As Deep-Seabed Mining Ramps Up, Scientists Race to Study the Environmental Effects

Timing is running short to develop an international framework to help prevent environmental harm to deep-sea life and to share resources equitably among nations, experts say.

Mining the ocean floor for submerged minerals is a little-known, experimental industry. But soon it will take place on the deep seabed, which belongs to everyone, according to international law.

Seabed mining for valuable materials like copper, zinc and lithium already takes place within countries’ marine territories. As soon as 2025, larger projects could start in international waters — areas more than 200 nautical miles from shore, beyond national jurisdictions.

We study ocean policy, marine resource management, international ocean governance and environmental regimes, and are researching political processes that govern deep seabed mining. Our main interests are the environmental impacts of seabed mining, ways of sharing marine resources equitably and the use of tools like marine protected areas to protect rare, vulnerable and fragile species and ecosystems.

Today countries are working together on rules for seabed mining. In our opinion, there is still time to develop a framework that will enable nations to share resources and prevent permanent damage to the deep sea. But that will happen only if countries are willing to cooperate and make sacrifices for the greater good.

An Old Treaty With a New Purpose

Countries regulate seabed mining within their marine territories. Farther out, in areas beyond national jurisdiction, they cooperate through the Law of the Sea Convention, which has been ratified by 167 countries and the European Union, but not the U.S.

The treaty created the International Seabed Authority, headquartered in Jamaica, to manage seabed mining in international waters. This organization’s workload is about to balloon.

Under the treaty, activities conducted in areas beyond national jurisdiction must be for “the benefit of mankind as a whole.” These benefits could include economic profit, scientific research findings, specialized technology and recovery of historical objects. The convention calls on governments to share them fairly, with special attention to developing countries’ interests and needs.

The United States was involved in negotiating the convention and signed it but has not ratified it, due to concerns that it puts too many limits on exploitation of deep sea resources. As a result, the U.S. is not bound by the treaty, although it follows most of its rules independently. Recent administrations, including those of Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, sought to ratify the treaty, but failed to muster a two-thirds majority in the Senate to support it.

Map of world oceans showing where major metal deposits lie.
Locations of three main types of marine mineral deposits: polymetallic nodules (blue); polymetallic or seafloor massive sulfides (orange); and cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts (yellow). Miller et al., 2018 (CC BY 4.0)

Powering Digital Devices

Scientists and industry leaders have known that there are valuable minerals on the seafloor for over a century, but it hasn’t been technologically or economically feasible to go after them until the past decade. Widespread growth of battery-driven technologies such as smartphones, computers, wind turbines and solar panels is changing this calculation as the world runs low on land-based deposits of copper, nickel, aluminum, manganese, zinc, lithium and cobalt.

These minerals are found in potato-shaped “nodules” on the seafloor, as well as in and around hydrothermal vents, seamounts and midocean ridges. Energy companies and their governments are also interested in extracting methane hydrates — frozen deposits of natural gas on the seafloor.

Scientists still have a lot to learn about these habitats and the species that live there. Research expeditions are continually discovering new species in deep-sea habitats.

Korea and China Seek the Most Contracts

Mining the deep ocean requires permission from the International Seabed Authority. Exploration contracts provide the right to explore a specific part of the seabed for 15 years. As of mid-2020, 30 mining groups have signed exploration contracts, including governments, public-private partnerships, international consortiums and private multinational companies.

Two entities hold the most exploration contracts (three each): the government of Korea and the China Ocean Mineral Resources R&D Association, a state-owned company. Since the U.S. is not a member of the Law of the Sea treaty, it cannot apply for contracts. But U.S. companies are investing in others’ projects. For example, the American defense company Lockheed Martin owns UK Seabed Resources, which holds two exploration contracts.

Once an exploration contract expires, as several have since 2015, mining companies must broker an exploitation contract with the International Seabed Authority to allow for commercial-scale extraction. The agency is working on rules for mining, which will shape individual contracts.

Unknown Ecological Impacts

Deep-sea mining technology is still in development but will probably include vacuuming nodules from the seafloor. Scraping and vacuuming the seafloor can destroy habitats and release plumes of sediment that blanket or choke filter-feeding species on the seafloor and fish swimming in the water column.

Mining also introduces noise, vibration and light pollution in a zone that normally is silent, still and dark. And depending on the type of mining taking place, it could lead to chemical leaks and spills.

