouldn’t be surprised if guys with guns show up on public lands,” she says. “Ranchers have fought on the ground. Dark money has fought in Washington. And public lands are more vulnerable than they have ever been.”

Walker says the Bundy family has been very skillful focusing the public’s attention on government overreach, while keeping the religious roots of their opposition to the federal government out of public debate.

Their deep ties to extreme Mormon teachings, however, generated widespread media coverage during the Las Vegas trial when Bundy supporters distributed a 200-page manuscript called “The Nay Book” outlining their philosophy.

The booklet starts with a letter from Bundy posing the document’s central question: “What is the constitutional duty of a member of the Lord’s church?” Bundy found answers in the scripture that he believed directed and justified him in “defending my rights and my ranch against the federal government’s tyrannical” usurpation of his land, The Washington Post reported in December.

“Bundy represented himself as peacefully protesting government overreach. Who wouldn’t go along with that?” Walker says. “In reality, he was talking about an armed religious crusade to overthrow the federal government. If he said that honestly, a lot fewer people would support him.”

For Florida Panthers, Extinction Comes on Four Wheels

2017 was another deadly year for panthers. How many more years can this critically endangered species survive?

Patterns emerge in life, and in death.

Those patterns aren’t always immediately clear. When you first look at this map on the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s website, all you see is a collection of blue dots, hundreds of them — an amorphous cloud over the southwestern portion of the state.

Zoom in closer and the patterns begin to reveal themselves. The blue dots take on clearer shapes. Toward the Gulf Coast, a dozen dots form a straight line between Fort Myers and Bonita Springs. Another pattern of about 20 dots begins near the city of Naples and stretches out to the east. At one point on that line, roughly 30 miles inland, another straight line emerges, this one heading north and south. This third line is littered with dozens of blue dots.

Only they’re not just dots. Each of these pale blue spots marks the location where a Florida panther has been found dead over the past 46 years.

And those lines? They’re roads. Routes 41, 29 and 75, best known as the Everglades Parkway.

Roads kill, especially if you’re a critically endangered Florida panther.

Last year, according to newly released data, at least 24 Florida panthers died after being struck by vehicles on these and other Florida roads — 83 percent of the 30 known panther fatalities in the state in 2017. (Four additional deaths were caused by panthers killing other cats that invaded their territories; two deaths were from unknown causes.)

No one knows exactly how many of the big cats still roam the state, but the most recent estimates put the population at somewhere between 120 and 230 adults and juveniles, a number that’s almost certainly on the decline. According to those estimates, this year’s dead could represent somewhere between 13 and 25 percent of the species’ entire viable population. Even worse, more than a third of this year’s mortalities were breeding-age females, limiting the cats’ chance of bouncing back.

Of course, 2017 didn’t see the highest ever number of annual panther fatalities in the state, but it would be hard to beat the 42 found dead each year in 2015 and 2016, the two worst years on record since the big cats were protected under 1967’s predecessor law to the Endangered Species Act. The total number of vehicular fatalities was also down from the previous two years, but it did represent a new record for the percentage of panthers killed by vehicles.

Fortunately, even amidst the deaths there’s some sign of life. At least 19 panthers are known to have been born during the course of 2017 — a slight improvement over the 14 cubs observed in 2016 and the 15 cubs in 2015 — but that’s not enough to compensate for the cost of the dead on the population as a whole.

And yes, the pattern of deaths and low birth rates over the past three years has undoubtedly reduced the number of surviving Florida panthers. More of the animals die each year than are being born. “The Florida panther is suffering slow-motion extinction,” said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, in a recent public statement.

What comes next? In all likelihood the news about Florida panthers will continue to be dire. “There are currently no coherent efforts to save the Florida panther from extirpation in the wild, and during a Trump presidency we are unlikely to see one emerge,” Ruch said. In fact the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is currently considering whether or not panthers should retain their full protected status under the Endangered Species Act, or even if they should still be considered their own subspecies, a matter of ongoing taxonomic debate.

