The Climate Movement Must Reimagine Its Relationship With Art

Art raises awareness, but environmental organizations too often fail to engage with artists or their own creativity.

In the last year a series of open calls, panels, film festivals and magazine articles have signaled a rising tide of awareness about the vital connection between climate action and art. As a climate artivist — an artist combining creative practice and climate advocacy — these fill me with both hope and frustration.

I’m filled with hope because climate change is a crisis of imagination that needs artists to reclaim the creativity beaten out of us by the same extractive systems that are making our planet and people sick. A crisis is a turning point in a disease; here it’s the turning point we need for mass climate action.

Art can help us to dream the world we want, to remember our Earth roots, to grieve our losses, to celebrate life amidst it all, to resist greenwashed perceptions of climate apathy, to heal our interconnected web of life, and to create just climate futures.

Artists have long helped inspire and mobilize individual and collective action. From the Civil Rights Era to the AIDS crisis to the Black Lives Matter Movement to the recent Covid-19 pandemic, art has helped channel feelings, spread the message, and galvanize action. Today the climate movement needs artists more than ever before.

Despite the scientific consensus on the need to phase out fossil fuels to avoid the most catastrophic consequences of climate change, the latest federal data show an increasing number of oil and gas drilling permits in the United States. In the face of this mammoth bipartisan failure, we need to integrate art with fossil resistance.

Art raises awareness, sometimes through courting controversy. For example, in 2022, climate activists from organizations like Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion desecrated artworks in galleries around the world. The protests were their own kind of synchronized performance art. Whether artists and the art world like it or not, such sensational protests catch our short attention spans: Our planet is burning. Our leaders keep digging us ever deeper into the climate hole.

But these actions are no replacement for the patient work of participatory artivism that mobilizes communities, as in the case of the anti-coal movement in California. A 2021 qualitative study investigated artivism’s role in resisting the construction of a coal-export terminal in California. It found that art had played a decisive role in growing the campaign’s demographic reach and influencing key decision-makers. By engaging poets, musicians, dancers and visual artists in ways that spoke to diverse aesthetics and community spaces, and in doing so from the beginning of the campaign, the organizers effectively engaged women and youth of color.

Art is more than a means of expressing resistance. It is essential for breaking our flight or freeze response to climate angst and for stepping into our own agency to create solutions for ourselves and those disproportionately affected by climate disruptions.

A study in an American Psychological Association Journal evaluated the psychological effects of climate art on spectators. It found that while the use of dystopian elements can catch initial attention, it’s art that offers solutions, and artworks that emphasize the beauty and interconnectedness of nature, that have the most emotional and cognitive impact on viewers to encourage climate action.

To be sure, art alone will not solve the climate crisis. We need to break out of our bubbles. We need to expand our imagination to weave interdisciplinary artistic collaborations with frontline activists, climate scientists, behavior change researchers, policy advocates and lawmakers.

Seeing my climate and art worlds coming together gives me hope. Yet it’s frustrating when — as happened last year — climate activists convene a lengthy panel on the role of artists without having a single artist participate in the discussion. (And no, putting an evocative art by an artist of color on your invitation is not enough.)

It’s frustrating when the leader of a big environmental advocacy organization opines on the role of artists for making people care about climate change without naming concrete steps his own organization is taking to systemically collaborate with artists.

It’s frustrating to see call after call for donations of art for major climate causes without pausing to consider if perhaps artists have worldly concerns like rent, insurance, or a broken kitchen faucet.

If you’re part of the climate movement, stop treating art as an afterthought relegated to your communications departments and artists as the romanticized subjects of soliloquies. Inspiring a creative climate solutions renaissance begins with the art of change within.

Here are a few places to start as you reimagine ways to foster the climate movement’s relationships of solidarity and mutuality with artists:

Connect with diverse artists: Get to know artists from varied backgrounds and practices in your communities. Invite them to your next climate gathering in ways that honor creative labor. Explore artistic engagement in your shared context. Plant the seeds of a climate art salon, an open mic or residency program to foster cross-pollination of diverse people dreaming, singing, dancing, crying and laughing their way toward climate-just futures together.

Learn about imaginative climate art collectives: Study how Design Science Studio’s global creators (including me) are making art for a regenerative future; The Climate Museum’s first pop-up in Manhattan is blending art, social science and climate action; Gulf Coast Murals is bringing together artists, activists, communities and allies in the Gulf Coast to remember and envision; Art and Climate Initiative is using theater for climate solutions; The Climate Comedy Cohort is engaging comedians in the hottest climate science; and 5millionstrong is building artists’ mass actions to shape our shared future.

Reclaim your creativity: As you foster climate art “out” in the world, be creative in your own life: doodle, play, write a poem, hum your favorite song, move out of your very serious chair. In a burning world, so many of us are burned out and separated from our creative vitality. Art offers possibilities of building bridges that embody our intertwined private, collective and planetary healing.

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:

The Extinction Crisis in Watercolor and Oils: Using Art to Save Plants

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Weather Whiplash: How Climate Change Killed Thousands of Migratory Birds

Can we help species adapt to the evolving threat of compound climate extremes?

When dead birds fall from the sky, you know something is wrong. But finding out exactly what killed them isn’t as easy.

Scientists had plenty of theories when migratory sparrows, flycatchers, blackbirds, swallows, warblers and other birds in the southwestern United States turned up dead or dying in August and September of 2020. Some suggested it could have been smoke from wildfires. Others said it could have been a cold snap. Some experts thought it was lack of food, as evidenced by the birds’ emaciated, dehydrated bodies.

No matter what the cause, the effect was devastating on the people who found the bodies. “I collected over a dozen in just a two-mile stretch in front of my house,” biologist Martha Desmond told The Guardian that September. “To see this many individuals and species dying is a national tragedy.”

Now we may know why those thousands of birds died. According to a paper published in the journal Sustainable Horizons, the deaths were caused by “compound climate extremes” — multiple factors and events that pounded the birds over and over again until they expired.

It started in August 2020, when smoke and heat from Western wildfires forced migratory birds to flee their traditional feeding grounds before they could bulk up for the winter. They moved inland at first, landing in areas where food and water were naturally scarce. That would have been okay under normal, well-fed conditions, but then came the second punch. A four-day cold snap and snowstorm struck the northern Rockies and pushed the already weakened birds to move yet again. Not yet recovered from their first emergency journey, they turned their beaks southward, where their energy stores finally gave out.

The researchers call this “weather whiplash” — or more scientifically, an “ecological cascade” — and warn that future double or triple whammies could pose a threat to migratory species here in the United States and around the world. It could even cause extinctions, they write.

But they also provide a roadmap that could help lessen the impact. First, the authors call on the scientific community to further study the threats of environmental stress on bird health, so we better understand when we need to intervene. They also express the need for sustainable land strategies that could provide alternatives to existing trees, so birds have more places to nest, roost and feed. Finally, they recommend preparing sanctuaries to help injured animals recover in these potentially affected ecosystems and implementing reintroductions to boost populations of species suffering from all these compound effects.

In a world where climate extremes get more dangerous every year, and where people also suffer from weather whiplash, adaptations like this will become increasingly necessary — unless we want to see more flocks falling from the sky.

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Previously in The Revelator:

Frogs vs. Climate Change: How Long Can They Stand the Heat?

Newest Flock of Wild California Condors Faces an Old Threat: Lead Poisoning

As one of the world’s most endangered birds returns to its ancestral skies, partners work to eliminate a persistent threat on the ground.

Last May biologists from the Yurok Tribe and Redwood National and State Parks released four captive-bred California condors into the wild. They were the first condors to soar above the towering coast redwood trees in Northern California in more than a century. The reintroduction effort had been years in the making.

A second cohort of four condors joined the small flock in autumn. A bird known as A6, whose Yurok name is Me-new-kwek’, was the last to leave the release pen, Nov. 16. He immediately took flight.

“A6 went down to the bottom of the hill canyon and got a little bit stuck,” says Tiana Williams-Claussen, wildlife department director for the Yurok Tribe.

Me-new-kwek’, which means “I’m bashful,” spent 19 days exploring his new world at the bottom of the canyon. Some of the other young condors visited A6 and even roosted near him at night during his odyssey. Finally he made his way back up to the release site, where he eagerly fed on a carcass the biologists had provided to keep the flock close to home.

Watching the young condors claim their independence is a little like watching your kid go off to school for the first time, says Williams-Claussen. “It makes you happy, but there’s still a niggling worry as they start to spread their wings.”

Those worries are well-founded: California condors are critically endangered, and every bird alive today is a descendant of a captive-breeding program that prevented the species’ extinction.