Many deep-sea species are unique and found nowhere else. We agree with the scientific community and environmental advocates that it is critically important to analyze the potential effects of seabed mining thoroughly. Studies also should inform decision-makers about how to manage the process.

This is a key moment for the International Seabed Authority. It is currently writing the rules for environmental protection but doesn’t have enough information about the deep ocean and the impacts of mining. Today the agency relies on seabed mining companies to report on and monitor themselves, and on academic researchers to provide baseline ecosystem data.

We believe that national governments acting through the International Seabed Authority should require more scientific research and monitoring, and better support the agency’s efforts to analyze and act on that information. Such action would make it possible to slow the process down and make better decisions about when, where and how to mine the deep seabed.

Balancing Risks and Benefits

The race for deep-sea minerals is imminent. There are compelling arguments for mining the seabed, such as supporting the transition to renewable energy, which some companies assert will be a net gain for the environment. But balancing benefits and impacts will require proactive and thorough study before the industry takes off.

We also believe that the U.S. should ratify the Law of the Sea treaty so that it can help to lead on this issue. The oceans provide humans with food and oxygen and regulate Earth’s climate. Choices being made now could affect them far into the future in ways that aren’t yet understood.

Dr. Rachel Tiller, Senior Research Scientist with SINTEF Ocean, Norway, contributed to this article.The Conversation

The opinions expressed above are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of The Revelator, the Center for Biological Diversity or their employees.

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

Mangroves Could Help Save Us From Climate Change. Climate Change Is Killing Mangroves.

Coastal mangrove forests help protect communities and habitats from storm surges, but sea-level rise could wipe them out.

During a trip to Cuba’s Gardens of the Queen a few years ago, I found myself around small mangrove islands in an area called Boca Grande. Floating on clear, calm water, my travel group and I kicked over tall seagrass beds and rays camouflaged in the sandy flats. Fish of all kinds and sizes hung out among the tree roots, including huge cubera snappers. An hour stretched into two, this enormous saltwater aquarium proving as fascinating as the nearby, healthy coral reefs.

Mangrove forests like this may be one of the world’s most underappreciated landscapes. They provide important habitat for a wide variety of terrestrial, estuarine and marine species — from fish to birds and manatees — and supply nutrients and sediments for seagrass-bed and coral-reef habitats.

Mangrove Galapagos
A pelican enjoys a perch in a mangrove stand in the Galapagos. Photo: Hans Johnson (CC BY 2.0)

These ecosystems also protect the shore. Laura Geselbracht, a marine scientist and coastal restoration expert with The Nature Conservancy Florida, reports that mangroves prevented an additional $1.5 billion in direct damages in that state from 2017’s Hurricane Irma. An analysis by The Nature Conservancy, University of California Santa Cruz and Risk Management Solutions found that just 100 yards of mangrove trees can reduce wave height by 66%.

And mangrove forests also help mitigate climate change, pulling massive amounts of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and storing them in their soils — up to four times as much carbon as other tropical forests. A 2018 study calculated that the world’s mangrove forests suck up more than 6 billion tons of carbon a year.

That’s the good news. The bad news: Mangroves face numerous threats — 35% were lost between 1980 and 2000, and since the turn of the 21st century almost 1 in 50 of the remaining mangrove forests has been cut down.

Today, one of the direst threats to their continued existence comes from rising sea levels caused by climate change.

A paper published in Science in June looked at data on thousands of years of sea-level rise and mangrove accretion. (Accretion is the opposite of coastal erosion: Instead of wearing away, soil builds up around the roots and lifts trees vertically, keeping them above water.) While a mangrove’s lower trunk and roots live underwater, its upper trunk and leaves live above the waterline. And when the water gets too high, and the accretion process fails to support mangroves, the trees effectively drown.

Mangroves underwater
Mangroves underwater, near Queensland, Australia. Photo: Paul Asman and Jill Lenoble (CC BY 2.0)

The authors determined that accretion will not keep up beyond sea-level rise of 0.27 inches per year. Rutgers University climate data scientist Erica Ashe, one of the authors, says the current global rate is 0.134 inches, with some areas experiencing much higher rates. In Louisiana, for example, the effect of rising water is compounded by land sinking due to water removal and sediment compaction.

Based on projected rates, mangrove trees could lose their race against rising water within the next 30 years.

“The rate of sea-level rise keeps going up,” says Geselbracht, who was not affiliated with the study. “Every time a study looks at it, the rate is faster than we expected.”