After more than a decade of writing about these big cats, I expect that without drastic steps the number of Florida panthers killed each year will continue to hit new records as the population declines on a curve toward oblivion. That pattern is clear, and we need to change it.

Florida panther driving sign — Photo: National Parks Service

Sold Out: Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Drilling in the refuge was tucked into in last month’s Republican tax bill, defying decades of attempts to protect this pristine wildnerness.

Over the holidays the Republican tax bill gifted one of our most treasured national landscapes to oil companies. Against any measure of public interest, and in defiance of plausible economic reason, the new law mandates oil drilling in Alaska’s iconic Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This is a gift to Alaskan politicians and an unneeded bonus for the world’s richest corporations. It must be reversed.

The Refuge, as many Alaskans reverentially call it, has been steadily targeted by Alaska politicians for decades. Its federal protection came in 1960, when Republican President Dwight Eisenhower formally recognized its national importance, preserving its “unique wildlife, wilderness and recreational values.”

Eisenhower was informed by even more decades of research and advocacy from some of the most prominent figures in American conservation, including Olaus Murie, Bob Marshall, Justice William O. Douglas and the indefatigable Mardy Murie. Over many years each poured passion, science and reason into ensuring future Americans — you and I — would inherit a slice of unspoiled Arctic Alaska. Congress affirmed the refuge’s national significance in 1980, enlarging it and designating much of it as federal wilderness. The move came just in time: By then most of Alaska’s coastal arctic plain was already open to drilling.

But the refuge is more than conservation legacy. Most famously, it’s the birthing grounds of the massive Porcupine caribou herd, which migrates 400 miles each spring to raise thousands of newborn calves on the area’s coastal plain, the very place Republicans just opened to drilling. Additionally, it supports Alaska’s highest concentration of denning polar bears — mothers nursing newborn cubs. It is also the locus for millions of migrating birds, arriving each spring from nearly every continent to raise the next generation of swans, terns, sandpipers, loons and eiders. In late summer these flocks disperse to backyards, beaches and wetlands across the planet. With grizzly bears, wolves, musk oxen and other species also present, many dub the refuge “America’s Serengeti.”

But it’s also critical human habitat. The Gwich’in people have lived there for millennia, calling the coastal plain Iizhik Gwats’an Gwandaii Goodlit, which translates as “the sacred place where life begins.” The Porcupine caribou are a nutritional and cultural staple, and fighting for their protection has long been a matter of cultural identity and civil rights. The new tax law is a gut-punch to the Gwich’in. It also stabs at small businesses bringing hikers, rafters, researchers and others to the refuge every year, contributing jobs and revenue to Alaska’s economy.

And then there’s climate change. Just days before Republicans passed their bill, scientists west of the refuge were double-checking their instruments, doubting an extreme spike in temperatures. But the gauges were correct, recording yet more alarming warmth in a state facing melting permafrost, disappearing sea ice, acidifying oceans and glaciers wasting away to rubble.

America doesn’t need more Arctic drilling; it needs clean energy.

So if drilling the Arctic Refuge trashes American conservation history, endangers wildlife, violates the cultural identity of local people and scoffs at the notion of catastrophic climate change, why did Republicans do this?

A main goal, it seems, was securing tax plan support from Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, who attached refuge drilling to the bill. Murkowski had already demonstrated her potential for disrupting Trump’s legislative agenda by voting against health-care repeal, and Republicans were not about to mess with her. For their part, Murkowski and other Alaska politicians have long obsessed over drilling in the refuge. One reason, as recently described by Philip Wight in Yale Environment 360, is that refuge oil could decrease operating costs and extend the life of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, a gift to oil companies. Depending on upcoming discoveries, it may also boost the state’s oil-rigged economy.

But do we really need to destroy a prized national wildlife refuge so Alaska can go after more oil? Keep in mind that oil has eliminated the need for Alaska sales and income taxes, and that every woman, child and man here still receives an annual oil dividend check, which typically exceeded $1,000 before recent cuts. Also remember that U.S. oil production is soaring — we are not desperate for new sources.