Condors still face real dangers out in the wild, the greatest of which is lead poisoning. As scavengers, they only eat carrion and risk ingesting lead when they consume the remains of animals killed with lead ammunition. This includes hunted game like deer and elk as well as “pest” animals such as coyotes and ground squirrels, who are frequently shot by ranchers and farmers.

Late last fall the remains of three poached elk were discovered in Northern California in areas the condors are known to frequent. X-rays revealed lead fragments in the neck of one of the carcasses — enough to kill several condors.

“This is about as close as you can get to a worst-case scenario,” Chris West, Yurok wildlife department manager, wrote in a Facebook post about the incident.

At least four condors were just a 10-minute flight away from the poaching event when it happened. Fortunately, the carcasses were recovered before the birds discovered them. But experts worry that other condors might not be so lucky in the future.

A Barrier to Recovery

It takes very little lead — a gram or less, or about 1% of a typical rifle bullet — to sicken or kill the giant raptors. It’s a slow, painful death: The lead shuts down digestion, weakens muscles, and eventually damages organs, including the brain. In the period between 1992 — when nearly extinct condors were released back into the wild — and 2021, 120 birds died of lead poisoning, accounting for over half the deaths among wild birds. Even condors who don’t ingest a lethal amount of lead can experience side effects that further threaten their development or survival.

As early as 2010, the Yurok Tribe began reaching out to hunters, first within the tribe, then outside, to educate them about how lead ammunition harms wild animals.

“We had a lot of individual success; 85-95% of hunters we talked to said they didn’t realize lead was an issue and of course they would switch,” says Williams-Claussen.

 

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Part of the Tribe’s Hunters as Stewards program involved handing out free nonlead ammunition. That had to stop in 2018, after a new California law limited ammunition distribution to licensed vendors. The Tribe has since partnered with Ventana Wildlife Society, which holds such a license, to distribute a limited amount of lead-free ammunition.

“As Tribal members, harvesting game has been part of our life forever,” says Williams-Claussen. “We’re really hoping to increase nonlead availability to help folks make that transition.”

In July 2019 California banned hunting wildlife with lead ammunition, although it still allowed sales for other purposes.

That should have helped condors. But since the law went into effect, lead poisoning deaths have gone up, not down.

The reasons for this are complicated, says Kelly Sorenson, executive director for Ventana Wildlife Society, which co-manages the wild condor flock in Central California with Pinnacles National Park. The overall market share for nonlead ammunition is around 10%, and at least one major wholesaler has stopped shipping to California, further tightening supply.

California also requires that ammunition transactions happen face to face. “When you go to the store you have an extremely low probability of getting the ammo you want, especially .22 [rifle ammunition],” says Sorenson. This is frustrating for rural ranchers who must drive long distances to purchase ammunition, he adds. Too many customers who might have been willing to switch end up driving home with lead ammo.

Since 2012 Ventana has provided nonlead ammunition to local ranchers and hunters in Central California, which is home to a flock of about 100 free-flying condors. As ammo availability has shrunk, this service has become even more vital.

Private land holds some of the best condor habitat, and in many cases, once landowners understand the dangers of lead ammunition — not just for condors, but for other animals and humans — they become vital partners in conservation, says Sorenson.

One by One

A recent incident shows how technology and outreach work together to help protect condors.

Ventana’s biologists keep close tabs on their flock using signals from the birds’ GPS transmitters. “We can map out where these birds are on a daily basis and even infer when they are feeding,” says Sorenson. One day last fall, they noticed several condors feeding in a new location. Mike Stake, who runs Ventana’s nonlead program, knew that area ranchers are constantly battling with ground squirrels over their hay crops and other property damage. He reached out to a rancher in that area to see if they were using nonlead ammunition.

“The guy wrote back, ‘It’s terrible. I can’t find it anywhere and I have condors flying and feeding all over the place,’ ” says Sorenson. Stake immediately drove to the ranch and delivered lead-free ammunition. The rancher told eight of his neighbors. All eight called within a week, requesting lead-free ammo.

 

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As successful as Ventana’s nonlead ammunition program has been, its scope is limited. In the long run, full recovery of the species will require reducing lead use across the condor’s present and future range.

“We know that the death rate due to lead poisoning is so high that without ongoing releases from captive flocks the population [of wild condors] would not be self-sustaining,” says Sorenson. “The good news is, if we can just lower those lead deaths to a reasonable level, there’s every reason to think condors will bounce back, much like bald eagles and peregrine falcons have.”

Reducing the Lead Threat in Oregon

The Yurok regard condor, or Prey-go-neesh, as sacred. The condor plays an important role in the Tribe’s creation story and ceremonies, and its relationship with the birds extends back thousands of years. In restoring the condor, the Yurok are restoring their cultural landscape, too.

Condor fans are anticipating the day when the giant scavengers spread out through the Pacific Northwest and return to the skies above Oregon. Leland Brown, manager for the nonlead hunting education program at Oregon Zoo, has been preparing for that day for years. Since 2015, the zoo, which breeds condors for the wild population, has worked to reduce lead exposure in “nontarget” wildlife, primarily raptors.

“We’re providing options that allow hunters to be successful but remove or mitigate lead exposure to wildlife,” explains Brown. This includes sharing information and hosting events where hunters can test nonlead ammunition in their own firearms.

In 2018 the Oregon Zoo partnered with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife on a pilot incentive program in northeast Oregon for elk-hunters on the Zumwalt Prairie Preserve, which is managed by The Nature Conservancy. The program is still active today. Before the hunt, Brown sends hunters a request to consider using nonlead ammo. A check-in process allows hunters to show that they are using nonlead ammunition and explain the reasoning behind their choices. Participants are entered into a drawing to win gift cards.

When the program started, only 20-25% of nearly 300 hunters used nonlead ammunition. By 2019 and 2020, the number had risen to over 75%.

The partners are building on this success and expanding the program statewide. They are also launching a study with Portland State University and recruiting hunters to test the performance of different types of bullets.

Nonlead ammunition isn’t as scarce in Oregon as it is in California, says Brown. One of the biggest barriers he observes stems from doubts about how the ammunition will perform.

“Some hunters wait several years to draw a tag,” says Brown. “They have concerns that they might be switching to ammunition that isn’t as effective.” Although research studies and filmed demonstrations prove the efficacy of lead-free copper ammunition, forums where people can ask questions and, better yet, test the products and decide for themselves, are critical.

“As much as we like to think conservation is about wildlife, it’s just as much about human behavior,” says Brown, who cofounded the North American Non-lead Partnership in 2018. “If we’re able to accomplish the same effect [as legislation] using voluntary efforts then we’re probably building a more durable outcome in the long run.”

Every Bird Is Sacred

Condor crews working in Yurok ancestral territory are dedicated to helping their small flock thrive and grow. They plan to release at least four birds each year for 20 years, and they will continue to provide lead-free carcasses sourced from local ranches (and occasionally, road-killed animals) to help reduce the condors’ exposure to tainted meat. Biologists will capture the birds twice a year for health checks. Any bird found to have lead in its system can be treated through a blood-filtering process called chelation.

But stopping the poisoning before condors eat lead remains key. Condor crews closely monitor the birds’ movements; if they suspect the birds are “wild foraging” on a carcass, they will visit the site and make sure it isn’t contaminated with lead.

Understanding where lead is in use is key: The National Park Service has partnered with the Tribe on joint funding proposals to investigate the risks of lead contamination in the recently released birds, says Karin Grantham, resource management and science program manager for Redwood National Park. The two entities are also working with nonprofits to help educate the public on the dangers of lead ammunition to all wildlife, especially condors.

Will the eight birds in the burgeoning flock encounter deadly toxins in their new home? The condors are starting to fly farther afield, says Williams-Claussen. They’ve explored as far as the Klamath River and even made it to the coast — about 80 miles.

Watching the young birds acquire skills has been fun, says Williams-Claussen, adding that the second cohort of condors, taking cues from the first, has been much quicker to venture out.

“Every condor is critical and sacred,” Williams-Claussen wrote in a Facebook post about the elk-poaching incident. “Older condors teach younger birds how to make it in the wild. When a condor dies prematurely from lead poisoning, all of the knowledge it amassed throughout its life…is lost.”

Previously in The Revelator:

Saving California Condors — With a Chisel and Hand Puppets

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United States Includes Dam Emissions in UN Climate Reporting for the First Time

Better accounting can go a long way in establishing sound policy to tackle the climate crisis.

The Environmental Protection Agency recently earned applause from environmental groups for a move that went largely unnoticed.

For the first time, the U.S. government in 2022 included methane emissions from dams and reservoirs in its annual report of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions to the Inventory of Greenhouse Gases and Sinks required by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

“It’s a big deal that they’re now reporting this,” says Gary Wockner, executive director of the river advocacy group Save the Colorado.