Mangroves could, in theory, adjust to rising seas by migrating landward, but that’s not possible in much of the world because of human development. The trees cannot grow on roads or buildings.

“We need to modify infrastructure, change permitting rules, and come up with other innovative solutions to accommodate that movement,” Geselbracht says.

Recent research supports this. A study on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, published this past April, showed that the mangrove areas most affected by human activity there were also the ones least able to adapt to sea-level rise. In other words, just leaving mangroves alone could help.

But the world isn’t leaving mangroves alone: We continue to actively destroy their forests at an increasing rate, clearing them for development and aquaculture, timber and fuel.

Colombia, which has approximately 1,467 square miles of mangrove forests on its coasts, is experiencing the highest annual rate of loss in South America — roughly 154 square miles in the past three decades. Primary blame goes to human activities, including logging and development, primarily for tourism.

Mangroves Colombia
Mangroves in Colombia by F Delventhal (CC BY 2.0)

One of the most striking developing threats is in the Sundarbans region of Bangladesh and India, where the biggest mangrove forest on Earth — covering an area of more than 3,860 square miles — houses at least 505 species of wildlife, including 355 species of birds, 49 mammals and 291 fish. It provides critical habitat for Bengal tigers.

Sharif A. Mukul, a research fellow at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia, warned in a recent letter to Science that construction of a 3.8-mile-long bridge, the largest development project in Bangladesh, could destroy the Sundarbans.

“People anticipate much more tourism and industry activity with the bridge,” he says. “The second to largest seaport [in Bangladesh] is close to Sundarbans. After completion of the bridge, the port likely will be used more frequently, with more factories and that sort of thing.”

Magroves Sunderbans
A birding safari in the Sunderbans. Photo: Ankur Panchbudhe (CC BY 2.0)

The Sundarbans are particularly important for protection from cyclones, Mukul adds, which have increased in number and intensity in the past few years. Fifteen percent of tropical cyclones form in this region. The country’s annual monsoon season has also worsened, including catastrophic floods this summer.

In addition, Bangladesh already has seen significant loss of mangrove forests to shrimp farming.

The bridge will bring economic benefits to the region and Mukul does not argue against its construction, but rather for doing it in a way that protects local ecosystems and their services. “The government is definitely focusing only on development and not the environment,” he says. “They should do the project in a more environmentally friendly way.”

The country has company in that regard. The UNESCO Mangrove Biosphere Reserve near Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam contains one of the world’s largest rehabilitated mangrove forests. That country recently approved a $9.3 billion tourist development to be built largely on filled-in coastal land within the reserve’s buffer zone. This project also includes a massive bridge.

Big Cypress National Preserve
Big Cypress National Preserve (uncredited) (Public domain)

And in the United States, Geselbracht says, Florida continues to lose swaths of mangroves to physical removal.

“People on the coast don’t want mangroves blocking their view,” she says. The state now has laws regulating removal of mangroves, which has slowed their loss. But certain types of removals remain legal, Geselbracht says, including some for storm-retention ponds. “It astounds me that no one does a cost-benefit analysis to show that removing them increases rather than decreases pollution and damages.”

In a particularly vicious twist, taking out mangroves not only eliminates their potential for storing carbon, it releases significant amounts — increasing the threats of climate change and sea-level rise and putting even more mangroves, and the communities and habitats around them, at risk. Between 2000 and 2015 mangrove destruction released up to 122 million tons of carbon — more than two and a half times the amount emitted by California wildfires between 2001 and 2010. Indonesia, Malaysia and Myanmar accounted for more than two-thirds of the released amount.

“We know a lot of reasons why we should curb carbon emissions,” says Ashe, author of the new study on sea-level rise. “This is another one. We have an opportunity, if we take this and all the other effects of rising temperatures seriously. It’s not too late, but it is urgent.”

Wait too long and we’ll lose more than prime snorkeling spots.

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The 10 Hottest Climate Change Books of Summer

From global warming’s threats to its potential solutions, these new books examine how we got here and where we’re going.

This has already been one of the hottest summers on record, and things are only going to get worse. Unless we do something about it.

So … let’s do.revelator reads

We can’t really go to the beach in these final few weeks of summer — too many potential disease vectors walking around in Speedos — so let’s all stay home and read up on climate change.