Murkowski knows drilling the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is unpopular. That’s why she slipped it into the tax law, with the bogus promise that it will send $1 billion to the U.S. Treasury and help cover tax cut costs. It’s a preposterous claim, first because no one knows how much oil lies beneath the refuge, and second because $1 billion covers only a sliver of the $1.5 trillion tax cut. Even that $1 billion number is in question, as a sale of other Alaskan oil and gas leases last month netted less than 1 percent of expected bids at far lower prices than expected.

And please don’t buy Murkowski’s claim that drilling would only affect 2,000 acres of the refuge. The figure imagines a line tightly drawn around every road, pipeline and oil rig necessary for drilling. In reality, a toxic spider web of infrastructure would lace the refuge’s coastal plan, as it currently does nearby Prudhoe Bay, where oil spills are common.

What happens next is uncertain. Watch for Murkowski to press for fast action from oil companies to secure their presence and de facto ownership of refuge lands. Concerned citizens should tune into the hard-working folks at Trustees for Alaska, the Alaska Wilderness League, The Wilderness Society and others who have fought for generations to protect the refuge. Their lawsuits or other actions will be the place’s last defense. We can also hope for continued low oil prices, surging renewables and growing divestment from fossil fuel companies, which might discourage bidding on upcoming refuge leases. And in 2018 we must change the balance of power in Washington, where Republican attacks on public lands are only beginning.

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.

As the Arctic Melts, Nations Race to Own What’s Left Behind

Drawing clear borders around the Arctic Ocean matters for the future of the people who live there — and for the planet as a whole.

Geopolitics in the Arctic are quickly becoming incompatible with the physical and social realities of the region.

According to NASA, the average amount of Arctic sea ice present after the summer melting season has shrunk by 40 percent since 1980. Winter sea ice has also been at record lows.

As melting ice frees up once-inaccessible sections of the frozen Arctic Ocean, the seven nations around it will have to negotiate new borders — a series of decisions that has the potential to alter the Arctic landscape and make life harder for its people and wildlife.

In 2018 these nations will attempt to answer a question with massive implications: Who owns the Arctic Ocean?

For the nations in the Arctic Council — Canada, Russia, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and the United States — climate change presents an opportunity for access to brand new waters, previously cloaked in ice, that are chock full of valuable resources.

Russia and Denmark have submitted new territorial claims in 2017, with Canada expected to follow, and it’s up to the United Nations to determine which country gets what in 2018.

How these competing interests are negotiated will affect the whole world, says Andrey Petrov, a Russian scientist, professor and member of the International Arctic Science Committee.

“This should get settled because it applies to both short-term change and long-term impact,” says Petrov. “It’s important to consider how the Arctic is connected to the world, and how climate change and economic interests are changing life for the people living there.”

Differing Claims

The problem is there’s a lot of overlap between each of the three claims. Denmark claims sovereignty over the 347,500 square miles north of Greenland, which includes the North Pole and the contentious Lomonosov Ridge, but so do Russia and Canada. In 2007 the Russian government even went so far as to dive 2 miles below the surface near the North Pole to plant its flag on the seabed.

A potential trove of resources hide in these contested waters, ranging from untapped fishing stocks of cod and snow crabs (in which even non-Arctic nations like China and South Korea have expressed interest), to rare minerals like manganese, uranium, copper and iron below the seafloor.

Nations are also interested in drilling for energy resources in the Arctic, which the U.S. Geological Survey estimate contains 30 percent of the world’s undiscovered natural gas and 13 percent of the world’s oil.

New Arctic oil-development projects and the emissions they create would also exacerbate climate change, the very force that’s providing access to these new resources in the first place. Each year the Environmental Protection Agency publishes a report detailing which U.S. industries contribute the most to carbon emissions — from 2011 to today, oil and gas production is the second biggest polluter of greenhouse gases, behind power plants. Currently at 282.9 million metric tons of CO₂ emitted in 2016, this number could be expected to rise with new developments.

