Why The Revelator Banned AI Articles and Art

Artificial intelligence consumes too much energy and water and produces too much pollution for any ethical person or organization who cares about the planet to use it.

The Earth has a new threat: massive computer data centers.

A recent study predicted that these data centers — which already consume about 1.5% of global electricity — will double their energy usage in the next five years, to about 945 terawatt hours a year. To put that in perspective, a single terawatt hour could power all of California for a week and half.

The culprit in this massive increase in energy consumption? Generative artificial intelligence (AI).

That’s one of the reasons President Trump has pushed for more coal mining in the United States: to feed AI’s ever-consuming maw. Coal is bad enough, but many AI data centers are already powered by diesel or methane, which spew pollution into nearby communities — often poor communities of color already suffering from environmental justice issues.

And that’s the primary reason why The Revelator has banned its writers from using AI. Given AI’s enormous power and water usage — and resulting greenhouse gas emissions, noise pollution, and asthma-causing pollution — there is simply no ethical way for an environmental writer to use ChatGPT, Google Gemini, or any of the other AI “writing” services.

Similarly, we won’t be using AI to generate art for any of our stories. That requires even more power than text-based output.

Of course, AI’s energy consumption and pollution problems are just part of the story. There are plenty of other reasons to avoid it.

For one thing, there’s their accuracy — or lack thereof. I think we’ve all seen “facts” spit out by generative AI that illustrate just how little their output can be trusted. For an obvious example, just look to the Trump administration’s likely use of AI to levee tariffs on penguins. And that’s just the start: A recent report found that the more powerful AI becomes, the more it tends to fabricate answers (a process the industry worryingly calls “hallucination”).

And getting back to ethics, most of these AI language models have been “trained” using books and articles from real writers, who did not consent to having their works digitized and plugged into massive databases, let alone receive any compensation for their contributions. That’s another huge reason to avoid them.

And despite that “training,” the so-called “writing” pumped out by these AI systems flat out sucks, to put it mildly. We’ve gotten dozens of AI-penned submissions over the past few months, usually lackluster “essays,” but some people even attempt to pass off AI output as journalism. It’s immediately obvious as soon as I start reading them: The sentences in these pieces usually work, at least grammatically, but everything feels mechanical and paint-by-numbers.

So there you go, it’s settled. No AI writing at The Revelator, and any writer submitting AI-generated articles will find themselves immediately blacklisted. It’s what’s best for our readers, and it’s what’s best for the planet.

(That said, we’re always looking for real writers to contribute to our pages. Read our submission guidelines and pitch us.)

But let’s take it further: If you’re reading this and you care about the planet, I encourage you to avoid generative AI, too. No AI articles, emails, school papers, artwork, research, reports, press releases, editing assistance — nothing. Given the environmental cost, and the preponderance of inaccuracies, there’s simply no ethical way to use these tools for environmental work, or even for fun.

There is an exception, though: I think it’s fair game to use AI for science that requires the analysis of gigabytes or terabytes worth of data. Humans can’t process that amount of information, and they need help — especially given the immediate need for data-driven solutions to climate change and the extinction crisis.

And ironically, there might be one other exception: Using AI to figure out how to get AI to use less power.

That doesn’t get around the other ethical issues of generative AI, and it won’t negate the evils that have already been done — or will be done — with AI. But it’s a start.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this — but please don’t submit an AI-written comment or op-ed, OK?

Previously in The Revelator:

2025 From A to Z

A Helping Hand for Mangroves

Hurricanes and alterations to natural hydrology have hammered Florida’s mangroves, but they can be restored.

Hurricane Charley made landfall on the Florida Gulf Coast near Fort Myers on Aug. 13, 2004, driving a six-plus-foot storm surge that destroyed vegetation in 95% of mangrove forests on four-square-mile North Captiva Island.

In 2022 Hurricane Ian’s storm surge topped 10 feet on 10.5-square-mile Sanibel Island, just south of Captiva, killing most of its mangrove trees. Hurricane Helene, which made landfall in the Big Bend area of Florida in September 2024, created a storm surge up to seven feet high around Tampa, and that October Hurricane Milton produced damaging surges along Florida’s central and southwest Gulf Coast. Both wiped out more mangrove forest.

Even though many of the mangroves died, the trees protected the coastline and communities by absorbing much of the energy of the surges and significantly reducing the energy and height of storm-driven waves.

Mangrove forests do this around the world. Research shows that without them, 15 million more people globally would experience flooding every year.

“Those mangroves did their job,” says Kealy Pfau, coastal watch director for the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, a land trust founded in 1957. “They took one for the team.”

Coastal mangroves. Photo courtesy Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation

But with more frequent and severe hurricanes, it also is becoming clear that this vital front line of defense can’t rebound fast enough without help.

Fortunately multiple projects aim to help the trees — and through them, human communities.

The Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation started restoring Sanibel’s historic mangrove forest after Hurricane Charley, in partnership with the city of Sanibel and MANG, a local outdoor gear store. In 2020 the organization launched restoration on nearby Hemp Key, another area destroyed by Charley. In all the effort has planted more than 20,000 mangroves, relying heavily on public participation.

“We’ve taken hundreds of people out to plant mangroves,” most of them red mangroves, says Pfau. Of southwest Florida’s three species — red, black, and white — these are the easiest to restore, as they grow right on the shoreline and have large and easy to find seedlings or propagules. The Foundation collects propagules and grows them in a nursery until they have a root system and some leaves before planting them at a restoration site.

Volunteers plant mangroves. Photo courtesy Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation

In addition to the nursery, the organization runs a mangrove adoption project that taps people to grow mangroves in their homes.

“It’s not symbolic adoption, but an actual one,” Pfau says. “We collect propagules, plant them in little pots, and give them to people we call mangrove mamas and propagule papas.”

Individuals, daycare centers, retirement communities, schools, restaurants, and resorts have adopted trees — a total of about 4,000 in the past three years. The organization collects and pots propagules from August to October and plants seedlings in restoration areas from December to June.

Volunteers also are key to a restoration project in South Florida and the Keys by the nonprofits Coastlove and Plant a Million Corals Foundation. That effort has planted about 7,100 mangrove trees since December 2022.

“We invite locals or visitors to come work with us,” says Lanier Whitton, who helps manage a nursery of about 5,000 propagules. “It is a good way to get people of all ages involved.”

Coastlove also has a Mangrove Prop Drop, a bin where people can donate legally collected propagules (meaning not taken from the ground or inside a park).

Harmful Hydrology

Hurricanes aren’t the only thing killing off mangroves. Sea-level rise caused by climate change is a major threat. Human changes to natural hydrology, or movement of water, is another.

“It takes a lot to kill a mangrove forest, but certain things are their Achilles heel. One is altered hydrology,” says Kathy Worley, director of environmental science for the Conservancy of Southwest Florida.

Conservancy biologists started studying an area known as Fruit Farm Creek on Marco Island, south of Naples, in the 1980s. The forest there collapsed in the mid-1990s, and scientists determined altered hydrology was to blame. Over decades development surrounded some 2,560 acres of mangrove forest there, causing it to fill with stormwater after heavy rains, sometimes for months. Most mangroves do best with their roots dry about 70% of the time, and the trees essentially drowned.

The Conservancy, with multiple partners — including Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, City of Marco, Collier County, and Coastal Ecology Group — started a pilot project in 2012 to restore the local hydrology.

“We had to hand-dig channels through the area,” Worley says. “You can’t get big equipment in because of the squishy ground, and we also didn’t want to further compact the soil.”

That project allowed trees to reestablish naturally rather than planting them.

“I’m a big proponent that mangroves know where to plant themselves as long as there is a seed source,” Worley says. “There were some trees on the edges [of the restoration area], so propagules could float in. Within five years, we had a little juvenile mangrove forest. It was amazing how fast it happened. So, we could say, OK, this will work.”

Based on that evidence, the organization began a larger scale restoration in March 2020, funded by a grant from NOAA. Construction of tidal channels and installation of culverts in two die-off areas began in December 2021 and was completed by February 2023. The organization conducted post-restoration monitoring at three-month intervals for the first year, switching to six-month intervals beginning in February 2024.

