Page 129 • The Revelator

The Extinction Crisis is Here. How do We Keep from Feeling Overwhelmed?

Conservation requires optimism. These experts share how they maintain it.

Elephants are being slaughtered for their ivory. A fungus is wiping out the world’s frogs. Ring-tailed lemurs have all but vanished into the illegal pet and meat trades. Creatures big and small are going extinct, and here in the United States the Endangered Species Act itself is constantly at risk of landing on the chopping block. It’s a bleak world in many ways — but is doom and gloom the only possible response?

Quite frankly, no. As someone who has spent the past 10 years reporting on the extinction crisis, I find that the very people who are helping to save endangered species are often the ones who know the best reasons to stay optimistic.

Here, in the first installment of The Revelator’s regular feature “The Ask,” we posed an important question to several top conservationists:

How do you stay positive in the face of the ongoing extinction crisis?

Their answers may surprise you — and offer some inspiration as well.

Stuart Pimm, Doris Duke Chair of Conservation at Duke University and President of SavingSpecies

Stuart Pimm When Al Gore in “An Inconvenient Truth” talks about “a mass extinction crisis, with a rate of extinction now 1,000 times higher than the normal background rate,” that’s the research my group and I do that he’s quoting. Journalists often ask how I get up in the morning, given how depressing is the subject. Well, it’s not what we spend most of our time doing!

Knowing which species are at risk and where allows us to focus on how to prevent extinctions. Conservation science is barely a generation old and the successes are everywhere. The U.S. Endangered Species Act means we can see bald eagles across the continent, peregrines snatching pigeons in our largest cities, and go with so many other tourists to watch whales off both coasts.

Globally, while tropical deforestation remains the principal threat to species, governments have set aside every larger fractions of their land as national parks. Individual species on the very brink of extinction have been saved. And across the critical areas — hotspots — where threatened species concentrate, organizations such as SavingSpecies help local conservation groups buy degraded land to reforest it and re-establish connections between the isolated forest fragments that deforestation has left behind.

Yes, it’s bad, but it doesn’t have to get worse.

Luke Hunter, President and Chief Conservation Officer for Panthera, a wild cat conservation organization

Luke Hunter Nature’s extraordinary resilience fills me with hope.

I learned this during my first hands-on experience with big cats, 25 years ago as a doctoral student in South Africa. As the country emerged from its apartheid-era isolation, I started a project to reintroduce cheetahs and lions to areas of their historic range. Great swathes of former ranchlands were rehabilitated, replacing old fences, corrals and cattle with zebras, wildebeest, rhinos and elephants. Once prey populations were replenished, we released the big cats. And they blossomed.

I watched entire ecosystems return to the wild, as reintroduced cats established territories, found mates and raised their cubs — the first generation born to areas that had lost their kind decades earlier. Today, over 50 of these newly created populations collectively protect many hundreds of wild cats where there had once been cows.

The South African project succeeded, in part, because of massive investment in dollars and technical expertise, but cats and their ecosystems can bounce back naturally, if circumstances allow. European colonization of North America drove the mountain lion largely into the remote refugia of the Rockies. As urbanization and growing tolerance has created space for predators, mountain lions are gradually pushing back east, on their own. Similarly, the nations of Western Europe had destroyed all but tiny remnants of their native forest and its wildlife until political stability and a strict conservation ethic emerged after World War II. Recovering lynxes, bears and wolves now live in and around some of Europe’s most densely populated urban areas.

Sadly, there are populations of big cats and their habitats around the world for which such a recovery is probably too late. But for many others, all they need is a reprieve. If we can back off the human pressure — especially the hunting of prey and the relentless persecution of the cats themselves — they will do the rest. All we have to do is give them that chance.

Marni LaFleur, founder and Director of Lemur Love and an adjunct professor of Anthropology at the University of California San Diego

Marni LaFleur In short, I focus on the individual. My research and conservation work focuses on wild ring-tailed lemurs, an endangered species, and it is important that I know and recognize each lemur that I study and follow. I know what each lemur eats, who they are or aren’t friends with, where they sleep, and I also recognize when things change. If “Pinkie” or “the Hamburglar” weren’t around one day, or if their trees were missing, I’d know; it would matter and I could potentially do something about it.