But the troubling relationship among carbon emissions, climate change and development in the Arctic isn’t enough to quench a country’s thirst for oil.

The Russian minister for the environment and natural resources told The Daily Telegraph last year that the country was looking for “recognition of exclusive economic rights to about 460,000 square miles, estimated to hold 5 billion tons of hitherto unexploited oil and gas.”

In addition to its impact on global carbon emissions, oil development in the Arctic can damage the environment around drilling sites beyond repair.

This past December the U.S. Senate approved of the Republican tax overhaul, which has hidden in it a provision to approve of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, an area that although uncontested internationally, is of huge importance to the native Gwich’in’ people, who fear that oil development will affect caribou, their main source of food.

The fear of a major disaster in the refuge is real, too. According to a 2014 report from the National Research Council, Alaska is ill prepared to respond to a spill or other event, with the nearest Coast Guard station more than 1,000 miles away from the proposed drilling site (which would be capable of releasing 21 million gallons of oil).

The scramble to stake claims in the Arctic also has implications for trade and diplomacy. The United States has challenged Canada’s sovereignty in the Northwest Passage, for instance, arguing that the strait is international, while Canada wants its own maritime laws to apply there.

And national-security interests depend on Arctic territorial claims that will largely dictate which country has military dominance in the area. Over the years Russia has beefed up its military might in the Arctic. According to a report released in September by the Henry Jackson Society, a UK think tank, Russia currently has 45,000 troops, 3,400 military vehicles, 41 ships, 15 submarines and 110 aircraft in the Arctic region — a display of power that makes neighboring countries uneasy.

“We can no longer ignore Russia’s growing military footprint in the Arctic,” noted James Gray, a UK MP and member of the House of Commons Defense Select Committee, in the report. “As the ice melts and new commercial opportunities emerge in the region, Britain and her allies must do more to ensure that the Arctic remains stable and peaceful.”

The Arctic People

Andrei Petrov, as chairman of the International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences — a triennial conference that brings scientists from around the world together to share research on the Arctic — is interested in improving life for the 4 million people in the region’s communities who stand to lose the most from climate change and geopolitical interest.

Petrov says environmental changes in the Arctic, such as flooding, coastal erosion, permafrost thawing, altered migration patterns of both land and sea animals, and a shifting in vegetation zones, have already had drastic impacts on indigenous communities that rely on subsistence hunting and fishing.

According to him, communities in the Arctic are grappling with diet changes, high suicide rates and a degradation of local culture from the tides of globalization that bring big industries to their once isolated and sustainable communities.

“Unfortunately, with most of the development happening today, the local communities receive very little in return,” says Petrov. “Right now we’re at the point where we need social responsibility and a general understanding of human rights in the Arctic. The hope is that development will pay attention to that. It’s important that locals will have the chance to say no to oil development.”

Tricky Negotiations

These high stakes are why clearly defined borders in the Arctic matter, but how are the border claims going to get negotiated?

Currently, under Article 76 of the U.N. Convention of the Law of the Seas, nations have territorial rights to the waters that extend 200 nautical miles beyond their shores. In 2009 Norway was the first country to submit territorial claims to a special U.N. committee, successfully extending its border by 235,000 square kilometers. The United States has not ratified the convention but recognizes it as international law.

If they want to gain access and rights to the new sections of Arctic ocean, Russia, Denmark and Canada need to prove to the United Nations how far their respective continental shelf — the shallow extension of the continent’s landmass under the ocean — actually reaches.

These countries have spent the past couple of years collecting geological data from their submarines and radar in order to prove that the land extending past their established border — 200 nautical miles off the coast of each — is indeed part of their continental shelf.

And if U.N.-appointed geologists can verify the data submitted by each country, then officials there can legally draw new borders and gain new territory, with clear strategic benefits.

“The main thing is that there are a lot of resources there and big interest at play to access them,” says Petrov. “It’s important that eventually we reach some solution about who’s there and what’s the agreement.”

