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:
Marine protected areas are designed to safeguard parts of the ocean from human impacts, including offshore oil and gas extraction and industrial 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
As the Trump administration strips away environmental protections, collaboration is more than just a tool — it’s a form of resistance.
It’s difficult to work in the environmental realm in 2025. In his first term, President Donald Trump rolled back more than 100 environmental laws. Now, in his second, he’s slashing funding for climate programs, firing government scientists, and weakening agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
With climate change accelerating and protections vanishing, it’s easy to feel disheartened. You can have all the passion in the world to protect and preserve nature, yet those in power seem indifferent. And when they’re the ones calling the shots, it feels more and more like a losing battle to enter a field that’s disappearing before our eyes.
So what can one scientist, activist, or tree hugger do? Fighting back starts with speaking out — making the case for why our work matters.
But just as important as raising our voices is how we come together. Progress doesn’t happen in isolation; it’s fueled by collaboration.
In times of crisis, our greatest strength lies in collective action. Scientific collaboration is one of the most powerful tools we have, not just for achieving results but for maintaining a sense of purpose and momentum in the face of adversity. We can’t afford to lose what connects and empowers us.
I’ve witnessed that collaborative power firsthand through an initiative that embodies its spirit both in name and mission.
The Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit is a collaborative partnership dedicated to research, technical assistance, and education that enhances our understanding and management of natural and cultural resources. Established in 2000, it brings together 12 federal agencies, 19 academic institutions, four nonprofits, one nongovernmental organization, and one state agency.
It’s also a part of the larger National CESU Network: 17 regional units, each representing a biogeographic region of the United States.
Together, these units strengthen the scientific foundation for managing federal lands by providing resource managers with high-quality research, technical expertise, and educational support. Through these partnerships CESU projects drive innovative research that deepen our knowledge and improve stewardship of the natural and cultural landscapes we rely on.
As the science communication specialist for the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit — I know, it’s a long title — I interview our partners to help translate their work into public-facing “project highlights” that showcase their critical research aimed at protecting and preserving our natural world. Through my interviews and writing, I get a glimpse into their world — and it’s clear their contributions have profound implications for conservation.
One recurring theme stands out: Collaboration across bureaucratic boundaries leads to the most successful outcomes.
Take the East Cascades Native Plant Hub, for example. Established by the National Park Service and Oregon State University-Cascades, this initiative brings together federal agencies, tribal communities, academic institutions, and private landowners — including the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. Their shared mission? Addressing critical shortages in native plant materials to support fire mitigation, invasive species control, and habitat restoration across the western United States.
It couldn’t have succeeded without the combined expertise of these diverse groups. Each contributes something essential, proving that large-scale conservation efforts don’t happen overnight — they require long-term investment, cooperation, and shared knowledge. It’s a model for how we should be tackling all our environmental challenges.
That’s why I’m so passionate about the CESU network — it’s right there in the name: Cooperative Ecosystem Studies. Sharing knowledge and expertise is the foundation of scientific progress.
For example, a project highlight I’m currently writing looks at the collaboration between University of Oregon researchers and the Park Service to study the cultural landscape of Carlsbad Caverns. When the Service suggested bringing in a cave microbiologist, the university team initially hadn’t considered the role of microscopic life in preservation. But once involved, the microbiologist’s insights proved invaluable.
One key moment came when the team faced the removal of a deteriorating historic wooden staircase, which had become a habitat for microorganisms. Without precautions, disturbing the structure could have disrupted the cave’s delicate ecosystem. The microbiologist proposed enshrouding the staircase before removal to contain dust and prevent unintended harm. After the successful removal, the team proposed using projected images to illustrate its former presence, allowing visitors to appreciate its historical significance.
This collaboration — blending scientific expertise with cultural preservation — safeguarded both the cave’s ecological integrity and historical significance. The result: A holistic approach that balances conservation and preservation, ensuring the long-term protection of our national parks.
Too often, scientific research operates in isolation, with pressure to keep discoveries proprietary. But real progress doesn’t come from competition; it comes from collaboration. Protecting our planet requires us to work together, not apart. In today’s world, where environmental threats are mounting, we can’t afford to do otherwise.
The Willamette Valley Prairie Pollinator Studies exemplify this principle. A collaboration between the Institute of Applied Ecology and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, this project aims to restore pollinator communities in Oregon’s disappearing prairies.
It began with the Willamette daisy (Erigeron decumbens), a federally endangered plant struggling to survive. The Army Corps, which manages land supporting the daisy, sought to improve its habitat management and understand its key pollinators. Their research uncovered an astonishing diversity of insect life — more than 100 species visiting the daisy alone. While bees were the most effective pollinators, other insects such as flies, beetles, and butterflies also played crucial roles.