While we’ve long known that coal and gas-fired power plants emit troubling amounts of greenhouse gases, research has found that reservoirs can emit significant amounts of methane, too — which has a global warming potential 85 times that of carbon dioxide over 20 years — along with smaller amounts of nitrous oxide and CO2.

Emissions from some reservoirs can even rival that of fossil fuel power plants. Yet, until now, there’s been no real accounting at the national or international level for these emissions, which fall under the category of “flooded lands.”

“To our knowledge, the U.S. is the first country to include estimates of methane emissions from flooded lands in their greenhouse gas inventory,” the EPA press office told The Revelator.

That may be in part because calculating reservoir emissions isn’t a simple task, as The Revelator reported last year:

Tracking emissions from reservoirs is complicated and highly variable. Emissions can change at different times of the year or even day. They’re influenced by how the dam is managed, including fluctuations in the water level, as well as a host of environmental factors like water quality, depth, sediment, surface wind speed and temperature.

“We’re happy the EPA’s doing it,” says Wockner. “And we’re looking for the next step, which is refinement in the modeling.”

White water churning out of dam spillways.
Water rushes through 12 spillway gates at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Hartwell Dam in Georgia. Photo: Doug Young, (CC BY 2.0)

EPA researchers are working to improve how they calculate those emissions, and they’re also conducting a four-year study of CO2 and methane emissions from 108 randomly selected U.S. reservoirs. This aims to “inform a greater understanding of the amount of greenhouse gases emitted from U.S. reservoirs, and the environmental factors that determine the rate of greenhouse gas emissions from reservoirs,” according to the agency’s website.

Wockner applauded the EPA for those important actions but has urged the agency to go even further.

Last year his nonprofit, along with more than 100 other organizations, petitioned the EPA to begin a rulemaking to include dams and reservoirs under the United States’ Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, which currently requires 8,000 facilities, including coal- and gas-burning power plants, to declare their greenhouse gas emissions. Hydroelectric plants and other reservoirs aren’t currently included in that list.

There are a few reasons why they should report their emissions, the petitioners explain. Hydropower is largely regarded as a clean, emissions-free energy source — although research suggests otherwise.

“As a result, the federal government, states and utilities frequently make decisions regarding climate policies and advancing toward a cleaner electric sector based on incomplete information and mistaken assumptions regarding dams and reservoirs’ greenhouse gas emissions,” the petition states.

If operators of hydroelectric dams are required to regularly report emissions, that would help agencies, nonprofits and the public better assess whether current dams should be relicensed or decommissioned — and whether new projects should be built.

The result, the petitioners say, would be “better-informed climate policies and better-informed permitting decisions.” A win-win.

The United States continuing to report dam emissions to the United Nations, and at home, would also send an important international signal.

“The U.S. helps set climate policy across the planet and helps fund various development projects through the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, United States Agency for International Development, and others,” says Wockner. “Accounting and reporting the greenhouse gas emissions from dams is a critical step forward in climate policy.”

Previously in The Revelator:

Dam Accounting: Taking Stock of Methane Emissions From Reservoirs

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Protect This Place: Jellico Mountains, Home of Magical Waterways and Unique Species

A 10,000-acre logging project threatens endangered species, recreation and nearby communities.

The Place:

The Jellico Mountains are on the southern edge of the Daniel Boone National Forest along the Kentucky-Tennessee state line. Here the Appalachian foothills turn into the steep slopes of the Appalachian Mountains, giving rise to remote forests hosting some of the highest tree and aquatic species diversity in the United States.Protect This Place

Why it matters:

The geology and geography of the area create a rich diversity of both flora and fauna. Eroded sandstone has formed gorges, cliffs, waterfalls, rock shelters, natural arches, bridges and caves that provide critical habitat for many endangered, threatened, and rare plant and animal species. Opportunities for outdoor recreation are plentiful here and provide solitude and adventure to those seeking a relationship with the natural world. This area is also home to nearly 1,300 acres of secondary old-growth forest, much of which is proposed to be clearcut.

Kentucky Heartwood Executive Director, Lauren Kallmeyer next to an old growth hickory in Jellico. Photo: Tina Camp Scheff. Used with permission.

 

The threat:

A proposed U.S. Forest Service project includes nearly 5,000 acres of clearcutting and 5,000 acres of selective logging and thinning. When forested areas are clearcut, they become vulnerable to landslides and erosion. The steep Jellico Mountains are not suitable for this type of logging. Clearcutting, coupled with record breaking and catastrophic storms, has caused landslides on other recently logged Forest Service land in eastern Kentucky.

project map.
Credit: Jim Scheff and Chris Karounos, KYHW

Legacy impacts from coal mining, along with significant problems with invasive plant species, add to the challenges of protecting and restoring this unique area. The threat of flash flooding in the valleys is amplified under these compounding conditions. We have seen firsthand the devastation extreme weather events have caused across eastern Kentucky in the past few years. Protecting this forest also means protecting the people who live there.

Landslides not only erode the soil and damage the mycelial networks that the forest depends on to regrow, but they also have the potential to push endangered aquatic species to extinction through sedimentation of waterways.

landslide scar
Photo: Jim Scheff, KYHW staff ecologist. Used with permission.

Jellico Creek is one of the main waterways that curves through the bottom of these mountains. Along with its gorgeous blue-green color, it holds some of the last remaining critical habitat for the Cumberland darter (Etheostoma susanae), a fish only found in isolated populations in the upper Cumberland River system of Kentucky and Tennessee. Other endangered species like the Cumberland elktoe and blackside dace could also be imperiled by the project.

Our place in this place:

Kentucky Heartwood, where we work, has been exploring the Jellico Mountains for several years to locate rare plants and old trees, scope landslides from prior logging projects, and enjoy the beauty and scenery of the area. While there are no established hiking trails, there are old logging roads and gravel Forest Service roads that offer miles of enjoyable recreation by foot or mountain bike along with beautiful winter views into Kentucky and Tennessee.

Jellico Creek, with large boulders that make for perfect lunch spots and several pretty waterfalls, is a gem that should be preserved for all species in our ecosystem to enjoy.

Blue green creek waters with trees on bank
Jellico Creek. Photo: Lauren Kallmeyer, KYHW executive director. Used with permission.

The lack of designated trails is one of our favorite features of this area. As you walk into the woods with no set path, it becomes a choose-your-own-adventure game. The things to discover open up to you when you explore off the beaten path.

The area’s forests rival some of the largest and most diverse we see in the region. Towering basswood, hickories and oaks are accented by yellowwood trees, among the rarest endemic trees in the eastern United States. North-facing slopes are filled with medicinal herbs like black cohosh. One fall day we discovered a rare Appalachian gentian flower tucked into the sandstone cliff line. Both the Appalachian gentian and black cohosh are on United Plant Savers’ “species at risk” list from overharvesting and habitat loss, reminding us of the richness that still exists here in Kentucky as well as the sensitivity of these populations.

Who’s protecting it now:

Kentucky Heartwood closely monitors Forest Service activity in the Daniel Boone and advocates for protecting and defending Kentucky’s public wildlands. Since 1992 we have proudly called ourselves “forest defenders,” but we aren’t alone.

The community at the base of the Jellico Mountains initiated an incredible public campaign to “stop the chop” in response to the Forest Service’s scoping analysis. The highlight of this public involvement was a town meeting that community members held with the agency. With over 100 people in attendance, the room was packed with local residents who oppose the project, from property owners who will be directly affected to career loggers who acknowledged the risks involved with logging on such steep slopes.

Trees with green leaves.
Jellico Mountains forest. Photo: Tina Camp Scheff. Used with permission.

As a result, more than 300 comments were formally submitted to the Forest Service in opposition to the project, including several highly respected environmental legal nonprofits (the Center for Biological Diversity, Southern Environmental Law Center and Kentucky Resource Council). This coalition is regrouping to prepare for the next phase of the project, the Environmental Analysis public comment period, which is expected in June 2023.

What this place needs:

A groundswell of well-organized community opposition has stopped logging projects on national forests in the past. The Jellico community will continue to rally opposition to halt this project as the Forest Service moves onto the next phase.

In order to get this project withdrawn we have to continue to engage local residents, news outlets, environmental law firms and politicians to take a stand.

The Daniel Boone National Forest is a place of refuge, beauty, abundance and adventure. We would like to see a focus on creating more recreation opportunities in this area instead of extractive projects like this one.

Every decision we make today will leave generations of people growing into adulthood with questions about why we chose profit and extraction over protection. We are running out of time to blame it on ignorance. The old-growth forests that used to dominate the landscape of eastern Kentucky are a thing of the past. With what little secondary old growth we have left, every measure to ensure its protection should be our utmost priority.