Monitoring: ‘Everything Is Research’

Monitoring is key with this or any type of habitat restoration.

“We go back to these areas on an annual basis and check survival rates, basically seeing if trees are there or not,” says Pfau of the Sanibel Island and Hemp Key projects. “It takes 10 to 15 years for a mangrove tree to mature, and that’s if conditions are ideal. We are nowhere near ideal conditions, especially with setbacks like other storms.”

Young mangroves. Photo courtesy Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation

The Foundation regularly measures elevation at the site to see whether storms have changed the shoreline topography, monitors sea-level rise, and tests the water quality.

“Where we historically have seen mangroves and they’re not recovering on their own, we try to figure out why,” Pfau adds. “It’s usually shoreline change or lack of propagules. Sometimes we can’t figure it out, so we plant some trees and see what happens, and that may show us what’s affecting them. Everything is research.”

This work so far has not been affected by federal budget cuts or staff reductions.

“It might change our way of thinking about what grants to apply for, or if grant funding isn’t available, we may have to think outside the box,” Pfau says. “We do rely on grant funding for some of these projects, but a lot of our funding comes from local donors.”

Monitoring by the Conservancy of Southwest Florida includes comparing plots throughout a stressed area with those in more healthy areas.

“Every tree is tagged, and we look at growth factors, growth rates, diameter of the tree trunk,” Worley says. “What you’d expect to see with a growing forest is a lot of seedlings growing into trees and eventually a mature forest with very few small trees. A mature mangrove forest is just trees and canopy. Canopy coverage is another indicator of whether the forest is progressing. We categorize each tree, whether stressed, healthy, or dead. If trees are going from stressed to healthy, you know you’re going in the right direction.”

The team also keeps an eye on the hydrology in restoration areas and monitors the types and concentrations of fish and terrestrial invertebrates. Lots of crab holes in the sediment are a good indicator of a healthy mangrove forest, Worley points out, as are multiple species of fish.

Should We Restore?

While these restoration efforts seem to be working, like most things these days, the work isn’t without controversy.

“We need to be very selective about what we restore,” Worley says. “For one thing, you have to restore areas that historically had mangroves. If it did not, there is probably a reason why.  We need to choose areas that make the most sense and put money in those areas.”

That includes taking sea-level rise into consideration, because unless forests can build up enough sediment to keep up with that rise, they won’t make it.

“Marshes used to march inland, but there is no room to march anymore,” Worley explains. “They run into development or a road.”

Another big issue: What do we do in areas that are suffering die-offs but have not been as severely affected by humans?

“Do we let the process evolve naturally? That’s a question that needs to be asked,” says Worley. “I don’t think there is a right or wrong answer. I do think we should revitalize areas that are stressed and it is probably our fault, and where we can make a difference. But we have to set priorities in the future. There is only so much money we can throw at this.”

There is also the question of which restoration approach is the best.

“A lot of people plant trees, I think it’s a feel-good thing,” Worley adds. “But so long as there is a seed source, the mangroves know how to plant better than we do.”

If there isn’t a seed source, she adds, planting is the only way to get trees back. And she believes getting them back is a worthy goal.

“These are just magnificent forests and we need to give them every chance we can,” she says. “I don’t want to live in a world without mangroves. They provide coastline stability and prevent erosion — without them half of Florida would not be here. They’re also habitat for about 75% of all marine life and really help absorb carbon out of the atmosphere.”

Good reasons, along with hurricanes, to keep giving mangroves a helping hand.

Previously in The Revelator:

Coastal Restoration: Recycled Shells and Millions of Larvae — A Recipe for Renewed Oyster Reefs

‘Active Management’ Harms Forests — And It’s About to Get a Whole Lot Worse

Forest management approaches promoted as “resilience,” “restoration,” “fuel reduction,” and “forest health” often degrade natural systems and reduce carbon stocks.

Over the past few years, many decisionmakers and forest managers have increasingly called for “active management” of natural forests — human intervention via mechanical thinning and other forms of commercial logging and road building — in response to increasing wildfires, beetle outbreaks, and intense storms. Many activists oppose these methods, saying they do more harm than good. For instance, actions that seek to suppress naturally occurring wildfires may make those fires more intense when they happen.

But active management activities have scaled up in response to economic drivers, misinformation on natural disturbance processes, and more climate-driven extreme events that trigger large and fast-moving fires.

“Active management” via mechanical thinning and overburning has type-converted this dry pine forest in the Santa Fe watershed to a weed-infested, overventilated savannah where remaining trees are exposed to blow down (Photo: D. DellaSala)

We have published dozens of peer-reviewed articles and books on the impacts of active management on natural disturbance processes in forests. As active management begins to take on an even bigger role, conservation groups frequently call upon us to submit testimony, legal declarations, and science support. Meanwhile our key findings are often neglected by well-intended researchers who promote widespread active management but do not fully acknowledge the dramatic and often cumulative ecosystem consequences.

The active management activities we are most concerned about include:

    • Clearcut logging of live and dead patches of trees, especially over large areas.
    • Mechanical thinning of large trees via commercial removal.
    • Too-frequent burning of forest understories, especially of logging slash in dense piles that cook soil horizons and encourage weeds.
    • Post-disturbance logging that removes biological legacies (e.g., large live and dead trees) and damages natural processes and soils.
    • Construction of major road networks that alter forest-hydrological connections, some of which are supposed to act as firebreaks.

Active management impacts depend on the intensity of removals, frequency and duration of impacts, and scale (site, landscape, ecoregion, biome) that often combine with the natural disturbance background in exceeding disturbance thresholds that degrade ecological integrity. Such practices have been widely accepted on at least three continents — North America, Australia, and Europe — where our research has been exposing severe impacts.

What Are the Ecological Costs of Active Management?

As we’ve shown in our recent studies, scaling up these types of activities comes with severe costs to natural ecosystems. The impacts of active management can even approach the effects of deforestation as they ramp up in application and intensity.

In the United States, this is especially apparent in relation to the recent executive orders that President Donald Trump announced under the rubric of a national timber emergency, cloaked in wildfire prevention. Even some progressive states, like California, have taken drastic measures to log vast areas with minimal environmental reviews in response to wildfires. Canada and European nations also have been driving up the active management rhetoric.

We used a series of case studies that demonstrated substantial negative and prolonged impacts of active management on a broad suite of ecological integrity indicators (including soil integrity, species richness, forest intactness, and carbon stocks) relative to more natural areas (reference sites). Active management, we found, is particularly consequential in high conservation value forests such as old-growth forests, intact watersheds, and complex early seral forests (“snag forests”) that follow severe natural disturbances but are rich in biodiversity. Such forests collectively play a pivotal role in maintaining ecological integrity while serving as natural climate solutions.

Natural disturbances are part of the necessary cycle of renewal and aging that has occurred in forests for millennia. There are well-documented patterns of forest rejuvenation following natural disturbances, even the severe ones, although we acknowledge that climate change is interacting with logging in a way that’s altering forest dynamics in places where forests may not come back on their own.

Natural disturbances create a pulse of biological legacies that sustain forest ecosystems for decades, including dead trees, surviving shrubs, fallen logs, and other structures that are associated with complex early seral forests and are not replicated by forest management. Many species, including some rare and threatened ones, are dependent on these legacies. The post-disturbance environment places the pioneering stage following a disturbance on a trajectory to old growth and then back again to the early stage when naturally re-disturbed.

We describe this process as “circular succession.” Active management can disrupt the natural flow of forest trajectories by breaking the cycle between rejuvenation and aging of forests such that forests never become old again (as in industrially logged landscapes).

Repeated thinning operations also remove key elements of stand structure such as large trees that are important habitats for a wide range of forest-dependent species. Often the large trees are relatively fire resistant and contain important adaptations such as epicormic branching near the crowns that allow the tree to survive and post-disturbance sprouting.

Our studies in Australian and western North American forests demonstrate that activities like commercial logging of large, old trees that are intended to reduce the severity of subsequent wildfires may have the opposite effect and increase fire severity and fire spread.