This project reinforced a powerful lesson: Ecosystems are intricate, interconnected systems. Just as plants rely on a diverse web of pollinators, conservation efforts depend on a network of researchers, agencies, and communities.
The natural world thrives on collaboration — our approach to science and environmental protection should do the same.
Since 2001 the PNW CESU has launched 1,280 projects, each one advancing conservation through collaboration. The CESU National Network defines its work as providing research, technical assistance, and education to federal land management, environmental, and research agencies and their partners.
But the impact of these projects extends far beyond their official scope — they restore ecosystems, protect culturally significant lands, and deepen our understanding of the world around us.
And in a time when science itself is under threat, making that impact visible is more important than ever.
Nature itself thrives on collaboration. Just as plants depend on a network of pollinators, we depend on each other to protect the natural world.
As environmental protections are being stripped away, collaboration is more than just a tool — it’s a form of resistance.
The work of conservation isn’t solitary. It’s a collective effort, and our influence grows exponentially when we work together. Let’s take our cues from the Willamette Valley pollinators: Connect, collaborate, and ensure that the ecosystems we rely on don’t just survive but flourish.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, the University of Washington, or any federal agencies.
The Bali myna once faced extinction from the illegal wildlife trade. An unusual approach may have helped save them.
Birdsong floats between the pavilions and shrines within the high walls of a traditional family compound in Bali. I’m here to meet the leader of a local conservation program, along with the birds his group has been breeding for the past six years.
As I walk through the compound, I pass caged birds hanging from rafters. Birds make common pets in Bongkasa Pertiwi, a village in the middle of the Indonesian island. I’ve been in Bali just over a week, and I’ve already seen countless cages hanging next to drying laundry in these compounds.
Across Indonesia the tradition of keeping songbirds goes back for centuries. Today one-third of households on Java, the most populous island in the archipelago, keep birds such as white-rumped shamas and magpie-robins. They’re status symbols and often treated as beloved members of the family, frequently entered as contestants in popular singing competitions. The whole practice is a point of cultural pride.
But the trade — worth billions of U.S. dollars — has ballooned unsustainably high. Many of the birds are caught from the wild, driving down tropical forest populations and fueling what researchers dub the Asian Songbird Crisis, with dozens of creatures facing increased risk of extinction.
That’s what makes the chirps I’m hearing in Bongkasa Pertiwi special. They come from more than 50 Bali myna (Leucopsar rothschildi), the official mascot of Bali and a critically endangered species.
I walk to the nearest cage and peer in. Two snow-white birds tilt their heads back at me.
Photo: Paige Cromley
They make a regal pair. Streaks of bare blue skin sharply define each eye. Most of their feathers are stark white: white chest, white wings, white plumes flaring proudly down their necks. The only other color is a splash of black on the tips of their tails and wings, like brushes dipped in ink.
The Bali myna, also known as the Bali starling or the jalak Bali (ᬚᬮᬓ᭄ᬩᬮᬶ), is a beautiful bird — so beautiful, in fact, that covetous humans nearly drove them to extinction. In the 1970s collector demand for the birds surged. For decades poachers could make more than a year’s local salary for nabbing a pair and selling them on the black market. The population plummeted.
Twenty years ago experts estimated that fewer than 10 Bali mynas remained in the wild. The bird was well on track to share the mournful fate of the Bali tiger, a subspecies of big cat that once prowled the island and inspired its folklore before being hunted to extinction in the 1950s.
But then, against all odds, the storyline appears to have shifted. Although nothing is certain, today scientists on Bali talk about the myna with cautious hope.
A Community Effort
One of the Bali myna’s strongholds is West Bali National Park, part of their historic range, where hundreds of the birds now fly.
“Research suggests the population is viable and will continue to increase,” says Tom Squires, an ecologist who spent years studying the bird for his doctoral thesis at Manchester Metropolitan University. Squires was the lead author of a paper published last year that found steady improvements in the mynas’ population over the past decade.
Outside the park dozens of Bali mynas have been released in various independent efforts to expand their range, including here in Bongkasa Pertiwi, about 60 miles to the southeast.
As we shake hands and sit down in the compound, Agung Rai Astawa is quiet, almost distant, but his voice grows earnest and firm when he starts to talk about the local effort he leads, run out of a volunteer’s family home. The wiry 50-year-old works in stonemasonry, an ancient craft that adorns the walled compounds and temples of the island. He’s also one of about 20 community members taking care of native birds, including more than 50 Bali mynas and 50 black-winged mynas (Acridotheres melanopterus), another critically endangered species.