The climate crisis is nipping at our heels, and these forests are one of our greatest assets in combating climate change through the drawdown of greenhouse gases. The forest is our solution, and it is worth more standing. 

Lessons from the fight:

While we may think that environmentalists gravitate toward a certain political orientation in reality, love for nature spans all political divides. The community-led effort to stop the Jellico logging project reflects a diverse coalition of people with common goals, which makes a “David vs. Goliath” effort more achievable.

Join the fight!

We know public participation in opposing projects like the Jellico Mountain logging project can stop them in their tracks.

There will be a second opportunity — tentatively June 2023 — for the public, regardless of where one lives, to make a comment on this project.

Visit Forest Watch to stay up to date. Or follow us on Facebook or Instagram.

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Urban ‘Microrewilding’ Projects Provide a Lifeline for Nature

Recovering urban wildlife isn’t just about protecting a city’s parks and rivers, but also making its streets, homes and skyscrapers greener.

Wild boars roaming Italian towns. Goats on the streets of Wales. Egyptian geese wandering free at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport. When humans retreated from busy streets during Covid-19 lockdowns, the wildlife emerged, bringing into sharp focus what conservationists have been saying for decades: In order to repair the environmental damage that we’ve caused, it’s imperative that we allow natural processes to restore damaged landscapes.

In many parts of the world, it’s beginning to. In the United Kingdom, a country that has lost almost half of its biodiversity since the 1970s, rewilding — the term used to describe the process by which parts of land or water are returned to a wild state — has entered the national lexicon.

Until now rewilding, which is by its very nature a large-scale effort, has been concentrated in the countryside and rural areas. More recently, however, there have been a number of projects and local movements pushing for more urban rewilding and at a smaller scale.

Experts call it microrewilding, and harnessing its potential comes at a crucial time.

By 2050 the United Nations estimates that more than two-thirds of the global population will live in urban areas and the resilience of cities will depend on a “fundamental climate transition,” according to a report by the United Nations Environment Programme. “For years the story of cities has been a tale of attempting to carve a place for humans outside of nature,” the report notes. “But we are increasingly realizing that smart, sustainable and resilient cities need to harness the power of nature.”

It’s no surprise, then, that an opinion poll commissioned last year by the charity Rewilding Britain showed that 81% of Britons supported rewilding, with 40% strongly supportive and just 5% of people opposed.

“People are talking about rewilding parks and rewilding gardens,” says Richard Bunting, director of Little Green Space, a local nonprofit that helps to create spaces that benefit people, wildlife and the environment. “We’ve lost an awful lot of habits in Britain and many of the remaining have become extremely degraded. By taking more local action — microrewilding, if you will — you start creating connectivity and nature corridors in the landscape.”

Rewilding the City

In 2019 Mayor Sadiq Khan officially declared London the world’s first National Park City, defined as a large urban area that is managed and semi-protected, with the goal of making it wilder, as well as greener and healthier. Last year in May, those plans gained momentum.

Khan — who has described the UK as “one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world” — has commissioned a group of rewilding experts to bring nature back to the British capital through new nature reserves, community initiatives, and microparks, which are small unused or underused areas that can be turned into inexpensive green spaces. The group includes Isabella Tree, who reintroduced beavers to her estate in the first large-scale rewilding project in England, as well as Nick Bruce-White from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the UK’s largest nature conservation charity.

While large-scale urban rewilding projects are increasingly being embraced by city governments around the world, such as the High Line gardens in New York City or the network of six biodiversity parks totaling nearly 2,000 acres in New Delhi, India, what will play a key role in the success of wildlife recovery efforts in cities, is not just protecting a city’s parks and rivers, but making its streets, homes, and skyscrapers greener.

Person walking elevated path surrounded by plants.
The Highline in New York City. Photo: Cristina Bejarano (CC BY 2.0)

Siân Moxon, the founder of Rewild My Street and a climate change expert at UK Universities Climate Network, says microrewilding can offer many benefits such as reducing flood risk, improving air quality, and countering the urban heat island effect, particularly in cities like London. And it’s easily doable even at the individual level.

“It’s about adding greenery and thinking about every surface as a potential host,” Moxon says. “So the roof of a bin store or the wall of a house. Grow a climber up it or put an insect hotel on it.” Water in any form — a bee bowl or a bird bath — is great. So is planting trees or, if there’s no space, growing something in a large pot.

Gardens cover about a quarter of many cities, including London, and rows of gardens can form a habitat corridor, potentially linking up wider green spaces like parks, as well as allotments, school playing fields, cemeteries, and other places that can be of value to wildlife.

But in the UK, where the Victorian attitude of “neat and tidy” still prevails, an attitude shift needs to accompany the efforts. Because nature, as Bunting points out, is messy.

“There are often large swathes of areas managed by local councils, for example, that could be doing so much more for biodiversity.” he says. “But in fact, they’ve been over-mowed and sometimes sprayed with chemicals, to the point that they’re almost lifeless ecological deserts. Meanwhile, our insect populations are collapsing, sometimes quite catastrophically.”

Localized Efforts

In recent years a number of projects have not only looked at bringing biodiversity to the urban environment but made an active effort to build them from the bottom up, with community involvement.

The city’s Wild West End is one such project, in which over half a dozen of central London’s largest property developers are working together to create natural pathways in the city through a combination of green roofs and walls, planters and flower boxes, street trees, and pop-up spaces. Already, in heart of Britain’s capital city, sightings of the black redstart — one of the UK’s rarest birds — have gone up.

Graphic by Siân and Jon Moxon/Rewild My Street (with altered photos courtesy of Charles J Sharp, Pau.artigas, Super.lukas, Didier Descouens, Ninjatacoshell, George Hodan, Piotr Siedlecki, Peter Mulligan, Potapov Alexander/Shutterstock).

Elsewhere, London-based Citizen Zoo is trying to bring back the large marsh grasshopper — once a common sight across Eastern England’s wetlands but now locally extinct. The group came up with a “citizen keeper” project called A Hop of Hope, through which volunteers are given a crash course in grasshopper husbandry, helping them breed and rear grasshoppers in their own homes. Keepers can raise a brood every four or five weeks, after which they’re released at two secret locations. The project, which began in Norfolk in 2019, has seen tremendous success with several hundred of these grasshoppers now building self-sustaining wild populations.

When it comes to individual and street-level efforts, however, gardens remain the best bet, since 22 million people in the UK have access to a garden. The most significant thing residents can do for wildlife in their garden is to create a pond.

“Pound for pound, a pond delivers more wildlife than any other type of habitat in your home,” says Alastair Driver, the director of Rewilding Britain, the only countrywide organization in Britain focusing on rewilding. Having a natural pond without fish, he says, will attract all sorts of life — mayflies, water beetles, pond snails, dragonflies, damselflies, caddisflies, newts, frogs and toads. “We used to have millions of ponds in our landscape and we’ve lost the vast majority of them, so by restoring a pond, you are restoring a natural process. You are doing a little bit of rewilding.”

Ponds also help tie into the connectivity that’s essential for the rewilding process to work. When rewilding a bigger area, Driver explains, greater value comes from it being connected through a corridor to another area so that if a habitat is temporarily destroyed, the wildlife can migrate to other areas.

The same principle applies on a smaller scale. If your next-door neighbor also has a pond and you’ve got holes in your fence, you allow things that can’t fly to move through from one site to the other. Hedgehogs are a classic example, needing many acres of land for a viable population. “If you’ve got a whole street full of pockets of wildlife garden, then in effect you are starting to create a much bigger habitat and starting to move up that rewilding spectrum.”

As much as microrewilding is about nature, it’s also about our relationship to nature. In urban environments, largely due to a lack of access, many people have forgotten how to co-exist with wildlife. Through smaller and more local microrewilding efforts, that relationship can be restored. Indeed, studies show that when people are actively involved in restoring and enhancing green spaces, they feel both a connection to, and ownership of, those spaces.

The gravity of the biodiversity crisis underscores the need for big change. But it can start with small actions, too, that can be applied anywhere — no matter how small a space, in how densely populated a city. The declining population of bumblebees, for example, who can only fly for 40 minutes between feeding, can be massively helped by something as simple as a window box. Planting a nectar-rich plant is planting a crucial pitstop.

“These micro actions can be a lifeline to different species,” says Bunting. “And if enough of us do it, then you’re creating a mosaic of habitats for species across the country.”

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Previously in The Revelator:

Why Scientists Are Rallying to Save Ponds

Elephant Poop, Tasmanian Snails and Other Links From the Brink

We’ve got the latest on species rediscoveries, light pollution, right-wing posturing and more.

Do you ever feel as if the world is…unraveling? Well, let’s see what we can do to tie it back together again.

Welcome to Links From the Brink.