Similarly, there are cases where too-frequent prescribed burns on a site can alter the ecological condition of forest ecosystems in ways that, in the event of a subsequent wildfire, lead to significantly impaired forest regeneration and ecosystem type conversions to savannahs. This ostensibly is already underway in low productivity dry forests of the southern Rockies, which face a hotter, drier, and more frequent fire environment from natural and prescribed fires that together are ostensibly retarding forest renewal in places.

Active management may also increase the risk of high-severity wildfire by creating drier conditions that shift fuel types and fuel distributions, increasing fine fuels that dry quickly, while over-ventilating forests from the unravelling of intact canopies that otherwise buffer forests from high wind speeds associated with fast moving flames (as in the photo above).

Similarly, the construction of roads and firebreaks (chronic and cumulative disturbances) fragment landscapes and wildlife populations, paving the way for invasive species, and increasing the risk of human-caused ignitions (such as arson or accidental burns).

Impacts like these highlight the importance of understanding the overall disturbance burden in an area that accumulates from the combination of large tree logging, over-burning, livestock grazing, off-road vehicles, and road building, in addition the natural disturbances running in the background. Disturbance burden is a key issue that we highlighted in our recent research paper that is often neglected in active management circles.

An additional problem with active management is that tree removal or retention based on forestry prescriptions, particularly old growth or young trees establishing after disturbance, may reduce adaptation potential that would otherwise occur via natural selection that favors surviving trees better suited to the novel disturbance regimes resulting from climate change and insect outbreaks.

Simply put, foresters do not consider the genetic adaptations that are so crucial to forest persistence over time.

When Is Active Management OK to Use?

We acknowledge there will most certainly be cases where active management is a necessary part of ecological restoration practices that seek to improve ecological integrity and follow the internationally accepted precautionary principle (do no harm to native ecosystems).

Some examples include the control of invasive species that have colonized natural forests; removal of livestock and feral animals; replanting forests with native species where there has been natural regeneration failure or ecosystem type shifts underway; obliterating roads to increase connectivity and hydrological functions; upgrading culverts to handle storm surge; and reintroducing extirpated and keystone species (such as beavers).

However, other kinds of active management — like commercial thinning in high conservation value forests — may inadvertently accelerate degradation of these critical ecosystems with perverse impacts on biodiversity and carbon stocks. And while there are certainly cases where light-touch thinning (below-canopy, noncommercial) or prescribed fire alone can reduce high severity fire effects, the efficacy of tree removal in a changing climate is dependent on many factors, including extreme fire weather that is increasingly overwhelming treatment efficacy.

What’s Needed to Avoid Degradation?

Our precautionary approach to active management also underscores the significance of completing protection efforts that set aside large, representative protected areas (such as 30×30 and 50×50 campaigns) which, at a minimum, can serve as reference areas to gauge the efficacy and impacts of active management.

As we state in our research, this can be done using standardized metrics to assess the degree of degradation in comparison to reference sites along a continuum of relative loss. However, it must be understood that a complete assessment of active management on high conservation value forests, particularly attempts to recreate the later stages of succession, may not become realized for decades, if not centuries. Importantly, in some areas, reference conditions free of industrial activities and fire suppression may no longer exist and thus semi-natural areas may have to suffice as the reference for restoration.

We suggest that decisionmakers and managers invest in research that expands the understanding of natural disturbance regimes in forests, the effects of active management on ecological integrity (ecological restoration vs degradation), and that supports adaptive management strategies that are consistent with ecological integrity and conservation biology principles.

The bottom line: Active management needs a proper cost-benefit analysis to minimize trade-offs, lest the treatments may be much worse than the problems they seek to resolve. Our research daylights the expanding active management footprint while creating science support for decision-makers to choose more prudently on behalf of maintaining or restoring integrity and for activists to push back when policy is inconsistent with conservation science principles.

 

Previously in The Revelator:

Saving America’s National Parks and Forests Means Shaking Off the Rust of Inaction

 

Professional Hunters Kill a Shocking Number of Animals in South Africa

Tens of thousands of wild animals, from spring hares to rhinos, died in the name of sport and entertainment in 2023.

A version of this op-ed originally appeared in The Daily Maverick.

In South Africa you can pay a mere $100 to pull the trigger on an aardvark. It’s not a particularly stealthy or aggressive animal; it simply meanders around innocently searching for termites. Yet killing one is somehow considered a sport worthy of applause.

A dead aardvark makes for interesting interior design, and at least six of these animals are now decorative trophies, according to the 2023 professional hunting statistics prepared by the Professional Hunters Association for South Africa’s Department of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment and obtained by a wildlife welfare advocate through Promotion of Access to Information Act requests.

According to this data, 6,052 international visitors to South Africa shot 34,515 animals in 2023, the most recent year for which full statistics are available.

More than half the international visitors — 3,783 hunters — hailed from the United States, while the remainder primarily visited from European countries.

Nearly half the animals trophy hunted (17,111) came from several antelope species, zebras, warthogs, and buffaloes.

But trophy hunters’ choices also included rare and timid animals. Ten meek aardwolves and an equal number of bat-eared foxes fetched $100 each to adorn hunters’ walls — a feat that is neither brave nor athletic.

And since trophy hunting is all about rarity and trophy aesthetics, a total of 722 color variants of springbuck ($1,200-1,700 each) and 459 golden wildebeest ($4,483 each) were killed — species bred specifically for their color and rarity appeal to hunters, and not their conservation value.

In addition, trophy hunters chose to bag several other puzzling species for entertainment’s sake:

No trophy hunters chose to dart a rhino (an option available for a photo op), but 78 white rhinos were killed for expensive wall art, netting $35,000 each — at a time when poaching rages through the Kruger National Park and KwaZulu-Natal’s provincial parks. Imagine, instead, if someone had invested $2.7 million into improving the functioning of fencing, anti-poaching units, and genuine community upliftment.

Hunting of Captive-Bred Lions

A total of 521 lions were shot for trophies in 2023, and the vast majority (468) of the hunts were conducted in the North West, a province renowned for its captive-bred lion hunts.

Misinformation abounds regarding the legality of captive lion hunts, which have gained euphemisms such as “ranched hunts” to hide the reality that canned or captive hunting is still occurring in some South African provinces, particularly in the North West. Regardless of the terminology used, these hunts utilize captive-bred lions who are released for short period of time (a minimum of 96 hours in the North West) in a small, fenced area for an easy and guaranteed kill.

The North West province’s hunting appeal is due to its lack of legislation, which permits hunting outfitters and their clients to kill captive-bred lions and also permits the hunting of exotic predators. No formal permits are required to bag a tiger or other exotic species in the province. A landowner’s written permission is considered sufficient, as Blood Lions researchers confirmed in a 2022 paper.

The Scale of Hunting in South Africa

To gain a clearer idea of the sheer scale of indigenous species hunted by international clients, data from 2016 to 2023 demonstrates that 260,210 animals were shot across this eight-year period. The disturbing variety of species includes the smallest cat species, the black footed cat (at five animals) to 562 servals and a staggering 2,968 lions. And that’s with a dramatic decline in 2020 and 2021 during the global pandemic.

Post-COVID-19 hunting figures suggest South Africa has not returned to its hunting glory days. But this does beg the question: Why has the government set lofty hunting targets in the National Biodiversity Economic Strategy? The Endangered Wildlife Trust released a statement questioning whether or not the strategy has determined if a market exists for the extent of the hunting quotas proposed.

Plans to Ramp Up Trophy Hunting

In excess of 1 billion rand (about $53 million) was generated from trophy hunting in 2023, primarily of indigenous species. At first glance this may appear to be significant revenue for South Africa, but game ranching and trophy hunting primarily occurs on private land and benefits a small number of wealthy landowners who are very often surrounded by communities living in poverty.

South Africa’s wildlife legislation is geared for economic development at the cost of considering more progressive ways of approaching the conservation of biodiversity and addressing the core issues affecting poaching and biodiversity loss. While the National Biodiversity Economy Strategy, gazetted for public comment in March 2024, is to be lauded for its intentions to protect biodiversity and improve economic benefits for those living in poverty, a closer examination raises concerns that it risks exploiting the natural environment to the benefit of only a privileged few.