Of course, I can’t pay this level of detail to large numbers of animals or expansive areas of forest, but by working with like-minded conservationists, together we can tackle larger areas and protect more individuals and species. Focusing on individuals allows be to remain connected to the animals and forests I love and to stay positive despite the overwhelmingly discouraging extinction crisis.

Kerry Kriger, founder and Executive Director of Save the Frogs

Kerry Kriger Prior to becoming directly involved in the environmental conservation movement, I was pessimistic about the future of the planet. However, my pessimism was replaced by optimism as soon as I took action and started doing my part to improve the state of the world and the situation for wildlife and threatened species. I have seen firsthand the positive contributions made by a multitude of individuals who dedicate themselves to protecting amphibian populations and promoting a society that respects and appreciates nature and wildlife.

And I have seen the impact I have personally made. I know that there are unending ways in which people can help out, and thus it is not a question of what people can do, it is simply a question of how to motivate people to actually take action. If everybody did their individual part, we could solve most of the current problems faced by endangered species.

James Deutsch, Director of Wildlife Conservation at Paul G. Allen’s Vulcan Inc.

James Deutsch In spite of the various political things going on in the world, in conservation we’ve actually had some good news over the last six months, on international wildlife trafficking and specifically on elephants. First, the CITES meeting in Johannesburg in 2016 represented a real sea change from CITES being seen primarily as a mechanism to promote and regulate trade in endangered species to equally a mechanism for protecting endangered species from unsustainable international trade. And the results were just fantastic, with Appendix I protections for the African grey parrot, humphead wrasse, all rosewood species and many others. And then we had the fantastic Appendix II listings of nine species of mobula rays and four species of shark. That was something that Paul Allen contributed substantially to the effort behind.

We also moved forward a bit on the elephant issue with maintaining the international ban on trade in ivory despite some countries asking that it be lifted. That was followed, not long after, at the end of the year, with the president of China’s amazing announcement that China would close down all of its domestic ivory markets in the space of one year. Many of us expected he would announce the closure, but I think we had expected it would be three years or five years. For him to agree to do it in one year, and since then move on the plan to do that that exactly on schedule, is really exciting. It represents this maturation of China into a society which is becoming more concerned about environmental issues generally, both in China and globally. That’s really exciting for the future of the world. I think if we as a conservation community continue to work with China — occasionally with a stick, but mostly with a carrot — I think there’s every reason to believe that progression can continue.

Robin Moore, Communications Director and conservation biologist, Global Wildlife Conservation

Robin Moore I remind myself often that it is in our nature to gravitate toward narratives that are dystopian or utopian, even though reality usually lies somewhere in between. I seek out narratives that paint a more nuanced portrait of our world, drawn to those with a more optimistic outlook that help keep me positive and motivated. It was with this in mind that we at Global Wildlife Conservation developed the Search for Lost Species as a vehicle for crafting different narratives around the extinction crisis — narratives that are built upon the poignancy of loss but ultimately engender hope and perseverance in the face of long odds.

I am lucky enough to travel to some of the biologically richest places on the planet, to see and hear and feel the symphony of life in its fullest expression, and to be continually bowled over with wonder and awe. I am lucky enough to meet people on the front lines protecting that which they love, and it is the gratitude and inspiration that I draw from these people that ultimately keeps me positive and hopeful.

Join the discussion! Share how you stay positive when thinking about or working to help endangered species by commenting below, or tag us on Twitter at @Revelator_News.

Mining the Truth in Peru

I went to Peru to screen a documentary about mining and ended up getting detained.

(The Revelator’s investigative journalist was seized by Peruvian authorities last month. This is his story.)

CUZCO, Peru— I’d just stepped onto the sidewalk after showing my documentary film on Toronto-based Hudbay Minerals’ worldwide operations, on the evening of Friday, April 21, when more than a dozen plainclothes policemen surrounded me.

The cops closest to me pulled badges from under their jackets and demanded my passport, which I had in my computer bag, slung from my shoulder. I showed it to them, and they ordered me into the rear seat of a pickup truck.

A few minutes later, Jen Moore, the Latin America program coordinator for MiningWatch, Canada — an Ottawa nonprofit seeking to reform Canadian mining operations — was detained and put into the truck with me. My Spanish is limited, but Jen is fluent, and it soon became clear that we were going to be taken to the immigration office, supposedly to discuss what we could and couldn’t do in Peru under our tourist visas.