Otherwise competing interests could lead to unregulated construction, overfishing, oil spills and military clashes, which will have consequences not just for life in the Arctic, but for life on the planet.

“These are trans-border issues,” says Petrov. “It’s very important that countries work together.”

In other words, this is a problem the world needs to own.

Revelator Reads: 6 New Environmental Books for the New Year

This month’s new books cover climate change, gorillas, warfare and…Godzilla?

January is always such a great time of year. We start the month well-rested, the pressures of the holidays are over, and we get a chance to look at the New Year with fresh eyes and new perspective. Maybe that’s why so many great environmental books are scheduled for publication this month — they provide a perfect primer for change and opportunity.

Here are our picks of the best new eco-books coming out in January 2018, covering topics ranging from climate change and sustainability to gorillas and Godzilla (yes, really). As usual we tried to pick books for inspired activists, interested kids and hard-working professionals — or anyone with a holiday gift card burning a hole in their pocket.

The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World by Charles C. Mann

This month’s most challenging tome: a look at the radically different ideas proposed by twentieth-century scientists Norman Borlaug and William Vogt. Borlaug, founder of the so-called “Green Revolution,” set out to feed the world. Vogt, who advocated for reducing the human population, called for us to dramatically cut back on our consumption. How will their ideas fare in a world poised to soon contain 10 billion people? (Knopf, Jan. 23, $28.95)

Snowy Owl Invasion! Tracking an Unusual Migration by Sandra Markle

Here’s a fun one for kids that I’m actually looking forward to reading myself. Why did snowy owls start leaving the Arctic in 2013 to arrive in far-flung places like southern Florida? This beautifully illustrated science book for students digs into the reasons behind this rare phenomenon. (Millbrook Press, Jan. 1, $31.99 print/$6.99 digital)

Ranger Rick: I Wish I Was a Gorilla by Jennifer Bové

Boy, would I have loved this book when I was just starting to read. Gorillas were probably the earliest thing that drew me into caring about animals and the environment. If you’ve got a nature-loving wee one, check this out. (HarperCollins, Jan. 2, $16.99 print/$4.99 digital)

The End of Sustainability: Resilience and the Future of Environmental Governance in the Anthropocene by Melinda Harm Benson and‎ Robin Kundis Craig

Is it time to retire the word “sustainability”? The authors argue that we should replace it with a better word: “resilience.” Will their ideas prove to be resilient? Read the book to find out. (University of Kansas Press, Jan. 5, $29.95)

Tide of War: The Impact of Weather on Warfare by David R. Petriello

In a world where climate change is sometimes making things a little…tense…around the world, perhaps it’s time to take a look back at history to see how past weather events have influenced conflict. From massive rainstorms to the outbreak of disease to the appearance of Halley’s Comet, Petriello digs into the past to reveal what might happen in the future. (Skyhorse Publishing, Jan. 16, $24.99)

Japan’s Green Monsters: Environmental Commentary in Kaiju Cinema by Sean Rhoads and Brooke McCorkle

Godzilla is more than just a big green monster that breathes radioactive fire. Godzilla, Mothra, Gamera and other Japanese movie creatures (collectively known as kaiju) are also environmental metaphors for topics such as extinction, pollution, nuclear power and climate change. This academic text explores the deeper meaning behind the big green guy and his rubbery ilk. (McFarland, Jan. 29, $37.95)

Well, that’s it for our list this month. Happy reading — and feel free to share your own recent recommendations in the comments.

17 Ways the Trump Administration Assaulted the Environment Over the Holidays

New rules could affect everything from clean power to migratory birds, and they’re just a hint of what’s yet to come.

While visions of sugarplums danced in some of our heads, the Trump administration had a different vision — of a country unbound by rules that protect people, places, wildlife and the climate. Over the past two weeks, the administration has proposed or finalized changes to how the government and the industries it regulates respond to climate change, migratory birds, clean energy, pesticides and toxic chemicals. Here’s a timeline:

Dec. 18: Announced a plan to possibly replace the Clean Power Plan, one of President Obama’s signature climate actions.