The strategy further touts the idea that “consumptive use of game from extensive wildlife systems at scale that drive transformation and expanded sustainable conservation compatible land-use” will “increase the GDP contribution (through) consumptive use of game from extensive wildlife systems from R4.6-billion (2020) to R27.6-billion by 2036.” That’s nearly $1.5 billion.

How this will occur remains unclear, as this would only be achievable if such economic growth brings more than 16,500 hunters to South Africa to shoot almost 100,000 animals each year by 2036. To put this goal in perspective, hunters would need to kill more than 10,000 lions, 1,300 elephants, 3,000 white rhino and 30,000 buffalo from 2022 to 2036 to achieve these targets. This would require industrial-scale production of wildlife that is neither ecologically sustainable nor in line with emerging recognition of animal wellbeing.

Fierce Opposition to Animal Wellbeing

The captive predator industry is fighting tooth and nail to ensure their exploits continue, despite Dr. Dion George’s stated intentions to close the industry and all its associated activities with lions. The further inclusion of an “animal wellbeing” clause in the amended National Environmental Management Laws Amendment Act has created enormous backlash from the SA Hunters and Game Conservation Association, who have now taken DFFE to court to have this removed.

Wellbeing is defined in the legislation as “the holistic circumstances and conditions of an animal, which are conducive to its physical, physiological and mental health and quality of life, including the ability to cope with its environment.” Considering an animal’s wellbeing has many hunters bristling at the very notion.

As trophy hunting faces increasing international opprobrium, ethical tourism increases in importance and both numbers of animals hunted and international visitors decline, the continued focus of South Africa in supporting trophy hunting remains highly questionable.

Previously in The Revelator:

Trophy Hunting Propaganda Is One More Form of Greenwashing

Save This Species: The Bettas of Bangka Island

You might not think to look for fish in a forest, but look fast: These amazing fish depend on a disappearing swamp forest on an island in Indonesia.

Species name:

Red wine betta (Betta burdigala)

IUCN Red List status:

Critically endangered

Description:

These gorgeous fish, less than an inch in length, are known for their deep red color, reminiscent of Bordeaux wine.

Broodstock of Betta burdigala for captive breeding programme at Universitas Bangka-Belitung. Photo: Josie South

Some betta fish are paternal mouth-brooders, while others, like Betta burdigala, are bubble nest builders — they construct nests out of air bubbles and saliva to protect their eggs and young.

Another fun fact: They’re from the suborder Anabantoidei, which mean they have a special labyrinth organ that lets them breath atmospheric oxygen. This helps them survive in the poorly oxygenated water of flooded forests. (Yes, forests.)

Where they’re found:

Betta burdigala is found in only one watershed on the small island of Bangka, Indonesia. The fish are acidic, blackwater swamp specialists and can only thrive in the flooded peat swamp forest on Bangka.

The flooded peat forest of Bangka Island. Photo: Josie South

Why they’re at risk:

These fish face rapid habitat destruction of the peat swamps for palm oil plantations and urbanization, a problem compounded by rampant plastic pollution. This encroachment destroys their small habitat, fragments the population, and reduces genetic diversity.

Pollution and habitat destruction at the holotype locality of Betta burdigala on Bangka Island. Photo: Josie South

Who’s trying to save them:

Last year we launched our collaborative Betta burdigala project, an international effort to save the species — and many others in the region. The project is led by Universitas Airlangga, Universitas Bangka-Belitung, University of Leeds, and National University of Singapore and supported by SHOAL and Asian Species Action Partnership. Local communities (including the Seluang Community) are working with institutions to protect these special fish and their habitat through captive breeding and identification of possible sanctuary sites.

Josie South with broodstock of Betta burdigala for captive-breeding program at Universitas Bangka-Belitung. Courtesy Josie South

How I’m helping this species:

When you ask people where to find fish, they will almost never say “in the forest.”

But the forest is where I find myself: Brushing aside the thick layers of leaves to drag a basket net through the shallow swampy water and finding tiny, deep red fish — the remaining population of Betta burdigala — literally beneath my feet.

The site where this species was first caught and described — a previously undisturbed primary peat swamp forest — is now directly roadside and filled with plastic pollution and debris. Reconfiguring my mind to put the pre- and post-pollution states side by side was bizarre and frustrating.

I’ve never experienced wonder quite like paddling through a pristine peat swamp forest of Bangka Island — and then realizing that this could be the solution to protecting this overlooked gem of a species.

Paddling through the peat swamp forest to the proposed fish sanctuary location. Photo: Josie South

We need to preserve this site. Our captive-breeding and reintroduction program is nothing without a dedicated protected area which can buffer the fragile population from any threats. This is the real challenge.

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

The persistence of Betta burdigala and the other many endangered fish species in Bangka relies on the preservation of their fragile peat swamp habitats. We need to fully understand and map their distributions across the island to identify population strongholds in the fragmented forest. Genetic analysis needs to be completed to make sure that populations have enough diversity to be resilient to change. Trade protection through CITES needs to be considered, as the species are caught for the ornamental trade in an unregulated and unmonitored manner. Finally, a protected area needs to be designated and agreed upon by all communities to create a sanctuary for fish and other peat swamp species to thrive.

What you can do to help:

You can help support the team by engaging with our work through SHOAL and ASAP. Bangka Island is beautiful but rarely visited by tourists. Ecotourism may help support the communities conserving these habitats — they’d make great snorkeling sites.

Meanwhile, watch this short film highlighting the plight of these gorgeous fish and the team trying to save them:

Do you have a story about species advocacy or conservation to share? Here’s how to write your own “Save This Species” entry.

Previously in The Revelator:

Save This Species: Sumatran Orangutans

Trump Removes Protections From Marine Protected Areas — A Problem for Fish, Whales, Corals and Other Ocean Life

Marine protected areas are designed to safeguard parts of the ocean from human impacts, including offshore oil and gas extraction and industrial fishing practices.

The single greatest threat to the diversity of life in our oceans over the past 50 years, more than climate change or plastic pollution, has been unsustainable fishing practices.

In much of the ocean, there is little to no regulation or oversight of commercial fishing or other human activities. That’s part of the reason about a tenth of marine plant and animal species are considered threatened or at risk.

It’s also why countries around the world have been creating marine protected areas.

These protected areas, covering over 11.6 million square miles (30 million square kilometers) in 16,000 locations, offer refuge away from human activities for a wide variety of living creatures, from corals to sea turtles and whales. They give fish stocks a place to thrive, and those fish spread out into the surrounding waters, which helps fishing industries and local economies.

In the U.S., however, marine protection is being dismantled by President Donald Trump.

Trump issued a proclamation on April 17, 2025, titled “Unleashing American commercial fishing in the Pacific,” ordering the removal of key protections to allow commercial fishing in parts of a nearly-500,000-square-mile marine protected area called the Pacific Island Heritage National Marine Monument.

He also called for a review of all other marine national monuments to decide if they should be opened to commercial fishing too. In addition, the Trump administration is proposing to redefine “harm” under the Endangered Species Act in a way that would allow for more damage to these species’ habitats.

I’m a marine biologist and scuba diver, and it’s no accident that all my favorite dive sites are within marine protected areas. I’ve found what scientific studies from across the world show: Protected areas have much healthier marine life populations and healthier ecosystems.

What’s at Risk in the Pacific

The Pacific Island Heritage National Marine Monument, about 750 miles west of Hawaii, is dotted by coral reefs and atolls, with species of fish, marine mammals and birds rarely found anywhere else.

It is home to protected and endangered species, including turtles, whales and Hawaiian monk seals. Palmyra Atoll and Kingman Reef, both within the area, are considered among the most pristine coral reefs in the world, each providing habitats for a wide range of fish and other species.

These marine species are able to thrive there and spread out into the surrounding waters because their habitats have been protected.

President George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, created this protected area in 2009, restricting fishing there, and President Barack Obama later expanded it. Trump, whose administration has made no secret of its aim to strip away environmental protections across the country’s land and waters, is now reopening much of the marine protected area to industrial-scale fishing.