We’ve collected this summer’s 10 best new books about global warming and related topics — all published over the past three months — covering how we got here and how we’re going to get out of this hot mess. You’ll find books about science, activism, history and people, and even some art along the way.

And maybe you’ll also find some inspiration.

Future EarthThe Future Earth: A Radical Vision for What’s Possible in the Age of Warming by Eric Holthaus

Billed as “the first hopeful book about climate change.” Holthaus, a meteorologist turned climate journalist, explores several major scenarios under which we could get to carbon-zero over the next three decades and save the planet. Along the way he also encourages another radical idea: that we relearn how to embrace the Earth and our relationship with it — and maybe our relationship with ourselves along the way.

Youth to PowerYouth to Power: Your Voice and How to Use It by Jamie Margolin

An essential book by one of the country’s most engaging young climate activists. Margolin cofounded the action group Zero Hour and helped energize 2018’s record-breaking Youth Climate March. Now she shares her experience and expertise — along with that of other activists — and offers advice on everything from organizing peaceful protests to protecting your mental health in a time of crisis. Greta Thunberg provides the foreword.

Scary PlaceWhen the World Feels Like a Scary Place: Essential Conversations for Anxious Parents and Worried Kids by Abigail Gewirtz

A wide-ranging book by a child psychologist that teaches parents to help stressed kids of all ages deal with the world’s ever-growing multitude of crises, ranging from climate change to active-shooter drills — and yes, COVID-19. Oh yeah, and along the way the book aims to help parents deal with their own anxieties about these issues.

Disposable CityDisposable City: Miami’s Future on the Shores of Climate Catastrophe by Mario Alejandro Ariza

Environmental and economic collapse go hand in hand for Miami, Florida — and this book provides a poignant first-person investigation into a metropolis that could one day soon be underwater. (Read our full review here.)

Health of People

Health of People, Health of Planet and Our Responsibility: Climate Change, Air Pollution and Health

A wide-ranging, open-access (as in free) academic book addressing how climate change damages peoples’ health, covering everything from the cardiovascular effects of air pollution to the ethics of climate justice. There are even chapters about how the climate crisis will affect our mental health and religious faiths. Edited by Wael K. Al-Delaimy, Veerabhadran Ramanathan and Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, with dozens of contributors from around the world, the book is available for download in its entirety or on a chapter-by-chapter basis.

Who Killed BertaWho Killed Berta Cáceres? by Nina Lakhani

This isn’t exactly a climate book, but it’s a must-read and close enough in topic to belong on this month’s list. Subtitled “Dams, Death Squads, and an Indigenous Defender’s Battle for the Planet,” this powerful investigation digs into the brutal murder of an activist who led the fight against a hydroelectric dam being built on her peoples’ sacred river in Honduras. In an age when hydropower is being embraced in some corners as a low-carbon alternative to fossil fuels, we need to remember that dams are often built on blood and stolen land.

Paying the LandPaying the Land by Joe Sacco

The author, an acclaimed journalist/cartoonist best known for his graphic novels about war zones, travels to a different kind of conflict: the fossil-fuel and mining industries’ destructive influence on a First Nations community in the Canadian Northwest Territories. Heartbreaking and powerful, this book drives home that the climate crisis was affecting people long before temperatures started to rise.

Next Great MigrationThe Next Great Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move by Sonia Shah  

Climate change is already forcing people, animals and plants to shift where they live — an often-dangerous prospect fraught with potential consequences and conflict. But is migration also a solution to the climate crisis? Shah looks deeply into human and natural history — not to mention our history of xenophobia — to show how we can effectively embrace compassionate laws, wildlife corridors and permeable international borders to benefit a changing world.

Two PlanetsTales of Two Planets: Stories of Climate Change and Inequality in a Divided World edited by John Freeman

In this hybrid book of nonfiction, fiction, essays and poems, an all-star lineup of international writers addresses how climate change will exacerbate the gap between rich and poor around the world and put millions of people at greater risk. Margaret Atwood, Anuradha Roy, Lauren Groff and Chinelo Okparanta are among the notable contributors.

Hidden Life of IceThe Hidden Life of Ice: Dispatches from a Disappearing World by Marco Tedesco

A noted climate scientist takes us on a journey to Greenland to discuss its melting beauty and the secrets that researchers are uncovering beneath the ice. Part science book, part history lesson, part travelogue, this book puts the reader on the front line to illuminate the climate crisis and what we’re losing in the process. Co-written by journalist Alberto Flores d’Arcais; Elizabeth Kolbert (The Sixth Extinction) provides the foreword.