We strongly suspected the highly unusual, and possibly illegal, detention wasn’t for a mere technical visa violation, which is typically handled without a major police operation and punishable by a small fine.

The circumstances and timing all pointed to Hudbay exerting its considerable influence over the Peruvian National Police to intimidate us and send a warning to others not to present information that undermined its corporate line.

Our offense? Showing and distributing copies of my documentary “Flin Flon Flim Flam” that I had dubbed into Spanish and Quechua.

Hudbay Minerals’ Constancia open pit copper mine looms over a Peruvian homestead. Photo By John Dougherty

I produced the film in 2014 and released it in October 2015; I agreed to travel to Peru with MiningWatch prior to my employment with The Revelator beginning in January. In fact, I was just finishing the drafts of my first stories for The Revelator when all of this went down (so much for meeting those deadlines). But I believe in this documentary and the importance of informing the public about what’s happening where they live.

The film exposes Hudbay’s history of serious environmental pollution in Flin Flon, Manitoba, that left children poisoned with heavy metals. It reveals longstanding conflicts with indigenous people in Canada and Guatemala, including allegations in a Toronto civil case of murder, a shooting and gang rapes. The film reports on Hudbay’s plans to build Rosemont Mine, which would be the third-largest open-pit copper mine in the United States in an environmentally sensitive watershed, on a national forest in southern Arizona that’s home to a dozen endangered species including the jaguar.

The film opens with footage of Peruvian National Police beating and tear-gassing villagers during a peaceful demonstration near Hudbay’s Constancia Mine in November 2014. I flew to Peru a few days after the villagers were attacked. I interviewed and filmed protesters, including those who had been beaten. I filmed villagers in the Constancia open pit, which they’d seized several days before I arrived, shutting down mining operations.

A Hudbay Minerals mining truck approaches after dumping rock for construction of the Constancia Mine tailings dam near Uchucarco, Peru. Photo By John Dougherty

At that time, Hudbay, like other multinational mining companies with Peruvian operations, had a contract to pay the Peruvian National Police to serve as its private security force. The film includes a photo of a line of police wearing green rain ponchos with Hudbay’s logo.

On this rainy, fall evening in Cuzco, we had every reason to believe Hudbay’s police contract was still in place — and that seems to be why we were picked up off the street by a swarm of police.

Hudbay has since confirmed that it has a current contract with the Peruvian National Police. In a May 8 statement issued to the London-based Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, the company stated, “Hudbay Peru has an arrangement with the Peruvian national police whereby the police provide periodic security to the Constancia operation.”

Hudbay also states it had no role in the police operations leading to our detention. “With regard to the assertion Hudbay had influence in this matter, we will not disrespect the Government of Peru by responding to the assertion it can be told what to do by any entity,” the company stated.

As we sat in the back of the police car, my mind raced over the previous four days, when we had traveled to remote villages in Peru’s southern Andes to screen the film and pass out hundreds of DVDs in communities directly affected by Hudbay’s open-pit mining operations. Two Peruvian NGOs, Derechos Humanos Sin Fronteras-Cusco and Cooperación, along with Ottawa-based MiningWatch, organized the logistics with the local communities.

John Dougherty and Jen Moore answer questions from local residents after screening the documentary “Flin Flon Flim Flam” on April 19 in Velille, Peru.

The screenings were free and open to the public, including Hudbay supporters and police. We knew police were tracking our movements as we traveled across the spectacular escarpments and deep canyons where indigenous people remarkably sustain themselves with their own hands from a land so high it pierces the sky.

“We didn’t know what Hudbay was doing,” was a common refrain from those who attended the film screenings. “Thank you!”

Many asked questions about the film and Hudbay’s operations in Peru and other countries. Jen served as my translator. Nearly everyone who attended wanted a DVD of the film. In rural Peru, where Internet service is sparse, DVDs are an important way to share information.

The reception in Peru was far more enthusiastic than the generally tepid response last summer when I traveled across Canada and showed the film in 15 cities and towns. Hudbay declined an offer I made during its 2016 annual meeting to attend the premier screening in Toronto and has never issued a statement about the film.