The Risks From Industrial Fishing

When too many fish are killed and too few young fish are left to replace them, it’s considered overfishing, and this has become a growing problem around the world.

In 1974, about 10% of the world’s fish stocks were overfished. By 2021, that number had risen to 37.7%, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s annual State of Fisheries and Aquaculture Report.

Modern industrial-scale fishing practices can also harm other species.

Bycatch, or catching animals that fishermen don’t want but are inadvertently caught up in nets and other gear, is a threat to many endangered species. Many seabirds, sea turtles and whales die this way each year. Some types of fishing gear, such as trawls and dredges that drag along the sea floor to scoop up sea life, can destroy ocean habitat itself.

Without regulations or protected areas, fishing can turn into a competitive free-for-all that can deplete fish stocks.

How Marine Protected Areas Protect Species

Marine protected areas are designed to safeguard parts of the ocean from human impacts, including offshore oil and gas extraction and industrial fishing practices.

Studies have found that these areas can produce many benefits for both marine life and fishermen by allowing overfished species to recover and ensuring their health for the future.

A decade after Mexico established the Cabo Pulmo protected area, for example, fish biomass increased by nearly 500%.

Successful marine protected areas tend to have healthier habitats, more fish, more species of fish, and bigger fish than otherwise-similar unprotected areas. Studies have found the average size of organisms to be 28% bigger in these areas than in fished areas with no protections. How many babies a fish has is directly related to the size of the mother.

All of this helps create jobs through ecotourism and support local fishing communities outside the marine protected area.

Marine protected areas also have a “spillover effect” – the offspring of healthy fish populations that spawn inside these areas often spread beyond them, helping fish populations outside the boundaries thrive as well.

Ultimately, the fishing industry benefits from a continuing supply. And all of this happens at little cost.

A Need for More Protected Areas, not Fewer

Claims by the Trump administration that marine protected areas are a heavy-handed restriction on the U.S. fishing industry do not hold water. As science and my own experience show, these refuges for sea life can instead help local economies and the industry by allowing fish populations to thrive.

For the future of the planet’s whales, sea turtles, coral reefs and the health of fishing itself, scientists like me recommend creating more marine protected areas to help species thrive, not dismantling them.The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Sí, tus amigos y vecinos quieren hablar contigo sobre el cambio climático

Quieren hacerlo, pero simplemente creen que tú no quieres hablar del tema. Hablamos sobre ello con Margaret Orr, autora principal de un estudio que invita a romper el "silencio climático" e iniciar conversaciones en torno al cambio climático.

Editor’s note: This story was originally published in English and has been translated into Spanish by Climática.

En estos tiempos de tanta división, parece que todo el mundo está listo para iniciar una discusión a la mínima provocación, especialmente sobre temas que se han vuelto tan políticamente polarizantes como el cambio climático.

¿Pero es esto cierto? ¿Realmente están condenadas desde el inicio las conversaciones sobre el cambio climático? Resulta que no, pero simplemente creemos que sí, y por eso evitamos tener estas conversaciones desde el principio.

La realidad es la siguiente: según múltiples encuestas y estudios científicos, entre el 80 y el 89% de las personas quieren que los gobiernos del mundo tomen medidas más contundentes contra el cambio climático. Al mismo tiempo, quienes desean esas acciones no se dan cuenta de que están en la mayoría, porque no se habla lo suficiente del tema, especialmente en los medios de comunicación.

Un nuevo estudio, publicado el 17 de abril en PLOS Climate, descubrió que esta falta de cobertura mediática contribuye a un bucle de retroalimentación negativo que perpetúa lo que han llamado «silencio climático«.

Y no se trata solo de los medios: el estudio encontró que las “normas sociales percibidas” –específicamente, la percepción errónea de que otros miembros de la sociedad rechazan la ciencia climática– son el principal factor que influye en si hablamos o no del cambio climático.

Las conclusiones son claras: la gente no escucha a otras personas hablando del cambio climático, por lo que tampoco habla del tema. Y esa incapacidad o falta de voluntad para hablar de un problema tan abrumador ralentiza o detiene el progreso climático tanto a nivel individual como social.

Pero podemos romper este ciclo. El estudio sugiere varias maneras de romper ese silencio climático: explicar por qué te preocupa el cambio climático o cómo te afecta a ti o a algo que valoras; comunicar que la mayoría de las personas están preocupadas por el cambio climático; compartir artículos de noticias; e incluso incluir mensajes sobre el clima en el entretenimiento público.

La meteoróloga Margaret Orr, de la Universidad George Mason, es la autora principal de dicho estudio. La entrevistamos para hablar sobre el “silencio climático”, sus implicaciones reales, el papel de los medios y lo que todos podemos hacer al respecto. Este es el resultado de las conversaciones por teléfono y correo electrónico.

¿Por qué realizaron este estudio? ¿Había observado ese silencio en la práctica o intentos de romperlo? ¿Quería cuantificarlo? (Veo también que ha investigado la desinformación; ¿está relacionado?)

Este estudio surgió como un proyecto para una clase de Comunicación Interpersonal en la Universidad George Mason. Sabíamos, por investigaciones anteriores, comentarios de científicos y activistas climáticos, y nuestras propias experiencias, que muy pocas personas hablan del cambio climático a pesar de que se considera una de las acciones climáticas más importantes. Debido a nuestro interés en usar la investigación para impulsar acciones concretas contra el cambio climático, queríamos investigar formas de fomentar conversaciones climáticas entre el público.

En resumen, queríamos identificar barreras a la conversación climática para poder empezar a derribarlas. Esta investigación no fue impulsada directamente por mi interés en la desinformación, pero está relacionada tangencialmente, ya que algunas de estas conversaciones pueden ser clave para generar confianza y desacreditar la desinformación.

¿Cuáles son los costos de ese silencio? ¿la falta de acción política o social? ¿Permitir la propagación de la desinformación? ¿O también hay un impacto a nivel individual, al debilitar la creencia de que podemos marcar la diferencia?

¡Todo lo anterior! En el estudio hablamos sobre la teoría de la espiral del silencio, que es un ciclo autoreforzado. Si nadie habla del cambio climático, la gente se vuelve menos propensa a hablar del tema porque se percibe como tabú. Cuanto menos se habla del cambio climático, menos se considera un problema, lo que lleva a menos acción, porque la gente no se preocupa o no sabe qué hacer.

¿Le ha cambiado en algo la forma en que habla del cambio climático haber hecho este estudio?

Me ha hecho más consciente de lo importante que es hablar del cambio climático, especialmente siendo alguien con un título en ciencias atmosféricas y con ciertos conocimientos en ciencia climática. Como dijo mi heroína Rachel Carson: “Sabiendo lo que sé, no tendría paz si guardara silencio”.

El estudio también me ha ayudado a enfocarme en hablar sobre los temas que descubrimos que están correlacionados con más conversaciones climáticas. Resalto el consenso científico, el hecho de que la mayoría de los estadounidenses apoyan acciones climáticas y cómo el estilo de vida de las personas puede estar en riesgo debido al cambio climático.

¿Qué responsabilidad cree que tienen nuestros líderes comunitarios de hablar sobre esto? Un estudio reciente encontró que el 90% de los líderes religiosos cristianos creen que los humanos están causando el cambio climático, pero no lo mencionan en el púlpito.

Creo que puede ser difícil cuando se espera rechazo, y eso es parte del origen de nuestro estudio (que la gente espera rechazo al hablar del cambio climático).

Si hay interés, en lugar de decir “me voy a poner aquí y hablarle a la congregación sobre esto”, puede tratarse más de plantar semillas y dejar que crezcan desde la base, cosas así.

Otros líderes comunitarios pueden hacer algo similar. Plantar esas semillas en la comunidad y luego llevarlo al alcalde del pueblo, por ejemplo. En lugar de llegar con un martillo diciendo “cambio climático”, dejar que surja desde abajo.

Mencionaba que la gente teme recibir rechazo si saca el tema del cambio climático, y que ya anticipamos discordia política y distancia en nuestras conversaciones. ¿Podríamos empezar con algo como “oye, ahorré energía haciendo esto”, algo simple que rompa la barrera?