Lost and Found

The world lost dozens of unique species in 2022. You can find the full list here (call your therapist first), but meanwhile, here’s a counterpoint.

Even as we lose species, we’re also in the great era of species rediscoveries. Just look at the partial list of species scientists discovered again in 2022:

    • The black-naped pheasant-pigeon, last documented in Papua New Guinea 140 years ago, whose rediscovery made headlines around the world
    • Delissea argutidentata, a Hawaiian plant found teetering on the edge of a volcanic crater
    • The Batman River loach, a Turkish fish rediscovered by a “stroke of luck”
    • The Santa Marta sabrewing, a Colombian hummingbird only seen twice since 1946, spotted at last by a birdwatcher (how’s that for a life list achievement?)
    • Beddomeia tumida, a tiny Tasmanian freshwater snail — less than a quarter of an inch across — last seen more than 120 years ago
    • The “comical-looking” Hill’s horseshoe bat, thought to be extinct for 40 years (we think it’s kinda cute)
    • The Lord Howe Island wood-feeding cockroach, thought extinct since the 1930s and found again under a single tree
    • And Gasteranthus extinctus, an Ecuadorian plant species named after its own purported extinction but now potentially in need of rebranding.

Of course, none of these species are doing well. They survived by the skin of their teeth for decades, but now they need conservation help. In some cases they’ve been found just in the nick of time, which means conservation plans can be developed and put into action to make sure we don’t lose them again.

Are there more species yet to rediscover? Undoubtedly. But the number of places in which to search grows finite, as does the time to find them. And of course, locating both new and lost species takes resources that many organizations and governments simply don’t have. But every lost species found is an opportunity, and a reminder that even plants and animals unseen for decades can be saved if we have the will.

Give a Hoot, Let Elephants Poop

Breaking news: Elephants are good for the climate.

We already knew that elephants provided a host of localized environmental benefits. Now new research finds they help the whole planet. How, you ask? Simple: by eating the right kinds of trees, then pooping out the right kinds of seeds, which then grow into new trees that store more carbon than their vegetative neighbors.

The same research found that if elephants went extinct, it would dramatically reduce the carbon storage of African forests.

Somehow, we doubt this news will stop wildlife trafficking in its tracks — the mega-rich people who “invest” in elephant ivory aren’t exactly your typical climate champions. But the truth is that elephant poop is probably worth more than elephant ivory, elephant-foot umbrella holders and other ungodly “products” combined. That alone is another reason to invest (non-ironically) in elephant conservation.

We Are All Made of Stars (You Know, Those Things You Can’t See in the Night Sky Anymore)

Light pollution around the world just keeps getting worse and worse. A new study published in the journal Science this month found that the night sky increased in brightness between 7 and 10% every year between 2011 and 2022. This growth in ambient light, driven by the concurrent growth in LED lighting, increasingly blots out all but the brightest stars in the sky. The study was compiled from data by more than 51,000 citizen scientists, whose observations using their naked eyes revealed loss unseen by satellites.

LEDs are obviously great for lighting and saving energy, and they’re one of the best tools for reducing greenhouse emissions. But they use so little energy that they’re also overused and left burning for hours and hours on end, which has dangerous health effects on humans and wildlife.

So if you use LEDs — and you absolutely should — use them wisely: The International Dark-Sky Association offers a list of great options to help individuals, businesses and communities reduce light pollution. Check ‘em out and put them to work.

The Media Steps Up for Climate Media

Is the media starting to take climate change more seriously? That seems to be the case, according to a new survey by the Reuters Institute and the University of Oxford, which found:

As the impact of climate change becomes more evident, the news industry has been rethinking how it covers this complex and multi-faceted story. Around half (49%) say they have created a specialist climate team to strengthen coverage, with a third hiring more staff (31%). Just under half (44%) say they are integrating dimensions of the climate debate into other coverage (e.g. business and sport) and three in ten (30%) have developed a climate change strategy for their company.

This is progress of course, especially for an industry that has given far too much attention and voice to climate deniers — telling “both sides” of the story doesn’t cut it when most deniers were paid to spread their lies about the science of climate. But it still needs to go a lot further. I mean, come on, only half of outlets have a dedicated climate team? It should be 100%. Less than half are integrating climate into other topics? Come on! Every business, crime, local government, entertainment, weather, arts and sports article or broadcast should mention climate in some way or another. Climate chaos affects every facet of our lives, and the media is key in spreading understanding of the threats we all face.

It can go further. It should go further. Every outlet should also refuse to accept advertising or other sponsorships from fossil fuel companies. And they should look beyond climate and hire a dedicated reporter or team devoted to covering wildlife issues, another team devoted to pollution, and one more committed to investigating cases of environmental justice. (I guess you’ll just have to keep reading The Revelator for all of that.)

The Wrong Direction

You know how California, Washington, and many other states are passing legislation to mandate electric vehicles in the next few decades? Well, trust the right wing to twist that as far as they possibly can. Look no further than Wyoming, where Republicans have introduced legislation to ban electrical vehicle sales by 2035 — the exact opposite direction of where things should be going.

By what logic are they making this push? It’s all, they say, about “protecting” the oil and gas industry, but you know that also translates into “owning the libs.”

Meanwhile, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin has pulled support for a planned electric battery factory in his state, purportedly to be “tough on China.” Critics say he’s just posturing for a planned 2024 presidential campaign. Meanwhile the $3.5 billion Ford factory and its 2,500 jobs are up for grabs. The most likely new site: Michigan (which would be glad to have them).

Will electric vehicles now become the next made-up battlefield against the “woke mob?” Our prediction: This month’s controversy over “banning” gas stoves was just a warmup.

More Wrong Turns

While the growth in renewables continues to exceed expectations, oil is still, sadly, king in this country. According to new projections from the U.S. Energy Information Agency, crude oil production will increase to record levels over the next two years, hitting a shocking 12.8 million barrels per day in 2024.

How is this possible, with so much wind and solar in development and so many new electric vehicles hitting the road? One word: plastics. So much of the fossil-fuel-derived stuff is produced every day that it’s erasing gains we make in other areas.

San Clemente Bell's sparrow

Let’s End on a Good Note — or Five

Give five cheers for the previously endangered San Clemente Island paintbrush, lotus, larkspur, bush-mallow and Bell’s sparrow. These four plants and one bird species, all native to (and named after) San Clemente Island in California, have now recovered and will be removed from the protection of the Endangered Species Act, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Proof that conservation works when we give it a chance.

That’s it for this edition of Links From the Brink. Keep an eye out for further fallout from the Cop City shooting, the continued disappearance of the Great Salt Lake, more wild weather exacerbated by climate change, further presidential posturing for 2024, and some interesting work by activists around the world.

And of course, mark your calendars for World Hippopotamus Day on Feb. 15 and International Polar Bear Day on Feb. 27.

What will you be watching in the months ahead? Drop us a line to let us know.

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Amazon Freshwater Stingrays Gain Much-Needed Protection — Will It Be Enough?

Experts say new international trade restrictions will help, but they leave several problems unsolved.

Two little-known and rarely studied species of freshwater stingrays — yes, such a thing exists — just gained enhanced international protections, but will it be enough to save them?

That’s the debate echoing out of the latest meeting of the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species, which in November voted to protect two colorful species of Amazon stingrays: the Xingu River ray (Potamotrygon leopoldi) and the Rio Negro Hystrix ray (P. wallacei).

The move represents a rare victory for freshwater stingrays, who are relatives of sharks, says Patricia Charvet from Federal University of Ceará’s program on biodiversity conservation. She has spent decades advocating to protect these species.

“It’s a big challenge,” she says. “People only think about the sharks and rays that live in marine ecosystems, while freshwater species get ignored.”

While some, like Charvet, consider this a big victory, other experts expressed concerns that the situation for freshwater stingrays in the Amazon is more complicated, and that these new CITES listings leave other related species unprotected from the same threats.

Unstudied Species

Amazon stingrays live in most of South America’s river basins, not just the Amazon, and are the only group of sharks or rays adapted to live their entire lives in freshwater.

This sets them apart from species such as bull sharks, which can enter freshwater but spend most of their lives at sea.

“They’ve lost the ability to accumulate urea in their blood, which is the main strategy used by sharks and rays to keep their body fluids in equilibrium with seawater,” says Luis Lucifora of Argentina’s Instituto Nacional de Limnologia.

In other words, it’s not that they don’t enter the ocean. It’s that they can’t.

A Potamotrygon leopoldi at the National Aquarium’s Amazon tank, Baltimore, Maryland. Photo taken by the author.
A Potamotrygon leopoldi at the National Aquarium’s Amazon tank, Baltimore, Maryland. Photo taken by the author.

Another thing that sets them apart: They’re less well-known and less protected than their marine cousins.