Dec. 18: Dropped climate change from the list of global threats affecting national security. (Oddly enough, Trump did this just five days after he signed off on next year’s military budget, which just so happens to call climate change a national security threat.)

Dec. 19: Hid language that would exempt the Federal Emergency Management Agency from following requirements set by the Endangered Species Act in an an $81 billion emergency supplemental funding bill.

Dec. 20: Indefinitely postponed the previously announced ban of three toxic chemicals, methylene chloride, N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) and trichloroethylene (TCE).

Dec. 20: Signed an executive order requiring the “streamlining” of the leasing and permitting processes for exploration, production and refining of vaguely defined “critical minerals” (a list of which will be announced later by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke).

Dec. 21: Halted two independent studies by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, one to improve the safety of offshore drilling platforms and another to look at the health risks of mountaintop-removal coal mining in central Appalachia.

Dec. 21: Revoked the Obama-era Resource Management Planning Rule (Planning 2.0 Rule), which advocated new technologies to improve transparency related to mining on public lands. A Federal Register filing said this rule “shall be treated as if it had never taken effect.”

Dec. 22: Signed the massive, unpopular Republican “tax reform” bill. The bill, which strongly benefits the richest Americans, contains numerous anti-environmental elements, including opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

Dec. 22: Ruled that “incidental” killings of 1,000 migratory bird species are, somehow, not illegal under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The legal opinion is considered by many a giveaway to the energy industry — which applauded the change — and was written by a former Koch staffer turned Trump political appointee.

Dec. 22: Reversed a previous Obama-era Interior Department decision to withdraw permits for a proposed $2.8 billion copper mine in Minnesota. The mine lease is owned by the Chilean billionaire who also happens to own Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s rented D.C. mansion.

Dec. 27: Announced a plan to consider dramatically expanding the use of a neonicotinoid insecticide called thiamethoxam, which has been proven damaging or deadly to bees.

Dec. 27: Prioritized oil and gas leasing and development near and even inside greater sage-grouse habitat management areas, yet another Obama-era reversal.

Dec. 28: Declared the beaverpond marstonia snail extinct, the first such extinction under the Trump administration. (Obviously this is a failure of the administrations that preceded Trump, but the declaration still comes under his watch.)

Dec. 28: Announced a plan to repeal yet another Obama-era rule, this one governing fracking standards on federal and tribal lands. The rule, which never actually took effect, would have required companies to disclose chemicals used in their fracking fluids, set standards for well construction and required surface ponds holding fracking fluids to be covered.

Dec. 28: Trump sent yet another tweet mocking climate change during a period of record cold temperatures, a not-so-subtle hint about his legislative agenda and personal intractability on the subject.

Dec. 29: Proposed to remove or rewrite offshore-drilling safety regulations put in place by the Obama administration after the deadly Deepwater Horizon disaster, saying “it’s time for a paradigm shift” in regulations.

Now that the New Year has arrived, how many other changes will follow? In all likelihood, this is just the beginning. President Trump’s “Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions,” announced Dec. 14, contains hundreds of provisions affecting endangered species, energy development and just about every other major environmental issue. Those will all start to move forward in the months ahead.

The Revelator’s Top 10 Articles of 2017

Stories about Bears Ears, sharks, vaquitas, an extinct bat and the Endangered Species Act resonated with our readers this year.

What a year. 2017 sometimes felt like a nonstop assault on the environment, but it was our job to get the news out there, good and bad.