Sí, algo simple y personal. Conectarlo con un valor compartido y personal es muy eficaz.

El panorama de las redes sociales ha cambiado mucho en los últimos años, especialmente en cuanto a enlaces de noticias, que muchas plataformas suprimen. ¿Sigue viendo las redes como una forma efectiva de romper ese silencio?

Las redes sociales pueden ser útiles para conversaciones interpersonales, pero esas conversaciones pueden ser agotadoras y sentir que no llevan a nada.

Aquí mi respuesta viene más desde mi investigación sobre desinformación que desde este estudio en sí. Cuando uses redes sociales, piensa en los “observadores silenciosos”. Oímos a personas con opiniones muy marcadas en uno u otro extremo, pero no a quienes tienen opiniones más moderadas o están indecisos. Ellos podrían estar leyendo los comentarios, y tu esfuerzo por difundir la verdad sobre el cambio climático puede llegarles sin que lo sepas. Hoy en día, las redes pueden ser más efectivas como plataforma para compartir historias y experiencias personales que para compartir enlaces de noticias.

Menciona el entretenimiento como herramienta de comunicación eficaz. ¿Ha visto ejemplos efectivos recientemente?

Lo primero que me viene a la mente es el programa Top Chef. No puedo citar una temporada o episodio específico, porque suelo poner temporadas antiguas de fondo mientras trabajo y a veces se me mezclan, pero ha habido ocasiones en las que los chefs mencionaron cómo el cambio climático afecta la disponibilidad de ingredientes característicos de una región, como el mariscos, por ejemplo. Pequeñas pinceladas de cambio climático como esas me impresionan, porque conectan con cosas que le importan a la audiencia.

Parece que muchos textos que no son específicamente ambientales mencionan el clima o el medio ambiente, y eso parece una buena forma de iniciar conversaciones.

Es como pillar a la gente desprevenida, no estaban pensando en el cambio climático, pero ahora sí. Creo que es una oportunidad única para abrir ese diálogo a través de algo que a la gente le importa.

Una de las cosas que me encanta hacer —y creo que se lo escuché por primera vez a Katharine Hayhoe— es conectar con la gente en lo que valora. Si a alguien le interesa la cocina, eso es algo que valora, así que podemos conectar por ahí en lugar de empezar directamente con el cambio climático. Empiezas por ese terreno común.

Desde el otro lado, ¿hay alguna forma de hacer esto más activo? ¿Podemos involucrar más directamente a la gente? Algo como: “¿Has notado que estas plantas ya están floreciendo en esta época?”, ¿podemos empujar un poco más estas conversaciones?

Desde luego. Lo he visto en conversaciones que he mantenido: ya sabes, los azafranes salen en febrero, cosas así, esas experiencias compartidas y experiencias personales.

¿Cómo espera que la gente reaccione a este estudio o actúe a partir de lo que habéis presentado?

Esperamos que las personas que están en posiciones de comunicación —ya sean periodistas, meteorólogos de televisión o líderes comunitarios— puedan tomar los temas que identificamos, iniciar una conversación y pensar en cómo pueden comunicar usando esos temas.

¿Qué otros consejos daría a los medios de comunicación en el contexto de The 89 Percent Project?

Diría que es importante que los periodistas se conecten con historias y comunidades locales. “Muchos estadounidenses quieren acción climática” está bien; “Muchos habitantes de tu estado/ciudad/comunidad quieren acción climática” es aún mejor.

También ayuda enfocarse en la acción. Resalta ejemplos de acciones que ya funcionan y son fáciles de adoptar. Se me ocurren cosas como iniciativas locales de compostaje, maneras sencillas de ahorrar energía, o programas locales de incentivos para paneles solares. En nuestro estudio también encontramos que una mayor cobertura del cambio climático aumenta las conversaciones, así que simplemente publicando historias climáticas, el proyecto ayudará a romper silencios.

También descubrimos que las normas –o las percepciones de lo que piensan o hacen los demás– son clave para fomentar conversaciones. Así que destacar a estas mayorías también será de gran ayuda.

 

 

This Is What Community-Powered Restoration Looks Like

Volunteers turned out in force to welcome beavers back to degraded mountain meadows.

Late last February I joined a group of volunteers to deliver a family of beavers to a creek in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in southern Oregon. Snow blanketed the ground, glittering in the winter sun as we strapped on snowshoes.

Jakob Shockey, founder of the nonprofit Project Beaver, called out, “Who wants to carry a beaver?” Five of them — mom, dad, and three offspring — rested beside him, each safely ensconced in a canvas bag for their protection.

Volunteers helped each other strap the bags onto frame packs. The adult beavers weighed nearly 60 pounds, and the unwieldy packages bulged awkwardly, but the animals didn’t stir once strapped in place.

Volunteers transport the beavers on a sled and in sacks. Photo: Juliet Grable

Once abundant, beavers were mostly trapped out of the Cascade-Siskiyou region over a century ago. As they disappeared, so did the verdant mountain meadows they helped maintain.

Project Beaver has been working with Bureau of Land Management biologists, nonprofits, private landowners, and dozens of volunteers to bring beavers back to this landscape. But first they needed to make conditions more hospitable.

“There are so many hands and hearts that have gone into cutting branches, dragging them down to the creek, planting willows in spring and fall,” says Jeanine Moy, director of the Vesper Meadow Education Program, which operates on private land nearby.

It had taken six years to set the table for the beaver family. Now, we all hoped, these expert engineers would go to work transforming fields into the wet meadows they once were.

We set off for the creek in a ragged train, snowshoes crunching against the snow.

Mountain Meadows in Decline

Here’s how to degrade a wet meadow:

First, trap out all the beavers. Then displace the people with intimate knowledge of the ecosystem. Log the upland forests. Build canals to divert water. Bring in the cows, armed with weed seeds on their hides and in their poop. Apply broadly.

Over decades the creek that flows through Vesper Meadow had “more or less turned into a ditch,” says Chris Volpe, a BLM fish biologist. Instead of seeping into the surrounding land, water shunts through a narrow “V,” cutting the banks ever steeper and making the water flow ever faster.

Reversing this vicious cycle isn’t easy. Beavers, famed ecosystem engineers, could help simply by going about their natural business. But in many cases, streams need rehabilitation before they can flourish.

An idealistic couple purchased the Vesper Meadow acreage specifically to create a holistic stewardship project and restore the wet meadows. They hired Moy to lead it.

Vesper Meadow is a place and a project, but it’s also an idea.

“When Vesper Meadow started, there was this vision for people to come together and have this positive relationship with the land,” says Moy. People can engage in whatever way they feel called, whether monitoring plants and butterflies, attending a workshop, or creating art.

In 2018 volunteers started planting hundreds of willow stakes — a favored food and construction material of beavers — each spring and fall. Moy spent two years navigating a complex permitting process before they could do any work in the stream itself.

Around the same time, Volpe and the monument ecologist began surveying the monument for places to plant beavers. In 2022 Shockey’s crew began building “beaver dam analogs” at Vesper Meadow and strategic locations in the monument. These structures — BDAs, in restoration parlance — emulate the dams and lodges that beavers build. They act like speed bumps, slowing and spreading water behind them.

Water flows around a beaver structure. Photo: Juliet Grable

With help Project Beaver has built over 100 BDAs in Vesper Meadow and adjacent public land. I spotted several at the release site: lines of angled posts pounded into the creek bed with slender branches woven between them. The BDAs created little waterfalls, with quiescent pools behind them.

BDAs are a means to an end, says Shockey. “If we can get willows going and [create] some [pockets of] deep water, then that’s something that we can move beavers into.”

From Nuisance to Neighbor

Beavers are often called keystone species because their presence in an ecosystem unlocks so many benefits. Their dams kick off a virtuous cycle, slowing and storing water. Wetland plants take root, which feed beavers and shelter songbirds and attract insects. Biodiversity spikes when beavers are around.

But for all the good they do, beavers sometimes damage trees that people want to keep standing, and their constructions can block waterways and flood properties.