MigrationsMigrations by Charlotte McConaghy

A near-future novel about a world almost destroyed by climate change and overconsumption, narrated by a woman whose dark secrets and haunted past echo the melting ice and extinctions that surround her and a ship’s crew as they follow the final migration of the world’s last surviving birds. Mysterious and melancholy, but as much about the quest for the future as what the characters have lost.

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Walls or Wetlands? How Southeast Cities Are Grappling With Rising Seas

Climate change is already leaving Southeast cities swamped. Experts from the Southern Environmental Law Center explain how communities are planning for a wetter future.

Sea levels are rising around the world — but not evenly.

One area already getting swamped is the Southeast United States, where sinking land, rising seas, and a slowing Gulf Stream are causing waves to lap at city streets even on sunny days.the ask

Climate change is also bringing another wet threat: supercharged storms carrying more moisture, leaving low-lying coastal areas awash.

As city leaders figure out how to meet these challenges, they have to weigh decisions about whether to build sea walls or improve wetland habitat. Or a combination of so-called “gray” and “green” infrastructure.

“I think that for a lot of the country, sea-level rise can sort of seem like an abstract concept,” says Claudine Ebeid McElwain, host of the “Broken Ground” podcast, which covers environmental stories in the South. “But for the people that we’ve met, it’s affecting their everyday lives.”

Lately she’s been talking to residents, city officials and others working on coastal resilience solutions in frontline communities like Norfolk, Virginia and Charleston, South Carolina.

“Broken Ground” is produced by the Southern Environmental Law Center, which also works to address these issues through legal action.

“Sea-level rise is really causing an existential crisis for these cities,” says Chris DeScherer, Southern Environmental Law Center’s Charleston director. “It’s really going to be a monumental challenge for communities all up and down the Southeast coast.”

We spoke with McElwain and DeScherer about how Charleston and other cities are navigating these issues and how they can make sure solutions don’t leave out vulnerable communities and coastal ecosystems.

Sea-level rise often seems like a distant problem. What have you learned from talking to people who are already affected?

Claudine Ebeid McElwain: When you start talking to people in these communities, this abstract issue really becomes very concrete.

Claudine Ebeid McElwain
Claudine Ebeid McElwain hosts the podcast “Broken Ground.” Photo: Stephanie Gross

We have a recent episode about Norfolk featuring one woman who is dealing with rising waters repeatedly coming into her home. We met another homeowner who’s already had four neighbors on his street bought out by the city with FEMA money [so their houses could be torn down and returned to wetland]. In that episode we talk about this idea of “managed retreat” and what that means in the context of rising seas.

We’re taking a hard look at how people are going to practically address this issue and what it means for their lives. When you’re talking about folks, especially when you’re talking about people in low income and vulnerable situations, it begs the question of how we can do right by the decisions we make.

Charleston faces a big decision right now about to address these problems. What’s happening there?

Chris DeScherer: The Army Corps of Engineers is proposing to build a seawall around Charleston to address storm surge.

It’s a nearly $2 billion proposal and we have some significant concerns about it. For starters, they’re not planning an environmental impact statement to study the proposal, which I think is a mistake because it’s one of the most significant and expensive construction projects perhaps in the history of Charleston. It deserves the most rigorous form of review to make sure that it’s a wise investment. (Editor’s note: The Corps completed a draft Environmental Assessment, a less comprehensive review, and claims the full Environmental Impact Statement is not needed because the project “would not cause significant adverse effects on the quality of the human environment.”)

Another problem, as engineers around town have already pointed out, is that there’s a greater than 40% chance the wall would be overtopped by a storm surge in the next 50 years.

Once that happens, you’re exacerbating the whole problem because you’re basically trapping all that water inside the peninsula.

Another issue is that the Corps is single-mindedly focused on storm surge when there are multiple sources of flooding that threaten cities like Charleston. Storms are already more powerful due to climate change and are dumping more water. And [a wall] obviously does nothing about that. It’s also not meant to address tidal flooding, which is an increasing problem, too.

Are you concerned about harm to the coastal ecosystem from a seawall as well?

DeScherer: Yes. There’ll be a lot of impacts to the fringe of wetlands around the city. Our coastal marshlands are among the most productive ecosystems we have. So losing wetlands is obviously a problem.