The program has been running since 2018, when an Indonesian bottled-water company launched the initiative. The company donated six birds bought from legal breeders and a handful of cages to start it.
The villagers amended their awig-awig — collective agreements that serve as local customary law — to forbid poaching of the birds.
“The community is required to preserve the balance of nature,” Astawa says. If someone is caught hunting the birds, “his photo is put up in the village office to embarrass him.”
Breeding Bali mynas remains a fairly regulated endeavor, given the endangered and symbolic status of the species.
“We can’t be careless,” Astawa tells me. They need approval to release any captive birds, each of which gets a birth certificate from the government. Breeders also face fines if a bird dies from lack of care.
Ideally the village benefits with the flock. Tourists can pay $3.50 to see the beautiful white birds. Visitors already stop by the town for river rafting and an Instagram-famous swing, where they snap pictures dangling their legs above a tropical forest.
What’s happening on this family compound in the uplands is just one of myriad conservation efforts in Bali pairing nature protection with economic benefits for local communities. So far the approach seems to be working.
“I’ve come to wonder why I didn’t do this sooner,” says Astawa. “Now things are finally getting better.”
Bongkasa Pertiwi lies outside the bird’s native range, but the dozens being raised and released here help insure the overall population.
“I still think the national park is the center of efforts,” Squires later tells me, since that’s where the birds flew historically. But he highlighted the value of these separate programs. “We’ve always hoped to increase the range, so all the eggs aren’t in one basket.”
People Were the Problem; People Are the Solution
“I was born in Bali, I grew up in Bali, and I want to die in Bali.”
Bayu Wirayudha loves his home, both its wildlife and its people. The middle-aged leader of Friends of Nature, People and Forests, a nonprofit founded in 1997, was wearing his long black hair pulled back in a bun. He smiled often and widely, with spirited words to match, while describing his community-inclusive approach to conservation.
“Working with animals alone will not save the species,” he says.
In 2006 his organization approached villages scattered across three islands southeast of Bali, an administrative district named Nusa Penida after the largest island of the archipelago. The nonprofit wanted to create a bird sanctuary there to protect all sorts of native species. But in a country like Indonesia with such a deeply embedded caged bird culture — a popular Javanese saying equates manhood with possession of a bird, along with a house, wife, horse, and traditional dagger — they knew they needed community support before releasing any.
So Friends of Nature began an awareness campaign. They approached leaders in each village, asked temple committees to share information about the initiative, and even presented at weddings with permission from the couples.
In general, Wirayudha says, they based their case on the importance of protecting nature, often evoking older generations’ memories of the songbird music that soundtracked their childhoods.
But equally important in their persuasion was an economic promise.
Tourism accounts for over half of Bali’s gross domestic product. In general the global industry is rife with contradictions and questions over whom it benefits. While foreigners might perceive a flawless eco-paradise in Bali, with hotels promising sustainability and connection to the earth, the industry still strains the island’s ancient irrigation system and litters the landscape with plastic.
However, according to Wirayudha, the allure of tourism can encourage conservation, leading to benefits for both residents and the environment if done responsibly.
“When we protect the Bali myna, more and more tourists come,” he says. The additional stream of income provides an incentive to stop poaching.
In addition to promoting the island as a destination, the organization gives scholarships to students and hosts a variety of workshops helping farmers. Wirayudha’s general philosophy with Friends of Nature is to address the needs of humans along with animals, to the benefit of both.
“We bring opportunity,” he says. “And so, people are happy.”
Back in 2006 every one of the roughly three dozen villages across Nusa Penida added varying degrees of protection for birds to their awig-awig. Some protect only critically endangered species, others all — but each village prohibits the poaching of Bali mynas.
Today songbirds fly free; tourists come to take photos. The sanctuary has been so successful that villages on Bali’s main island have approached Friends of Nature about starting similar programs.
“Our biggest ambition is to get this bird off the critically endangered list,” says Wirayudha. “That one day it will be common.”
Loans Pay Off
A hundred miles to the northwest, West Bali National Park has seen an equally successful turnaround in recent years. These are the Bali myna’s native skies, home to the longest and largest conservation effort for the species.
In the 1980s, when the park established the first captive-breeding and release program for the species, rampant poaching consistently thwarted efforts to raise population levels. In 1999 thieves even robbed the facility at gunpoint and stole 39 birds.
The strategy wasn’t working.
Then, in 2006, the park started loaning birds to Balinese breeders.