The family we released was rescued from an irrigation ditch west of the monument. Left alone, these “nuisance beavers” faced an uncertain fate — perhaps even death.

After release, one of the beavers stands in the snow before striking out into its new home. Photo: Juliet Grable

Luckily the river-loving rodents are undergoing a brand refresh in Oregon, where they’d previously been lumped into the same category as predators. Last year the Oregon legislature passed a bill that reclassified beavers that dwell on private land as “furbearers.” Now landowners must consider nonlethal methods of control, and they must obtain a permit and report any beaver they “take” to the state’s wildlife agency.

This year the state is considering two new bills. One would ban trapping on public land where waterways are deemed “impaired” by the state. The second would create a grant program landowners could use to pay for nonlethal controls.

Beaver damage can be mitigated — trees can be wrapped with wire mesh; devices can be installed in beaver dams that allow some water to flow downstream — but those strategies cost money.

“If there were these grant funds to help people coexist with beavers, we could be solving the problems,” explains Shockey. “Beavers wouldn’t have to be uprooted from where they actually have chosen to live and moved as refugees up into the mountains.”

These bills have bipartisan support, says Representative Pam Marsh, who has championed every beaver bill.

“Beavers are cute and interesting, but they are [also] really effective operators on the landscape,” she says. “Especially at a time of drought, we should really be cultivating beavers to do the work they are meant for.”

As climate change accelerates, the more beavers we can deploy, the better off we’ll all be.

How Beavers Could Help a Beleaguered Butterfly

Last summer I joined another small crew on a butterfly survey not far from Vesper Meadow. We were hunting for the Klamath Mardon skipper, an imperiled butterfly that lives in these mountain meadows and nowhere else. This little insect is about the size of my fingernail, with a stout, hairy body and mottled, tawny wings.

We fanned out across a field, walking slowly in parallel, and the world compressed into the swaying stems of grasses going to gold in the July heat. Our movements stirred up little bits of color: I saw checkerspots, blues, and other skippers, but no Mardons.

SKIPPER, MARDEN (Polites mardon) (06-27-2025) hi mountain road, smith river national recreation area, del norte co, ca -03

The Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument was designated for its outstanding biodiversity. Nearly 120 species of butterflies have been documented in its meadows, forests, and savannahs. But a long legacy of grazing, coupled with climate change, is making it harder for some butterflies to thrive here.

Klamath Mardon skippers are especially sensitive. They’re only found in wet meadows, where they lay their eggs on native grasses. Caterpillars feed on the tender tips of stems, which puts them in the crosshairs of cows’ maws. Cows also trample eggs and spread invasive weeds that thrive in warmer, drier conditions.

Season all of this with climate change and you have a recipe for extinction. The trend throughout the monument is more rain, less snow; higher high temperatures; longer droughts; scarier wildfires.

Vesper Meadow is working with monument biologists to exclude cows from Mardon skipper meadows, and beavers are a key part of the triage effort.

The gushy, wet meadows beavers maintain are “natural sponges,” saturating in times of plenty, acting as natural reservoirs during drought.

“Beavers can’t make more water, but they can help to store it on the landscape,” says Volpe.

A Climate of Uncertainty

Down by the creek, we unveiled the beavers. Youngsters are tolerant of humans, Shockey assured us, so we took a few minutes to admire them: their soft brown fur, massive, fan-shaped hind feet and long, fingernail-like claws — ideal for grasping and grooming. One by one, they waddle-plopped into the water, suddenly looking much smaller.

We watched them explore their new digs while Shockey piled apples, sweet potatoes, and carrots near the bank. Soon enough the beavers would be on their own.

Life in a high mountain stream is not easy. Any of these fat rodents would make a nice lunch for a cougar. These beavers could also simply choose to leave.

A volunteer holds one of the young beavers prior to release. Photo: Juliet Grable

Moy says it would be “wondrous” if the beavers stick around; in any case, there’s still more work for humans to do.

That work may progress more slowly than anyone would like. The federal grant funding Moy planned to use to build more beaver structures and host workshops at Vesper Meadow has evaporated. And the Trump administration has frozen the $220,000 grant Project Beaver was using to install beaver structures throughout the monument.

“We’re going to have to get scrappy and keep working with the community,” says Moy. “We’re realizing more than ever how important it is to build local networks and mutual aid.”

I’m betting they’ll find a way to ride out the tectonic chaos of the Trump administration. Over a dozen people chose to drive up from the valley on a Tuesday morning to strap on snowshoes and witness beavers sliding into a creek. Last summer nearly 100 people showed up to take part in a beaver scavenger hunt in the monument.

I’m convinced people will keep showing up for beavers, but also for each other and for themselves. Doing tangibly good work, I’ve found, is the antidote to despair. In this way, restoration can be revolutionary.

Previously in The Revelator:

Urban ‘Microrewilding’ Projects Provide a Lifeline for Nature

Feeling Anxiety About Climate Change and Other Environmental Threats? These Five New Books Can Help

Advice to help recharge your momentum and resilience makes these books must-reads for anyone who feels helpless or hopeless about climate chaos.

Does climate change have you feeling unsettled or anxious? You’re not alone — a recent survey found that 63% of adults in the United States reported feeling worried or “very worried” about climate change.

That result doesn’t surprise us: The number of climate-related disasters each year keeps growing, the projections of future risk keep getting worse, and our current government keeps doing everything in its power to prop up fossil fuels and dismantle climate protections.

But while this eco-anxiety can, at its worst, make us feel overwhelmed or unable to make a difference, another study found that people experiencing climate distress are more likely to participate in collective climate action to help turn things around.

That’s a common message in five important new books about climate anxiety: The best way to fight it is to do something about it.

The official descriptions for these books appear below. The link for each title goes to the publishers’ sites, but you should also be able to find these books from your local booksellers or libraries.

Lessons From the Climate Anxiety Counseling Booth: How to Live With Care and Purpose in an Endangered World
by Kate Schapira

Climate anxiety is real. This practical, accessible guide addresses it on personal, relational, and structural levels: Summer after summer is hotter than the last, homes are flooding, burning, blowing away. We live with the loss, pain, and grief of what’s happened, and anxiety for what might happen next, as the systems we live are increasingly strained.

Seeking a way to reach out and connect, Schapira set up a “Peanuts”-style “The Doctor Is In” booth at to talk about climate change with people in her community. Ten years and over 1,200 conversations later, Schapira channels all she’s learned into an accessible, understandable guide for processing climate anxiety and connecting with others to carry out real change in your life and your community.

Eco-Anxiety: Saving Our Sanity, Our Kids, and Our Future
by Heather White
Foreword by Erin Brockovich

The climate crisis and its resulting eco-anxiety is the biggest challenge of our time. The anxiety that comes with worrying about how environmental harm will impact each of us, and our children’s lives can be overwhelming. This book will guide you to understand the impacts of the climate crisis on mental health. There’s a 21-Day Kickstarter Plan on specific sustainable actions you can take and track your progress to help you measure mental health benefits. Plus, engaging stories of eco-heroes and positive change. Learn techniques for listening to and discussing with loved ones their climate worries, and how environmental and conservation organizations that align with your Service Superpower and interests might inspire your family, friends, and community to work toward a regenerative, sustainable world

Climate Anxiety and the Kid Question: Deciding Whether to Have Children in an Uncertain Future
by Jade Sasser

Eco-anxiety. Climate guilt. Pre-traumatic stress disorder. Solastalgia. The study of environmental emotions and related mental health impacts is a rapidly growing field, but most researchers overlook a closely related concern: reproductive anxiety. Climate Anxiety and the Kid Question is the first comprehensive study of how environmental emotions influence whether, when, and why people today decide to become parents — or not.

Sasser argues that we can and should continue to create the families we desire, but that doing so equitably will require deep commitments to social, reproductive, and climate justice, presenting original research, in-depth interviews and national survey results that analyze the role of race in environmental emotions and the reproductive plans young people are making as a result. Climate emotions and climate justice are inseparable, and culturally appropriate mental and emotional health services are a necessary component to ensure climate justice for vulnerable communities.