But here’s what we do know: There are about 40 currently recognized species of these freshwater stingrays in four genera, although Charvet says there are some new species being described. The Rio Negro Hystrix ray, for example, did not receive scientific description until 2016. Meanwhile there are still ongoing taxonomic arguments over whether certain stingrays are different enough to count as separate species.

Regardless of how many species exist, researchers have observed some striking stingray behavior. Some specialize in prey that we don’t usually think of sharks and rays eating, like insects. They’re capable of some basic mathematical problem solving and may be the only species of shark or ray that engages in any kind of maternal care.

But the biological characteristic that has gotten these animals into conservation trouble is one not normally associated with threats to sharks and rays: Their spot patterns are absolutely beautiful. And that makes them very much in demand for the ornamental fish trade for home aquariums.

Every species has slightly different spot patterns, and hybrids, who can be bred in captivity, have all kinds of complex patterns. Some of these spots can even look like letters or numbers, which are requested by collectors with certain initials.

While these spot patterns from captive-bred hybrids are gorgeous, for a certain type of hardcore hobbyist it’s just not the same. “Some people color their dog pink, and it looks cool, but that’s not what a dog looks like, and some people want the real thing,” Charvet says.

That puts more pressure on wild populations, but at the same time it doesn’t stop determined collectors: She points out that one individual freshwater stingray with an especially rare pattern recently sold for $30,000.

The Ornamental Fish Trade

While habitat loss is the biggest conservation threat facing many freshwater fish, for some species it’s the aquarium trade, which involves thousands of species and is worth billions of dollars, that poses a big problem for some populations — especially those already threatened by habitat loss.

“Uncontrolled unregulated fisheries are never good, and there are examples of fishing endemic species at really high levels,” says Andrew Rhynne, a professor of marine biology at Roger Williams University. “By the time we realize that something is going on, it can be too late.”

Among hardcore aquarium hobbyists, trends can shift fast, resulting in rapid growth in demand. Eventually, captive breeding can reduce conservation issues associated with the aquarium trade, but until then the trade places too much pressure on wild specimens.

“When a species is newly discovered, a big market can develop for them immediately, before there’s a chance to perfect captive breeding,” says Michael Baltzer, executive director of SHOAL, a freshwater fish conservation organization. “This is a case for being cautious, because there’s often very little regulation on the trade in these species, and it can be very easy for people to collect fish and sell them all over the globe.”

Ironically, this trade exploits Brazilian workers when collectors in the country buy animals on the international market, after prices have been raised by a chain of middlemen. “Nowadays, Brazil imports some of the most expensive aquarium fish, even though they’re from Brazilian waters,” Charvet says. “We’re exporting today what our fishermen won’t be paid to catch tomorrow.”

Imperfect Protections?

All Amazon stingrays were previously listed under what’s known as CITES Appendix III. This gets less attention than Appendix I, which bans all international trade in a species, or II, which strictly regulates all international trade, requiring both import and export permits. Appendix III does not require an international vote at a CITES Conference of the Parties, and instead just requires a nation to declare that it’s adding an additional level of protection on this species found in its territory.

The new regulations elevated the two species — P. leopoldi and P. wallacei — to Appendix II. They also protected five “lookalike” species — those who are not as threatened as the target species but look similar enough to cause trouble at the level of customs import inspections and are therefore granted the same type of protections.

The Appendix II listing of some freshwater stingrays now means that more regulation and documentation is required to export or import these animals.

Two men measure stingrays on shore.
Scientists sample a fisher’s catch. Photo: Luis Lucifora. Used with permission.

Many shark and ray species previously listed on CITES are threatened by overfishing that targets these animals due to people wanting to eat their meat and fins. The listing of Amazon freshwater stingrays is a little different, since they’re targeted for the live-animal trade, but the mechanisms are the same.

Not all experts interviewed for this piece were strongly supportive of the Appendix II CITES listing, with some noting that these species were already listed on Appendix III, which means that export permits from Brazil were already required.

“An Appendix III listing makes it just as illegal as Appendix II if you don’t have the paperwork,” Rhynne says. But he acknowledges that Appendix II, which requires an international vote, increases the profile of the species and the issues involved in their conservation. That can lead to more resources for enforcement.

And Charvet tells me that the Appendix III listing did not result in improved reporting or reduce illegal trade. Brazil enforced regulations associated with the Appendix III listing poorly, and illegal trade remained common. Rays were often smuggled over the border to Colombia and exported from there. She believes that stronger protections are necessary and has pushed for them at several CITES Conferences of the Parties prior to this year’s successful listing.

For now, only the few species endemic to Brazil have gained these protections, leaving out their cousins in other South American river basins.

“The listing leaves out all the species from other countries,” Lucifora tells me. “If one keeps in mind the taxonomic problems that still affect South American freshwater stingrays, and the problem of international smuggling of species whose capture is illegal in one country to be exported from another country with less protections, then the most reasonable solution to me is to list the entire family, not just these species.” He points to requiem sharks, just protected by CITES at the family level.

And CITES listing doesn’t have an impact on problems of local conservation. Brazil and other nations still need stronger national laws to address habitat loss due to coastal development and dam construction, local consumption for meat, and targeting killings by locals who don’t want an animal that can give a painful sting living in their backyards.

If we fix these problems, experts say, ray populations may be healthy enough to withstand sustainable levels of harvesting for the aquarium trade.

“If we properly protect their habitat, a few collectors with dip nets probably won’t make a species go extinct,” Rhynne says.

The improved CITES regulation also doesn’t change the facts that not enough people are studying these species and current research on these threatened, ecologically important and evolutionarily unique animals is underfunded.

But this is still an important start. And after many years of trying to get freshwater stingrays listed on CITES, Charvet says seeing the proposal to protect them pass was “the best feeling in the world.”

She continues, “If I had to die tomorrow, I’d die happy because now I’ve done my part to help conservation.”

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Rekindling the Practice of Cultural Burning: An Act of Climate Hope

Indigenous-led prescribed fire is helping to restore depleted lands and long-suppressed cultural practices.

After more than 100 years of suppressing the West’s fires, land managers and government agencies are finally warming to the idea that fire can be beneficial — and necessary — for many landscapes.

This idea is far from new among Indigenous communities in the region. For many Tribes, the use of fire to manage plant communities was common practice until it was outlawed by colonizers.the ask

Today, as climate change increases threats of more severe and more frequent large-scale wildfires, Tribes are re-engaging with the practice of Indigenous-led fire — also referred to as cultural burning. These smaller and lower intensity burns can help replenish soil nutrients that aid native plants and restore the land.

“There’s this inherent fear of fire right now that’s totally justifiable,” says Melinda Adams, who is studying the reclamation of cultural burns as a doctoral student in the department of Native American Studies at University of California, Davis. “So what we try to do as practitioners is to work on reestablishing that good relationship, that respectful relationship, because fire is a relative too.”

The Revelator spoke with Adams about how cultural burning changes the land, why attitudes about it are shifting, and what it can do for communities.

How did you become interested in cultural burning?

I come from a Tribe in Arizona, and I grew up in New Mexico, and I went to a Tribal college in Lawrence, Kansas. It was in the Midwest that I started being interested in fire through research with biochar. I’ve worked with pyrolysis and making soil amendments, creating them and putting them back into the soils to regenerate some of the more highly degraded soils that we have in the Midwest due to mining or over-usage by agriculture.

I did prairie burns, which are culturally significant to Tribes in the Midwest for food, medicine and basket materials.

Now at U.C. Davis my dissertation topic concentrates on land-stewardship practices that have been created and sustained by Indigenous peoples of what we now know as the United States, and specifically in what we know as California.

I am a trained ecologist and environmental scientist. I’m studying the physical and chemical soil responses of what we’re calling “good fire” — that’s cultural fire led by Native practitioners. These burns differ from what a government agency would consider a prescribed burn or a controlled burn because they are rooted in Indigenous knowledge and practices.

Being a Native person and taking up space in scientific fields, I also am called upon to talk about colonization, land dispossession, erasure of our histories, and our lived experiences. So with cultural fire, I use that as an entry point to talk about the history of California, of Native peoples of the United States, and how we’ve always held these land stewardship tools.

What’s different about cultural fire?

Cultural fire that’s a slow and low-intensity burn helps provide nutrients that native plants favor. Those chemical reactions from those lower-intensity burns provide better and more fertile areas for the plants, soil and microbes.

Cultural fire is also more guided. In the burns that I participate in, we tend to back away from using heavy fuels or machinery. With cultural fire, there’s more time spent getting ready for the burns and cleaning up afterwards than when fire is actually on the ground. That end care is huge and it makes a big difference.

I was at one of the practitioner’s properties and I could see where people didn’t prep the piles or they used fuels, and there’s white ash that looks like the ground has been scorched. There weren’t any plants coming back on that plot.