The company declined two emailed requests to be interviewed for the film. Last week during its annual meeting CEO Hair dismissed the film as “fiction.” In a May 10 email to me, Scott Brubacher, Hudbay’s director of corporation communications, declined to cite any factual errors in the film.

The Canadian press, which is cowed by the country’s draconian right-to-reputation legal tradition, ignored the film keeping with its head-in-the-sand approach of rarely taking a critical look at Hudbay’s controversial overseas operations. The same tender treatment holds true with the entire Canadian mining sector, which is home to two-thirds of the world’s publicly traded mining companies.

Like most companies, Hudbay strictly controls what information it releases to the media. And, for the most part, the media typically accepts whatever information is provided as gospel. The press rarely conducts independent reporting on how a company such as Hudbay operates on the ground and is often too quick to dismiss activists as illegitimate whiners.

The people who own and operate companies like Hudbay, which is traded on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges, often remain hidden from public scrutiny. They are shielded by slick propaganda, corporate philanthropy designed to secure acquiescence from civil and educational groups and campaign donations to influence elected officials.

But when the press takes the time to do thorough reporting and present accurate information that a company wants to hide, the public always benefits. And when that information is taken back to the stakeholder communities in their native language, the impact’s even more profound.

Our “discussion” with immigration authorities lasted more than four hours. After I refused repeated demands to sign papers including a declaration without an English-speaking attorney present, they let us go about 1 a.m. Saturday morning.

We were ordered to appear before an immigration judge the following Monday at 9 a.m. The short time between our detention and initial appearance appears to be a violation of Peruvian law, which requires three-business day notice on immigration matters.

Later on the same day we were released, the Peruvian Interior Ministry issued a highly unusual press release (English) claiming that Jen and I were trying to incite the rural population and create a public disturbance by showing the film. With the clear potential of more serious criminal charges in the works, and acting on the advice of our respective attorneys, Jen and I left Peru on the evening of April 22.

But the screenings continued to a packed house April 25 presentation in Lima at an event hosted by Cooperación.

We now have separate legal teams defending us in the immigration matter and hope for a favorable resolution.

I’m lucky. I came home and feel safe enough to tell my story. But in Peru — and indeed throughout Latin America and other parts of the world — those who stand up to environmental injustices face a much more dangerous fate. There have been beatings and all manner of threats toward those fighting to protect air, water, land, wildlife and themselves. Even worse, twelve environmental activists were killed in Peru in 2015.

But I’m also bringing home another truth: The fact that a homemade film where I handled most of the production and editing elicited such a harsh response from the Peruvian Interior Ministry clearly shows that our most valuable commodity — accurate and timely information — remains as crucial as ever.

This is the case not only in Peru and other faraway lands but here at home, in the United States, where the nation faces an unprecedented disinformation campaign by a president who is at war with science and with truth.

There’s much work to be done. Welcome to The Revelator.

Whooping Cranes Could Be Wiped Out by Climate Change

A conservation success story faces a new threat that could undo the heroic efforts of the past.

North America’s tallest birds could be wiped out by one of the world’s biggest threats.

Whooping cranes (Grus americana) famously barely escaped extinction during the 20th century. After decades of habitat loss and unrestricted hunting, their population had crashed to just 15 birds in 1941. Today, thanks to intense captive-breeding programs and the protection of the Endangered Species Act, that number has soared to approximately 500 wild birds. Their seven-foot wingspans are once again visible in the sky as they migrate between their summer breeding grounds at Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada and their wintering grounds in the southern United States.

But those cranes’ breeding grounds may be at risk. According to research published recently in the journal Ecology and Evolution, climate change could cause the whooping cranes’ wetland breeding habitats in Canada to dry up just enough by the year 2050 to allow predators to access the birds’ shallow-water nests and precious eggs and hatchlings. According the paper, authored by researchers from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the loss of just one juvenile crane per 200 adults would be enough to cause the wild population to start declining once again.

“[Any] perceptions that whooping cranes remain secure in Canada, and can remain free of active management, are false,” the researchers wrote. They added that if attempts to manage this climate threat are not successful “then the only wild population of this species must adapt or likely face extinction.” (Lead author Matthew Butler of the Fish and Wildlife Service declined to comment for this article.)