That meant bringing you stories about everything from sharks and snails to Bears Ears National Monument and beyond. Here they are, our 10 most-read articles for 2017, as clicked by you, our valued readers:

1. Snails Are Going Extinct: Here’s Why That Matters

2. Florida Anglers Are Targeting Endangered Sharks

3. The Last Vaquitas: “I’ve Seen More Dead Than Alive”

4. The Fungus Killing America’s Bats: “Sometimes You’ll See Piles of Dead Bats”

5. Does Trump Really Have the Authority to Shrink National Monuments?

6. Scientists: The Endangered Species Act Needs You

7. Killer Whales Face Killer Toxins

8. Christmas Island Bat, Last Seen in 2009, Confirmed Extinct

9. The Roots of the Antiquities Act? They’re in Bears Ears

10. Rethinking the Big, Bad Wolf

What were your favorites? Did anything you enjoyed reading not make the list? Let us know in the comments. And stay tuned for even more great articles — good news and bad — in the New Year to come.

Reflecting on The Revelator’s First Year

The year of Trump brought challenges, but it also inspired us to seek the truth and find solutions.

This was a year of painful and powerful change.

On Jan. 20 Donald Trump ascended to the U.S. presidency, bringing with him a regressive collection of anti-environmental ideas and a right-wing crew of industry insiders and billionaires to help execute them.

That was a pretty awful day, but I remember watching the inauguration and knowing that I would soon be in a position to help do something about it.

Just three days later the small staff of what would become The Revelator — made up of myself and investigative journalist John Dougherty — reported for duty. Spurred by Trump’s election, the Center for Biological Diversity had set out to create a new kind of independent environmental news site. Our goals were simple and not-so-simple: stand up against the administration and stand for the environment and the species and people who depend on it. It would be a site to promote transparency, to tell stories that other publications were missing and to investigate truths no one else was uncovering.

We didn’t give ourselves an easy task. It took a few months to pull things together, design the website and start our reporting. But once we launched on May 17 we immediately began a journey that took us to some pretty wild places. We covered Trump’s assaults against Bears Ears and other national monuments; the environmental disaster of his proposed border wall; his push to drill for oil off the Atlantic coast; the administration’s attacks on public funding of science; the attempts to dismantle the EPA; and a whole lot more.

All of this work presented some…challenges. From the moment this administration took office, officials either stopped talking to the media or did so only under duress — or with the knowledge that it could cost them their jobs. This isn’t universal, of course. Many people in the government are still incredibly helpful to journalists, but finding these sources becomes harder and harder.

But we pressed on. We talked to the people affected by these proposed changes, as well as the experts who told us how many of them probably won’t stand up in a court of law. We dug into documents to reveal things the administration or tight-lipped corporations weren’t telling us. We looked back at history to show us the potential implications of what’s happening now. And we looked at some possible solutions that could outlast the Trump administration, no matter what they end up doing.

And of course, we looked beyond the world of Trump, with articles about endangered species, climate change, pollution, unsafe oil companies and the Bundy trial. We ran essays and op-eds that challenged readers to consider different approaches. We talked about the books and the arts — vital places to generate new ideas for resilience and resistance. We also started a series of graphic data stories that presented difficult issues in new and interesting ways. I like to think we stood out in our coverage of all of these issues, often tackling stories that no other environmental news sources touched.

Throughout it all we asked tough questions, which remains at the heart of everything we do.

And our readers, thankfully, responded. A few weeks ago we celebrated our first million unique page views, and our daily readership continues to climb. Our articles have been reprinted in nearly a dozen other publications. More and more people are following us on Twitter and Facebook. We received a lot of nice letters — and more than a little bit of hate mail, but that just tells me we’re doing something right.

Of course, we stumbled a bit along the way, as every startup does. Our website had some bugs at first, which took a couple of months to correct. Our lack of name recognition in the early days slowed our ability to talk to sources and to attract top essay-writers, something that’s now turning around. Our attempt at a semi-daily aggregation feature, “The Dose,” didn’t really click, so we rightfully reassigned our resources to bigger and better articles (we still hope to revisit that idea, though). And it took forever to find the time to launch our weekly email newsletter, but that’s chugging along nicely now, with more subscribers joining every day.

There were also some frustrations, but only because we couldn’t do more. A staff our size can only write and publish so much, but we did bring you nearly 180 articles this year, so we’re pretty happy with that.