Then 100 feet to the right, I could see a cultural burn that was prepped — where we cut the plant materials, piled it and lead the burn. Then we went in after and mixed the soils. Native plants came back on that plot.

How are attitudes about cultural burning changing?

Most of the ways that [federal and state] agencies are trained to work with fire is suppression. And it’s been that way for a very long time. The very first piece of California state legislature in 1850 was to remove “Indian fire” based on very skewed misconceptions about Indigenous people’s relationship to the land.

When John Muir set foot here and saw these wonderful mosaics of different plants growing together, he didn’t give credit to Indigenous peoples for stewarding those lands and maintaining that biodiversity.

The California legislature prohibited small burns or family burns, and they’ve more or less been upheld until now, when legislation [in 2022] changed that. On top of physical violence to remove us from our lands, there was also the removal of stewardship practices, land tending, water care, and relationships with relatives other than humans. All of that was removed once colonizers arrived.

Today, in the West, an increase in the amount of catastrophic wildfire has been created because of the buildup of fuel and the under-utilization of prescribed burns. We’re feeling the effects of no-burn policies that have been upheld for close to 200 years now. And with climate change, when things burn, the large-scale wildfires are emitting greenhouse gases. And it’s creating higher-risk living areas where wildfire can consume entire homes, entire communities.

But we’re seeing some change [in practices] and more inclusion of voices that haven’t had a say in decision-making before. Biden just acknowledged traditional ecological knowledge that’s supposed to be in government training and working relationships with Tribes. It also helps that we have Secretary Deb Haaland as the head of the Department of Interior, who controls the vast majority of public lands.

There are shifts in perceptions of the intelligence and knowledge that our communities hold. And they’re being called upon now, although maybe not at the speed and scale that our communities have been waiting for since colonization.

Where is cultural burning taking place?

I’ve been a part of these cultural burn demonstrations since 2018, and we work with Chairman Ron Goode of the North Fork Mono Tribe near what we know as the Yosemite area. I also have partnerships and friendships with the Karuk, Yurok and Hoopa Tribes that are far north in California. They’re doing some amazing cultural fire work. They’re training people in the art and the science of good fire. They’re leading the way with a lot of the knowledge building and reclamation of larger-scale cultural fire.

Melinda Adams lights a field of deergrass on fire during the Tending and Gathering Garden Indigenous fire Wworkshop at the Cache Creek Nature Preserve in Woodland, Calif. Photo: Alysha Beck/UC Davis

I also work at the Cache Creek Nature Preserve, which has a small section that’s called Attending and Gathering Garden. That space came about specifically for Patwin practitioners, harvesters, traditional gatherers and Native peoples of the greater community to gather basketry materials.

It was envisioned 25 years ago by a geography student at U.C. Davis and the Native elders as a space to do cultural reclamation. The fires started to be planned and implemented more regularly when I came there in 2018.

What we’re burning is tule, a reed wetland species. It’s hollow on the inside and dry on the outside. So it’s the perfect igniter and the perfect carrier of fire. We don’t need propane and fuels. When we do our burns, we just use tule.

When we burn, it’s on an island and the water dries up [part of the year], so you can see the soil layers that these women have created — the rich, dark charred materials on the top, then some organic material underneath, and then some gray material from the water trickling in and out, and some orange from oxidation.

I love soil profiles and horizons. They’re amazing because as Native people, we’re storytellers, and you can see the story of the land if you look at the layers.

It’s also a former gravel-mining site with degraded soils that don’t hold nutrients very well. It makes it interesting to apply good fire to the space to replenish those soil nutrients. We have burned every year in that space, and I’m tracking the changes in soil and the yield in the plants.

What the practitioners who harvest these plants for basketry are seeing is that the plants are growing back taller, they’re growing back stronger, in more dense stands, and the color is more vibrant.

In addition, my qualitative data is telling me that there’s an increase of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium — the big ones that you tend to need when you’re trying to grow anything.

I’m also measuring culturally significant plants for their aboveground yield over the course of a year. Because most of these are perennials, we’re looking at a snapshot of their regeneration.

What do you hope cultural burning can do?

The hope with this work is to rebuild our relationship with fire.

But this is also about more than fire. It’s about our time on the land and reclaiming parts of ourselves that were taken away a long time ago — and having the space to do that. The word that keeps coming up is healing. We’re healing these landscapes with fire, which is tied to water, animals and pollinators.

I’m participating in something that my ancestors did hundreds of years ago that was taken away. So that’s so powerful for me as a Native woman.

I just want people to know these are healing fires, they’re healing stewardship lessons — and not just for Native peoples. We’re privileged in the fact that it’s part of our culture, but there’s definitely space for allies, for people who are working towards improvement in our environment and the mitigation of climate change.

The practitioners that I work with are so excited to share their knowledge, their practices, their worldviews, and their time with allied scholars. This is climate hope. This is hope for our future actualized on the land and together.

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Previously in The Revelator:

Can Native American Tribes Protect Their Land If They’re Not Recognized by the Federal Government?

 

Book of the Dead: The Species Declared Extinct in 2022

This year we bid farewell to two lost frogs, the Chinese paddlefish, a plant from New Hampshire, and many others.

Last July scientists in Texas announced some surprising news: They had rediscovered an oak tree species previously believed to be extinct. Until then the last known Quercus tardifolia tree was believed to have died more than a decade earlier. But lo and behold, one more tree was discovered in Big Bend National Park, meaning the species wasn’t extinct after all.

The rest of the news wasn’t as good: That lone tree isn’t doing so well. It’s been burned by fire and shows signs of a fungal infection. Scientists say it’s in need of “immediate conservation.”

This situation isn’t that atypical in the world of wildlife conservation, where species that have avoided extinction in the Anthropocene still need dramatic support. A recent study found that more than half of all known endangered species require targeted recovery efforts if they’re to avert “human-induced extinction.”

If that doesn’t happen, we’re going to lose more species — a lot of them. Despite rediscoveries like the oak tree in Texas, the world is still losing biodiversity at dangerously high rates. In 2022, scientists announced that they had given up efforts to find dozens of long-lost species, including two frogs, one of the world’s biggest fish, an orchid from Florida, a grass from New Hampshire and many others.

And those are just the ones we know about. Another 2022 study warned about the threat of “dark extinction,” the loss of species science has never even identified as having existed in the first place. By conservative estimates, millions of species are yet to be discovered, identified and named, and most are at risk of disappearing before that ever happens as humanity continues its relentless expansion. And if we don’t know they exist, we can’t do anything to save them.

So let’s take a moment to talk about the ones we do know that we’ve lost, to remember their names, to add them to the Book of the Dead, and to use their lessons to prevent others from suffering the same fate. We’ve compiled dozens of stories of extinction from the past year, including species that have been declared lost after many decades of looking, other species that have vanished from key ranges of their habitat, and others that are now extinct in the wild and exist only in captivity.

But before we get to those names, let’s take a lesson from the Endangered Species Act here in the United States — a law that turns 50 this year. Virtually every species that has been protected under the Act has had its extinction prevented. Some were added to the list too late, and they died out as a result. Many are still hanging on by a thread, but active conservation efforts are preventing them from disappearing any further. Many have recovered — most recently two plants from the Channel Islands — and more are likely to do so in the future. That is the ultimate lesson of the extinction crisis: It’s preventable if we work hard enough.

Chinese paddlefish (Psephurus gladius) — The declared extinction of this iconic fish shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Last seen in 2003, these massive beasts — who reportedly reached up to 23 feet in length — were already on the decline due to overfishing and habitat degradation before the Gezhouba Dam was built in 1981. That dam cut off their migration route in the Yangtze River and doomed the species. People have been looking for them ever since but, given their gigantic stature and the fact that no one has spotted any in that time, the species was declared extinct this past year. As the only member of its genus, the Chinese paddlefish’s extinction represents the loss of an entire evolutionary line.

Yangtze sturgeon (Acipenser dabryanus) — An extinction in the making, or recovery on the cusp? Either of those could be the fate of the Yangtze sturgeon. No mature fish have been seen in the wild in years, and the species was declared extinct in the wild this year by the IUCN. Ongoing captive-propagation efforts have produced tens of thousands of young sturgeon, who are released annually into the Yangtze River, but so far that hasn’t paid off in terms of wild reproduction. The species initially declined due to a long list of threats, including overfishing, shipping, dams, pollution and other habitat degradations, and few of those dangers have faded. Those same threats affect all other sturgeon species: Two-thirds are now critically endangered.