Christopher DeScherer
Chris DeScherer of the Southern Environmental Law Center. Photo: Stephanie Gross

There are also environmental concerns associated with what happens when you build a structure like this. Could the wall, by changing water patterns and circulation patterns in the harbor, actually increase erosion and harm in places adjacent to the city? That’s something that the Corps acknowledged that it really hasn’t studied yet.

There are also two historically African American communities — Rosemont and Bridgeview Village— [that] the wall stops short of protecting.

I think there are some significant questions of equity here, too. Is it fair to spend $2 billion trying to protect peninsula Charleston? What about the other parts of Charleston that are struggling with erosion, sea-level rise and flooding?

Are there alternatives to this type of infrastructure?

McElwain: Some of the most innovative stuff I think is going to be how cities think about restoring wetlands and using the wetlands to their advantage.

Norfolk and Charleston are actively working to find places that they can return to a green space. In both places, areas that are currently and constantly getting flooded were formerly creeks and wetlands that we chose to fill. So we’re looking at having to readjust to the land.

DeScherer: In its study, the Corps purports to consider a wider range of alternatives than just a wall, but very early on in its process it rejected those greener solutions. It didn’t carry them forward for a rigorous enough review.

What we want to do now is take those types of solutions that the Corps rejected and really develop them and show why they are a better way forward to the city. We’re hiring, along with the Coastal Conservation League and our other partners in town, experts who have worked around the country to design greener forms of protection for communities. These might have multiple benefits — including being cheaper and more effective at addressing the broader range of flooding threats.

Are you seeing that cities are beginning to say no to development in vulnerable areas?

DeScherer: Here in the Lowcountry we can’t afford to make this already huge problem worse by putting new development into vulnerable areas, such as wetlands and floodplains.

Flood water at house windows
Flooding in North Charleston, South Carolina caused by Hurricane Joaquin. Photo: Ryan Johnson, (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Wetlands are those places on our landscape that are natural reservoirs for storing floodwaters. The last place that we should be putting new development these days is into the places on our landscape that actually protect communities from flooding. Unfortunately, though, we continue to see that here in coastal South Carolina.

For example, there’s a proposal in an area of the city of Charleston called West Ashley, where a development would fill more than 200 acres of wetlands in a watershed that’s a poster child for flooding problems. In fact, the city has worked for years to voluntarily buy out repetitive flood properties in this area.

There’s also a proposal in an area of town called the Cainhoy peninsula that’s adjacent to the Francis Marion National Forest. It’s surrounded by marshlands. It’s very low lying with extensive floodplains. And there’s a massive proposal to construct 9,000 new residential housing units and commercial development on 9,000 acres. It’s very vulnerable to storms, storm surge and flooding. This isn’t the kind of development that’s going to make us more resilient.

I think it’s built into our mentality that more growth, more development is better for the economy. The reality, I think, is that we can still grow. We just have to be smarter about it. We have to avoid wetlands, we have to avoid floodplains. And we have to develop in denser ways.

Are there changes that industry needs to make as well?

DeScherer: There’s a lot of attention on flooding, but way less about what is in the flood water. In the southern states that we work in along the Atlantic and in Alabama on the Gulf Coast, there’s a lot of industry that’s grown up alongside ports.

These industrial sites handle toxic pollutants, but many of their stormwater plans were developed years ago. And the nature of storms is changing and has already changed. A normal storm now can bring more rain.

So we’re working to help ensure that these industrial sites are appropriately upgrading their best management practices and stormwater plans in order to control the discharge of toxic pollutants into our waterways and communities.

And septic systems and municipal-wastewater treatment systems in increasingly flooded areas also will not work as well. For example, in Charleston a couple of years ago, the Post and Courier went around the city after rain events and sampled the waters for bacteria pollution. It was pretty eye-popping for a lot of people to see the bacteria numbers that are actually in the floodwater.

Climate change is just going to present all sorts of challenges for our communities on the coast.

We’ve focused a lot on cities, but this problem is far-reaching. What more do we need?

DeScherer: We need a federal government that is not undermining our critical environmental statutes, like the National Environmental Policy Act, like the Clean Water Act, like the Endangered Species Act.

It’s critical that we defend our federal environmental statutes, but it’s also important on a local level and on a state level. We really need all three levels of government implementing law in a fair and evenhanded way in order to ensure that decisions are made that are protective of communities and the environment.

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Shark Quest: Are the World’s Most Endangered Rays Living in New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea?