Presence Activism: A Profound Antidote to Climate Anxiety
by Lynne Sedgmore

Sedgmore integrates presence, climate activism, and the alleviation of climate anxiety in an innovative and unique synthesis and new term: Presence Activism. By offering a profound solution with new perspectives, this book is steeped in a presence that moves activism beyond metaphors of war, enemies, and destruction, as well as the illusion of separation, into the visceral knowing of presence and interconnection, thereby making presence an important part of the way forward for current and future activism.

Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Anxiety
by Britt Wray
Foreword by Adam McKay

Faced with record-breaking temperatures, worsening wildfires, more severe storms, and other devastating effects of climate change, feelings of anxiety and despair are normal. In Generation Dread, Britt Wray reminds us that our distress is, at its heart, a sign of our connection to and love for the world. The first step toward becoming a steward of the planet is connecting with our climate emotions — seeing them as a sign of our humanity and empathy and learning how to live with them. Wray, a scientist and expert on the psychological impacts of the climate crisis, brilliantly weaves together research, insight from climate-aware therapists, and personal experience, to illuminate how we can connect with others, find purpose, and thrive in a warming, climate-unsettled world.

Let us know what you think. Send your ideas, success stories, and other book recommendations to [email protected].

For hundreds of additional environmental books — including several on staying calm in challenging times — visit the Revelator Reads archives.

Previously in The Revelator:

The Psychological Effects of Climate Change: The Scientific Explanations — and Solutions That Can Empower Your Mind

Protect This Place: The Headwaters of Papua New Guinea’s Strickland River

One of the least explored regions on Earth is also part of the largest intact forest ecosystem in the Pacific.

The Place:

Stretching northward from Papua New Guinea’s Central Range is a globally significant wilderness area located along the riverine systems that mark the intersection of the Central Range and the Star Highlands. Here the Lagaip and OK Om Rivers combine to form the Headwaters of the Strickland, the major tributary of the Fly River. It’s home to biodiversity that rivals that of the Amazon, is one of the least explored regions on Earth, and is part of the largest intact forest ecosystem in the Pacific.

Why it matters:

The Headwaters of the Strickland is part of the limestone district that runs through the center of the island of New Guinea. This is the largest tract of karst topography in Papuasia.

In 1993 an international team conducted a national Conservation Needs Assessment for Papua New Guinea. They declared that this region is:

    • A “major terrestrial unknown.”
    • A national conservation priority.
    • Vital to the health of the Gulf of Papua.

The Headwaters remains virtually unexplored. In 2008-09 a Rapid Biological Assessment —conducted by Conservation International in conjunction with the Papua New Guinea Department of Environment and Conservation and the Papua New Guinea Institute of Biological Research — garnered international attention when it found 50 species new to science. Since this was the first systematic scientific exploration of this region, there are undoubtedly more discoveries to be made and even more positive publicity to be generated for Papua New Guinea.

The health of these forests is vital not only to the Indigenous Hewa people but also to the continued viability of New Guinea’s coastal ecosystems and reefs — unique marine ecosystems that rely on the pristine waters delivered from these uplands.

The threat:

The greatest threat is the often-discussed development of a road system that would connect the Headwaters to highlands. Currently the Headwaters is roadless and has no navigable rivers. However, because these forests are extensive and their mineral potential is great, there are persistent rumors of plans to build a road to connect this region to the highlands. Any easy connection to the highlands will likely lead to deforestation, mineral exploration, and a surge in migrants that will overwhelm local landowners and destroy these globally significant forests.

Who’s protecting it now:

The current stewards of the Headwaters of the Strickland River are among Papua New Guinea’s most remote societies: the Hewa. Since 2005 the Hewa have worked to formally protect their lands through the Forest Stewards Initiative. The Forest Stewards use traditional knowledge to develop conservation plans for their land.

Thomas with the Hewa. Photo courtesy of the author.

I have assisted the Hewa with the documentation of their traditional environmental knowledge and building an organization of local landowners capable of protecting their legacy of biodiversity stewardship for future generations. Together we have worked to demonstrate the effectiveness of tradition as a conservation tool and gazette their lands. We are now working through the political process to formally establish the conservation status of the Headwaters and find a sustainable funding mechanism to secure their future.

My place in this place:

I have spent most of my adult life exploring this ground on foot. Most of the time my head is down, watching my step and walking as fast as I can to keep my guide in sight through an endless series of switchbacks, tree roots, and river crossings. You spend hours wet and muddy trying to get to the next camp before sundown. It once took me 13 hours to cover 11 miles.

When I first arrived in 1988, nobody used money. I paid my informants in matches and salt. Every family had a bone knife. I had to carry in all my supplies and trade goods, so each field trip looked like the line of porters you used to see in Johnny Weissmuller’s Tarzan movies.

Headwaters Pori. Photo courtesy of the author.

During my fieldwork the Hewa have taught me to live in the bush and to identify the birds. They have unraveled the web of pollination and seed dispersal that connects these forests. Over the years these people have patiently explained to me the intricacies of their lives.

Most importantly the Hewa have taught me all the lessons essential to affecting social change — lessons that you can’t learn in school. Through them, and their desire to achieve a consensus, I have gained the patience to listen. I have learned that I need everybody to understand what we are trying to achieve through a protected area before we can move forward. I have learned the patience to sit through endless meetings. I now understand that in a society with no formal leadership positions, it’s important that everyone has the opportunity to voice an opinion, to air a grievance — to feel like they matter. I have learned that ideas and abilities can win the day — if you have the persistence to see things through.

This landscape has shaped my life. The children of the families that first took me in back in 1988 are now my partners in a globally significant conservation project. Not bad for a kid from a mill town in Ohio.

What this place needs:

The Headwaters of the Strickland River need formal recognition as a Conservation Area by the government of Papua New Guinea and a consistent source of funding for to give the landowners a sustainable source of income. These forests are undoubtedly globally important for carbon sequestration, biodiversity, and watershed protection. By establishing the Headwaters of the Strickland Conservation Area, PNG will not only bring international recognition to the Headwaters but also underscore their commitment to conserving their cultural and natural heritage.

Lessons from the fight:

We believe that there are several lessons to be learned here. First, traditional environmental knowledge is a viable tool for conservation. The key is understanding human activity as a source of disturbance that at proper scale can actually enhance biodiversity, but when unchecked is incompatible with a biodiverse landscape. Since traditional environmental knowledge is accumulated over generations, it is, in a sense, the product of a 1,000-year study by generations of Indigenous naturalists. It contains the responses of various organisms to change and disturbance. Our work is leading to increasingly sophisticated interpretations of how native peoples’ awareness of their environment is encoded, processed, and utilized. With biodiversity disappearing fast, there’s not enough time or funding to bring western scientists to the rescue. Traditional environmental knowledge can fill this gap.

Wanakipa. Photo courtesy of the author.

Secondly, the current conservation and funding mechanisms are woefully inadequate for conserving biodiversity in Papua New Guinea and, I suspect, the developing world in general. The political forces are aligned for development. Regardless of the will of the landowners, the political obstacles to conservation can be daunting. Landowners in remote regions like the Headwaters lack the funds, time, education, and stamina to lobby politicians. If they’re lucky enough to move the political process, they must find the funding to attend meetings; partners who can translate and produce documents in another language; and reliable partners within the levels of government necessary for a conservation project. If they’re lucky enough to survive running this gauntlet, they will then be asked to do it all again when they pursue funding. When and if they can find a source of funding, landowners will be asked to meet assessment and monitoring requirements that only make sense in the developed world.

Landscapes like the Headwaters are “unexplored” for a reason — they lack the roads and infrastructure that make travel easy. While they won’t admit it, the funding agency representatives that I’ve met with think I’m exaggerating the difficulties of working in the Headwaters. They’ve never seen a landscape so steep and wracked by earthquakes that no one has dared to attempt to put a road through it. They cannot image a hike where it takes 11 hours to travel 13 miles.

They haven’t seen unexplored New Guinea.

Learn more:

New Guinea Conservation

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

Scroll down to find our “Republish” button

Previously in The Revelator:

Species Spotlight: To Save the Narrow Sawfish, First We Must Find Them