Why would climate change be so disastrous for this species? It all boils down to whooping cranes’ biology and behavior, explains Dr. Richard Beilfuss, President and CEO of the International Crane Foundation, one of several organizations partnering to conserve the species (Beilfuss is not affiliated with the new study).

“Whooping cranes only raise one chick a year except in extreme cases,” he says. “There’s pretty high vulnerability of that chick to predators, so their recruitment is naturally low overall and it makes recovery very challenging.”

By comparison sandhilll cranes (G. canadensis), which often have overlapping habitats with whooping cranes, tend to have a couple of chicks per year and are better at protecting their eggs from predators. “They’re better hiders,” Beilfuss explains. This has allowed their population to withstand some of the same pressures faced by whooping cranes.

Given their biological and behavioral limitations, whooping cranes have done remarkably well since they returned to their native habitats over the past few decades. Beilfuss says their numbers continue to rise, and the current target is to achieve about 200 to 250 breeding pairs and around 1,000 overall birds in the wild. “Until we reach that magic number, we’re going to feel that they’re still really vulnerable, even though their populations are increasing.”

Although the paper concentrates on the effects of climate change in Canada, the rest of whooping cranes’ range could also be affected, something illustrated by previous FWS research. “My personal feeling is our biggest worry on climate change is still related to maintaining conditions on their wintering grounds,” Beilfuss says. “I’m very concerned about the combination of water-use decisions and reduced water correlating to more prolonged drought in the southwest U.S.”

In fact, he says, the effects of climate change are already being felt to a degree by all of the world’s 15 crane species, which are experiencing increased droughts and more extreme rainfall. Heavy rains might sound like a good thing for wetlands-dependent species, but it doesn’t quite work that way. “Water will run off more quickly into rivers and run down to the sea but not be in the landscape for as long where the cranes need it,” Beilfuss says, pointing out that these heavy strains are already affecting crane species in northeast China, northwest India and southern Africa.

Other threats loom, particularly for whooping cranes, which could be all but wiped out by a single disaster. “For example, we were very fortunate that the BP oil spill happened during their non-breeding season and off of Louisiana,” Beilfuss says. “If a similar spill had happened closer to Texas in the winter, then it could have contaminated their entire coastal range.” Getting the population higher, he says, would allow the species to withstand an impact like that while continuing to grow their population.

Although the climate change predictions in the new paper are fairly apocalyptic, Beilfuss says it doesn’t mean that whooping cranes are necessarily doomed. “They’re pretty resilient birds,” he says. “They’ll probably find some alternative ways to get by as long as there’s a reasonable amount of water on the landscape.” He adds, though, that “conditions are going to be worse and worse” and that the new paper illustrates the need to be concerned about whooping crane productivity in the United States and in Canada if we hope for these magnificent birds to keep flying the skies of both nations.

Diesel is 50% Dirtier (and Deadlier) than Expected

Government emissions tests have drastically underestimated the pollution created by diesel trucks, cars and other vehicles, according to a study

Government emissions tests have drastically underestimated the pollution created by diesel trucks, cars and other vehicles, according to a study published this week in Nature.

Instead of the previously estimated 9.4 million tons of emissions worldwide, researchers calculate the actual amount was 5 million tons higher, saying the discrepancy comes from not testing vehicles under real-world conditions.

The study estimates the added soot and smog could be responsible for an additional 38,000 deaths a year from heart and lung diseases. Most of those added deaths would be in the EU, China and India, which have a higher proportion of diesel vehicles.

Ironically, the study comes at a time when one lab that could help better understand diesel emissions, the EPA’s National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory, faces severe budget cuts under President Trump’s budget plan.

Plastic Pollution: From Ship to Shore

When a 60,000-pound shipping container falls into the ocean, its plastic contents can end up on the world’s beaches — and in its fish.

The journey to the most trashed beach in the United States, on Hawaii’s Big Island, is a long — and bumpy — one. I traveled there last year, spending about two hours in the back of a rusty old truck that bucked and bounced down a winding, rock-strewn dirt road down to the shore.

With me were two filmmakers and our guide Megan Lamson, Hawaii Island program director of an environmental nonprofit called Hawaii Wildlife Fund. Our tasks included documenting and cleaning up trash. Lamson’s two dogs were also along for the ride.