Across the island the trade was once again made legal. Breeders could raise and sell Bali mynas, with a stipulation: They had to give 10% of the birds they raised to West Bali National Park for release. This involves monthly population reports, which are regularly verified in person by government staff.
It can be a controversial tactic. After the Indonesian government removed the critically endangered Javan pied starling (rare in the wild, but easy to find on the market) from its list of protected species in 2018, allowing its sale, some ecologists protested. The Indonesian Institute of Sciences issued a letter recommending a reversal.
While legalizing the trade of a critically endangered species may seem counterintuitive, it has reportedly drastically shriveled the black market for the Bali myna. At one point poachers could bag up to $2,000 or more for a pair. Now, sources tell me, the sale would make just a few hundred. That’s still a hefty amount, a sizable portion of local monthly salaries, but the drop makes a difference. Additionally, interested buyers can easily purchase from legitimate breeders, driving down demand for illicit sources.
“When you have a legal bird,” Wirayudha says, “why would you buy the illegal one?”
Granted, some collectors still choose the latter. The breeding loan program alone didn’t save the species, according to Squires, who highlighted the importance of other conservation efforts like captive breeding programs. But it has certainly made poaching far less alluring, while still allowing bird sellers an important source of income. The forests sound with more Bali myna chirps each year.
Most recently the park has begun shifting nest boxes, set up for recently released birds, from an isolated habitat to the surrounding, human-dominated landscape. The birds evolved to live in the savannah, and recent research suggests they fare better on farmland than dense woods.
Of course, this cohabitation takes the cooperation of residents. It takes trust that no one will kidnap and sell the released snow-white birds, even if they’re perched temptingly in the backyard.
Yet Wirayudha believes the wellbeing of birds and humans has never been totally separate, and neither has their habitat. And Squires reports that the two are getting along well, so far, in their shared swaths of land.
“Previously, the goal was to keep the birds away from people, as the primary threat,” he says. “But these are the best habitats for them, and the population is growing quickly.”
It Takes an Ecosystem
“In Indonesia, we think of the tiger when we think of conservation,” says biologist Ali Imron. The last confirmed Bali tiger was shot in 1937; the Javan tiger followed it into extinction in the 1970s.
Imron is originally from Sumatra, the largest island in Indonesia. There Sumatran tigers still prowl the dense tropical rainforests, although they’re critically endangered from poaching, conflict with farmers, and deforestation. Around 600 remain in the wild, roughly the same as the number of Bali mynas.
Imron has spent years working with pangolins, gibbons, and water snakes. Now he works for Begawan Foundation, a philanthropic organization started by a British couple that runs a Bali myna breeding program. He noted the importance of protecting all of nature, not just mynas or tigers but whole ecosystems, including the people within them.
“Conservation you cannot do by yourself,” he said. “You have to work together with local people.”
In an era when more than 10,000 species are assessed as critically endangered, the Bali myna and the people protecting them — whether by researching them, raising them, or simply not poaching them — offer an important lesson. Saving a species takes bottom-up community work; in other words, it takes a village.
While the story of these beautiful white birds still hangs fairly in the balance, according to Squires, “we are carefully hopeful.”
Earth Day coordinator Denis Hayes grew up in Camas, Washington, surrounded by natural beauty and unchecked pollution.
Every day drivers head north on Route 205 out of Portland, Oregon, cross the mighty Columbia River and the state line, and arrive in Washington.
Many of them will immediately head east, where on a clear day they’ll soon see snow-capped Mt. Hood looming over Highway 14. Also known as the Lewis & Clark Highway, this busy road will take them toward the suburban cities of Camas and Washougal.
But as they arrive in Camas and cross a narrow bridge, something else will loom over the scenic view: an enormous paper mill on the river’s edge.
That paper mill, which at one point processed hundreds of tons a day, has been a defining element of Camas for more than a century. The town grew up around it. Residents walked down the hill to work there and sent their kids up the hill to go to school, where the local basketball team is still called the Papermakers (complete with a mascot, the Mean Machine, that looks like an anthropomorphic paper press).
A portion of the mill in downtown Camas. Photo: John R. Platt/The Revelator
Today the mill, now owned by Koch Industries, is a shadow of its former self. Relatively few people still work there. Much of the 660-acre property lies fallow.
And although few realize it, the paper mill’s legacy also exists on the national stage.
In many ways it inspired the first Earth Day.
Famed environmental advocate Denis Hayes coordinated the first national Earth Day in 1970. He later founded the Earth Day Network and became a leader in solar power and energy policy.