Next year we’ll do even more. Right now we’re drawing to a close for 2017 — after this past Trump-filled year, we need a bit of a recharge — but we’ll be back the first week of January with renewed vigor, purpose, dedication and hard truths. And maybe a few surprises.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for staying in touch. We look forward to continuing our journey with you in 2018, no matter what challenges we all face.

Nothing to Wheeze At: Air Pollution’s Disproportionate Effect on Poor and Minority Communities

Air pollution is an unevenly distributed issue — how it affects you depends on where you live.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s assessments show that breathing ground-level ozone at levels of just above 0.070 parts per million can cause a range of harmful health effects, including asthma and emphysema.

The effects add up: Air pollution kills tens of thousands of Americans every year and costs the economy over $4 billion.

The damage, however, is not evenly spread. Your exposure to ground-level ozone depends, in no small part, on where you live, and where you live often depends on your economic status. So according to the EPA’s own data — who exactly is America dumping its air pollution burden on?

This map of national ground ozone levels shows a large amount of variation across the country, ranging from safe to hazardous levels. Click on any of the dots signifying monitoring locations to view ozone levels and the demographics of local residents.

The graphic below compares the average American to the average person experiencing different levels of ozone pollution using EPA and census data. Move the slider below the image to explore levels.

The average person experiencing the worst ozone pollution is 11 percent more likely to be a person of color and live in a household with income $7,440 less than the average person being monitored by the EPA overall.

According to this data, the most vulnerable Americans are bearing the brunt of the country’s pollution footprint — of every American’s pollution footprint.

That’s because the ozone and other emissions from a car’s tank of gas don’t just settle where a car travels; drivers are also ultimately responsible for polluting the places fuel was originally extracted, refined and transported — possibly on the other side of the continent.

Too often, that puts the burden of these emissions on racial minorities and low-income families, who disproportionately live near refineries, extraction sites and highways. Research has shown that particulate pollution and ground-level ozone at these types of locations increase the risk of death, even at levels below the government’s air-quality standards. The American Petroleum Institute, however, dismissed a recent report detailing the increased risk to African Americans of cancer and asthma caused by air pollution by natural gas emissions by suggesting their genetics and other social factors were to blame.

The Trump administration is similarly skeptical of the hazards of air pollution and has attempted to delay and missed deadlines in enforcing an Obama administration regulation to curb ozone pollution — one the largest industrial source of which is the oil and gas industry.

In the face of an apparently uncaring industry and government, narrowing this inequity remains an uphill battle.

Data sources and methods

Ozone data:
Highest reported value of available fourth-highest daily maximum 8-hour concentration reported in EPA’s 2016 annual summary data by monitor.
Source
In 2015 the EPA revised the ozone standard to 0.070 ppm using the O3 indicator with 8-hour averaging time and form of annual fourth-highest daily maximum, averaged over 3 years.

Demographic data:
Five demographic criteria were selected from the 2015 American Community Survey Five-year Estimates:
1) Age: median age of total population
2) Income: median household income in the past 12 months in 2015 inflation-adjusted dollars.
3) Educational attainment: percentage of population 25 years and over with an associate’s degree, bachelor’s degree, or graduate or professional degree.
4) Race: percentage of total population reported as black or African American, American Indian and Alaska native, Asian, native Hawaiian or Pacific islander, some other non-white race, or two or more races.
5) Health insurance: percent uninsured of total civilian noninstitutionalized population.
Source

Location averaging:
Zip Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTA) are the geographic unit of study. If more than one air quality monitoring station was present in a single ZCTA, only the station recoding the highest value was retained. Demographic data by ZCTA was then collated by levels of ozone recorded within the ZCTA (0.06 ppm and above, 0.07 ppm and above, 0.08 ppm and above, 0.09 ppm and above). Finally, demographic data were averaged by ozone level category while weighting data by total population of each ZCTA. The ‘average person’ was defined as the average person living in all ZCTAs where all monitoring stations were located.

Data limitations:
The locations of air quality monitoring stations across the country are somewhat arbitrary and do not provide complete national coverage.