About halfway to our destination, as the truck crested a hill and sand and sea came into clearer view, Lamson, who was at the wheel, pointed out the window at a jagged hunk of land jutting out from the coastline: Kamilo Beach. “That’s where we’ll see the most junk,” she said.

She was right. Kamilo Beach was literally trashed, covered with plastic debris large and small, of all shapes, sizes and varieties, from truck tires to fishing nets to water bottles to tiny microbeads.

Trash on Kamilo Beach. Justin Dolske (CC-BY-SA 2.0)

Most beaches I’ve visited have some litter strewn around, but never before had I seen anything so extreme. While I watched the dogs go splashing into the sea, I noticed the water, too, contained plastic — thousands of tiny bits floating like confetti on the surface. And as I walked across this plastic beach I couldn’t help but wonder: Where had it all come from?

Kamilo Beach lies directly in the path of the Pacific Gyre, a clockwise-swirling ocean current. That current carries trash — mostly plastic — through the ocean and dumps a lot of it on beaches like Kamilo. Megan told me that a not-insignificant amount of the plastic has escaped from massive shipping containers that have been lost from cargo vessels.

“Oh yes, we see plastic container-ship debris all the time,” said Lamson, who heads up regular cleanups at Kamilo Beach. “We can tell a container has gone overboard recently when we find a lot the same item on the beach. One week we found hundreds of clothes hangers; another time, a ton of sandals.”

An international fleet of cargo ships carries 5 to 6 million shipping containers across the oceans at any given time, transporting about 90 percent of the world’s consumer goods. These containers — each of which can contain upwards of 60,000 pounds of cargo — are filled with all types of items, from food to cars to clothes to appliances. Most of these goods are made at least partly of plastic, or are wrapped in plastic packaging. And sometimes what’s being shipped is plastic itself.

According to various estimates, at least hundreds, and as many as ten thousand, shipping containers are lost at sea annually when cargo ships tip over in rough seas or crash on reefs or rocks. The World Shipping Council, an international maritime shipping industry trade group, contests the 10,000-container estimate, claiming it is “grossly excessive,” yet concedes that “there have been no comprehensive statistics kept, as to the number of containers lost overboard.” So no one is really sure how many containers are lost at sea each year because detailed records aren’t kept by any one entity.

When shipping containers go overboard, they float for days or weeks just below the ocean’s surface, like an iceberg, posing a major threat to ships that may hit them. Eventually they take on enough water to sink to the seafloor, where they rupture and release the goods they contain.

But spilled goods are not usually cleaned up — with the exception of oil — and that’s in part because there’s no international rule delineating who’s responsible for claiming consumer goods lost by cargo ships. “Currently there are no international treaties or federal laws that effectively combat the problem of consumer goods spills from cargo ships,” says Mike A. Bajaj, a maritime attorney of counsel to Arthe Law in Delhi, India.

In fact it’s not even required for shippers to report their container losses (again, unless those losses are oil) to ocean management agencies, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Plastic is popular for consumer goods because it’s more lightweight and durable, and cheaper, than materials such as glass and wood. But it’s a clear environmental mess on a global scale.

Large plastic items can lethally entangle marine wildlife. And over time plastic in the oceans breaks up into tiny pieces and absorb toxins from the water; it’s often ingested by animals, eventually sickening and killing them. And the ocean’s plastic pollution problems get transferred back to land when debris washes up on beaches like Kamilo.

Some manufacturers have taken it upon themselves to clean up their goods after spills to avoid bad PR. Chinese petroleum giant Sinopec did this when it paid for an effort to recover thousands of large bags of plastic pellets (called “nurdles”) for use in manufacturing that had fallen into the sea and washed onto beaches after a cargo ship spill in 2012. But Sinopec did not actually claim liability for the spill, because there were no laws holding it accountable. Had it been oil that had spilled, under the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, Sinopec would have been responsible for the cleanup.

Bajaj and other maritime law experts say they’re skeptical any international rules outlining the cleanup of plastic goods spilled in the oceans will arise in the near future. The plastic industry is simply too resistant. They say the best way to prevent plastic from getting into the seas starts with the world using less plastic. Only then will manufacturers make — and ship — less of it.