Florida govenia (Govenia floridana) — This large orchid, native to Everglades National Park in Florida, was mistakenly identified as another species when it was first discovered in 1957. That delay in recognition probably doomed it. At the time of discovery, only 25 plants existed. Poaching probably quickly wiped them out before they could be protected. The IUCN declared the species extinct in 2022, decades after its last verified sighting in 1964.

Sharp-snouted day frog (Taudactylus acutirostris) — Gone in the blink of an eye. It took just five years for this once-common Australian amphibian species to decline and ultimately disappear, probably due to the deadly chytrid fungus, which is causing frog extinctions all around the world. Last seen in 1997, the day frog was declared extinct this past year following two decades of extensive searches.

Mountain mist frog (Litoria nyakalensis) — Another Australian frog, another probable victim of the chytrid fungus. This one was last seen in 1990, and extensive searches have failed to prove it still exists.

A small plant clings to the rocks
Photo: Denise Molmou via Kew Gardens

Saxicolella deniseae — Known from a single waterfall in the Republic of Guinea, this herb appears to have gone extinct after its only habitat was flooded during construction of a hydroelectric dam.

Raiatean ground partula snail (Partula navigatoria) and Garrett’s tree snail (P. garrettii) — These species from French Polynesia were nearly eaten into extinction by the notorious, carnivorous rosy wolf snail, an invasive species around the planet. The last live animals were found and brought into a captive-breeding program in the early 1990s. A reintroduction program began in 2016 at a site that (unfortunately) was later found to contain another predatory invasive species, the New Guinea flatworm. Pending the success of future reintroductions, these species have been assessed as extinct in the wild, joining other snails from French Polynesia in that purgatory-like category.

jaguarini on a leafy forest floor
A jaguarini photographed in Belize in June 2022. Photo: © giana521 via iNaturalist (CC BY-NC)

Jaguarundi (Herpailurus yagouaroundi) in the United States — One of the major regional extinctions on this year’s list. The jaguarundi, a small feline, was last officially seen in the United States — the northernmost part of its range — in 1986. In 2022 a major 18-year study reported no evidence the species still exists in the country and declared it ripe for reintroduction efforts.

Beilschmiedia ningmingensis — This tree was last seen in China in 1935, in an area that has long since been converted to agriculture and plantations. China already considered it extinct; the IUCN added it to the list of extinct species this year after extensive recent surveys.

Coote’s tree snail (Partula cootei) — Last seen in French Polynesia in 1934, this snail probably disappeared slowly as it hybridized with another introduced species. Researchers assessed it as extinct in 2017, but the information wasn’t published or added to the IUCN Red List until this past year.

A gibbon hangs from a branch
White-handed gibbon. Photo: Bernard Dupont (CC BY-SA 2.0)

White-handed gibbon (Hylobates lar) and northern white-cheeked gibbon (Nomascus leucogenys) — China formally declared both these primates extinct in the wild within their borders this past September, at least a decade after they were last seen in the country. Researchers blamed “human activities” (including hunting, deforestation and the pet trade) for their disappearance. Each species still exists in other countries in Southeast Asia, although the white-handed gibbon is endangered, and the northern white-cheeked gibbon is critically endangered.

Dugong (Dugong dugon) in China — These gentle manatee relatives, who are considered “vulnerable to extinction” through most of their range, have all but disappeared from China, another major extirpation for the country this year. A paper published in July declared dugongs “functionally extinct” in Chinese waters, meaning some of them still exist there but not enough to form a healthy population. This, according to researchers, represents “the first reported functional extinction of a large vertebrate in Chinese marine waters” and serves as a “sobering reminder” of the threats faced by other species.

Poecilobothrus majesticus — What little we know about this long-legged fly from the United Kingdom stems from a single male specimen collected on the Essex coast in 1907. Scientists didn’t taxonomically name it until 1976, and a 2018 report on UK flies of the Dolichopodidae family concluded that it was probably extinct, as “one would have expected them to have been encountered by now.” The IUCN added it to the Red List as extinct this past year.

Luciobarbus nasus — This fish was known from just a single river system in western Morocco, where it hasn’t been seen since 1874. Pollution from a nearby city may have done it in, but that remains unclear. Here’s the good news though: After years of scientific debate, this species has now been reclassified into four species, with three of them remaining in existence (and one of those endangered).

Chott el Djerid barbel (Luciobarbus antinorii) — When you use too much water, don’t expect fish to stay alive much longer. That’s what happened in Tunisia, where this rare fish disappeared sometime around the 1990s or 2000s. It was listed under the IUCN Red list as a data deficient for many years but was declared extinct in 2022.

Syzygium humblotii — This tree, a member of the myrtle family, hasn’t been seen in about 130 years. It grew in Mayotte, an overseas department of France located in the Indian Ocean between Madagascar and Mozambique, in an area that has since been degraded by farms, livestock and other nonnative species. Searches over the past three decades have failed to turn up signs of its existence, so this year the IUCN declared it extinct.

Kalanchoe fadeniorum — Relatives of this long-lost Kenyan plant are grown as houseplants around the world. This species isn’t as lucky. Known from just one site, it hasn’t been seen since 1977. The areas surrounding where it grew aren’t very well surveyed, so scientists are hedging their bets and calling it “extinct in the wild.”

Heenan’s cycad (Encephalartos heenanii) — Every member of this plant genus (commonly referred to as bread trees or bread palms) is endangered due to overcollection, sometimes for food, sometimes for traditional medicine, sometimes just to own them. Previously listed as critically endangered, Heenan’s cyad was reassessed as extinct in the wild in 2022 due to “persistent pressure from plant collectors.”

Giant Atlas barbel (Labeobarbus reinii) — Although this Moroccan fish was last seen in 2001, it was listed on the IUCN Red List as “vulnerable to extinction” for several years. Well, that prediction has come true: This year the IUCN declared it extinct. It was known from just one small stretch of river that suffered from pollution and runoff from a nearby city, as well as a dam that separated populations. These factors undoubtedly affected the fish, but the exact reason for its extinction remain unknown.

A rounded bird sits in the undergrowth
By Grahame Bowland, CC BY 3.0, Link

Abrolhos painted button-quail (Turnix varius scintillans) — This Australian bird subspecies is known from just three islands. Now it’s down to two. The population on North Island in the Houtman Abrolhos Archipelago has been “eaten out of house and home” by introduced invasive species, which degraded the habitat. Researchers spent nearly 13,000 nights camera trapping the island between 2018 and 2021 and concluded in a 2022 paper that the bird no longer exists there. The quail is considered one of the five Australian species most likely to face extinction in the coming years, so this extirpation represents a major blow for its conservation.

Cystophora — Not one extinction, but many? A 2022 paper declares several species of this algae genus “functionally extinct” along the coast of southern Australia. At least seven species are reportedly now absent from the warmest edges of their historical range. The causes of their decline and disappearance are not known, but the paper cites slightly likely impacts from “gradual warming, marine heatwaves and rapid urbanization.”

Smooth slender crabgrass (Digitaria filiformis var. laeviglumis) — Known from a single park in Manchester, New Hampshire, this rare plant was last seen in 1931. The New Hampshire Natural Heritage Bureau declared it extinct this past June. Other varieties of the crabgrass species still exist in neighboring New England states, but this version was unique and is now considered lost.

Mollinedia myriantha — This Brazilian tree has a sad history. It was discovered in 1992, then lost for 123 years. A sole individual tree was rediscovered in 2015, but fieldwork conducted in the following years found that the lonely tree had died. Researchers officially declared it “critically endangered, possibly extinct” this past year. The same paper warns that the genus faces a wide range of threats and many species remain unassessed, meaning they too could soon face extinction.

An Irrawaddy dolphin jumping in the Mekong River
Dan Koehl, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Irrawaddy dolphin (Orcaella brevirostris) in Laos — The last individual of this species in Laos was found dead on Feb. 15. It had been injured by being caught in fishing gear — it escaped, but only after receiving injuries that left it unable to hunt. Irrawaddy dolphins remain in other countries, but the species is endangered, and its loss in Laos represents a major population gone.

And 562 more? — Proving an extinction is never easy — it’s easier to see something than it is to not see something. But many species have gone unseen for decades, and while scientists still look for them every year, hope begins to dwindle after a time.

Is it time to give up hope for 562 lost species? That’s the question raised by a paper published this May, which examines long-unseen species listed on the IUCN Red List. It identifies 137 amphibians, 257 reptiles, 38 birds and 130 mammals that have not been seen for at least 50 years and asks if that half-century of no sightings means they’re extinct. Maybe, maybe not. We need to be prepared for that possibility, but the paper suggests this analysis actually provides something positive: a way to prioritize geographic “hotspots” where scientists can target their searches for long-lost species.

In other words, let’s find these lost species while there’s still time.

Previously in The Revelator:

The Lord God Bird and Dozens of Other Species Declared Extinct in 2021

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