But before that he grew up in Camas, which at the time had an occasionally noxious reputation.
“If you talked to someone in Portland and mentioned Camas, universally the response was, ‘Oh yeah, that’s where the stink comes from,’ ” Hayes, now 80, recalled during a recent Zoom presentation to an in-person audience at the Camas Public Library. “The whole region was known for the stink of this uncontrolled paper mill.”
The stink came from “vast quantities of uncontrolled sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide” emitted by the mill. Those pollutants came back down in the form of acid rain — and as Hayes noted, it rains quite a bit in the Pacific Northwest.
Hayes speaking to Camas residents over Zoom. Photo: John R. Platt/The Revelator
The effect was immediately visible in town, where the roofs of cars corroded under the acidic onslaught.
“People began to ask, well, if it’s doing that to my car, what’s it doing to me,” Hayes said. “The answer, with regards to the automobiles, was that instead of reducing the pollution, they put a shower at the end of the parking lot” to rinse cars before they drove home.
Wildlife was affected, too. “Every now and then you’d go down to the Columbia River slough and find scores of dead fish, in some cases hundreds of dead fish, just floating there,” Hayes said.
Camas had its good sides, of course. “What I did have growing up was the ability to walk through some of the most magnificent forests on Earth and to ride my bicycle down through the Columbia River Gorge and the spectacular scenery,” Hayes recalled.
But even there the paper mill took a toll.
“You’d go out in the forest and go hiking in the summer, in these astonishingly beautiful Douglas fir forests, and then two years later you go back there and it is almost clearcut. There was this catastrophic approach to clearing out natural resources.”
The beauty and the destruction “came together and sort of made me think, not too profoundly, that it must be possible to make paper without destroying the planet,” he said.
Camas was just one of Hayes’ influences, and Hayes was one of many people behind the first Earth Day and the environmental successes that followed.
But what followed remains significant.
“The context then was one where we were pretty highly motivated to try to get some kinds of regulations someplace,” Hayes recalled. “This is not a personal accomplishment. There were a huge number of things that were involved in this, including the presidential aspirations of a senator named Ed Muskie.”
Posters about Hayes and the first Earth Day at Camas Public Library. Photo: John R. Platt/The Revelator
After the first Earth Day, the organizers — who had formed a nonprofit called Environmental Action — launched what they called “the Dirty Dozen” campaign targeting congressional representatives with bad records on environmental issues. “We tried to take out several of the worst members of Congress, and we successfully defeated seven of 12 incumbents,” Hayes said. “It is really, really hard to beat an incumbent member of Congress. And we managed to take out seven of 12. And it was clear that we were the margin of a victory in each of those cases.”
Among the defeated politicians was Rep. George Fallon. “At that time Fallon was the chairman of the House Public Works Committee. If you wanted to have a federal building, you wanted to have a prison, a courthouse, a dam, any kind of public work in your district anywhere across the country, you had to have the permission of the guy who chaired that committee. When we took out George Fallon, clearly with an environmental campaign, that absolutely transformed the House of Representatives.”
One month after that election, Muskie helped introduce what would become the Clean Air Act. “And the Clean Air Act passed the Senate on a voice vote and passed the House of Representatives 434 to 1. There was one member of both Houses of the American Congress that voted against the Clean Air Act. Something that would have been inconceivable in 1969 became unstoppable in 1970,” Hayes said.
“Those are the kinds of magic moments that can happen in a democracy where everything, just like a school of fish is going in this direction and suddenly it goes in a different direction,” he continued. “It was my thrill to have been part of a handful of those occasions.”
A new generation of Camas residents — in fact, multiple generations — has taken the lesson of the first Earth Day to heart.
Several residents recently came together to form the Camas Earth Day Society, which organized Hayes’ talk at the local library and is working toward a sustainable future in their home town. They’ve worked with local students, many of whom asked Hayes questions during the event. The organization has also held an art show, organized a native pollinator display, and raised awareness of clean air and water issues in Camas.
They have ambitious dreams that boil down to a simple truth, both in Camas and around the world: Everyone can make a difference.
Fifty-five years after the first Earth Day, the future of environmental protection has darkened once again. The Trump administration has enabled corporate polluters, slashed climate programs and budgets, and seeks to slash and burn practically all environmental regulations.
But the crowd that gathered earlier this month at the Camas library — people young and old — came together despite those threats, ready to talk about solar power, protecting native plants, improving water quality, reducing pollution, and mobilizing for the future.
More than one T-shirt that night read “Earth Day Is Every Day” — a sign that the seeds of that first day continue to sprout.