Solving this biodiversity mystery could reveal one of the most important sites to conserve these “rhinos of the sea.”

“We saw two swimming past our canoe the other day as we came to shore!”

“Yes, we saw one over towards the mangroves not so long ago…”

“There was one in our net near the big river…”

Scientists love having a mystery to solve and gathering clues to find out if something is real or not. Since January 2019 my organization, the Wildlife Conservation Society, has been collecting evidence to confirm whether highly endangered sawfish and their relatives — the wedgefish, guitarfish and giant guitarfish (collectively and affectionately known as “rhino rays”) — live in the coastal waters of New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea.

Sawfish and their rhino ray relatives — all cousins of sharks — are some of the most threatened species on Earth due to their slow growth, vulnerability to capture in fisheries, and high value in international trade. Recent studies indicate that Papua New Guinea is (together with northern Australia and the southeastern United States) one of the last few strongholds for sawfish populations, making the country a global priority for shark and ray conservation.

Currently sawfish and rhino rays have been well documented along the southern shores and adjacent river systems of Papua New Guinea, and also in the Sepik River, which drains into the Bismarck Sea on the northern coast of the mainland. Sawfish have also been documented in several other provinces in the country, yet no official records exist in New Ireland Province.

Until now.

A Unique Site

The southwestern Pacific nation of Papua New Guinea is known for its renowned biodiversity, much of which lives nowhere else in the world. But that amazing animal and plant life is often both understudied and under threat.

This holds true in New Ireland.

The many islands of New Ireland Province, located in the Bismarck Archipelago, support coral reefs, mangroves, estuaries and tidal lagoons — typical habitats for rhino rays and sawfish. Some 77% of New Ireland’s human population also lives in the coastal zone, where they’re highly reliant on fish and other marine resources for food, livelihoods and traditional practices. Local communities also own most of this coastal zone through customary tenure systems, which may have been in place for centuries.

Human pressure, including population growth, could threaten potential sawfish and rhino ray populations unless sufficient management is in place — but local cooperation will be key to such action.

Surprising Surveys

Over the past year and a half, WCS has conducted interviews in New Ireland’s coastal areas. Part of the interviews involved showing images of each sawfish, wedgefish and guitarfish species, allowing respondents to identify what they saw. To date residents from 49 communities reported that they had seen sawfish and rhino rays in their local waters. There were 144 separate sightings reported by 111 respondents, which comprised 23 sawfish, 85 wedgefish and 36 guitarfish and giant guitarfish. Roughly half the respondents stated they had seen sawfish or rhino rays either often or sometimes.

Sightings map
Papua New Guinea occupies the western half of New Guinea and is the largest of the South Pacific Island nations. The uplifted reefs, limestone terrain and adjacent islands that form New Ireland Province comprise the north-easterly region of Papua New Guinea. From January 2019 to March 2020, fisher key informant surveys were conducted in coastal communities in western New Ireland Province to determine whether sawfish and rhino rays were observed within the customary waters of each community. A total of 144 sightings were made, including 85 wedgefish (blue), 36 guitarfish and giant guitarfish (green) and 23 sawfish (red) sightings. Source: WCS.

When asked if the animals were targeted by local fishers, more than half the respondents said no: The animals were mostly caught accidentally. Only 9% of the sighted sawfish and rhino rays were reported to have been purposefully caught.

Respondents also provided information on where, and in what condition, they had seen the animals: 77% were seen alive, 10% at the market and 2% entangled in nets.

The results suggest that while sawfish and rhino rays are in the region, they are not a key fishery commodity, which is promising news for developing conservation approaches.

Sawtooth rostrum
Large-tooth sawfish (Pristis pristis) rostrum, beside a ruler, which was harvested by local community fishers from the Tigak Islands that lie to the west of mainland New Ireland. This rostrum measured nearly 30 inches in length. Photo: Elizah Nagombi/WCS.

Further Evidence Needed

While physical and objective data has been lacking — I’m still waiting to see one of these animals in the water, myself — we have confirmed evidence of two large-tooth sawfish (Pristis pristis) in the region (two sawfish beaks, also known as rostra, have been found in community villages since this study began), and we’ve received reports of additional sightings.

WCS also conducted baited remote underwater video surveys (BRUVS) in 14 locations in the region in 2019-20, following a 2017 BURVS deployment by FinPrint in western New Ireland Province.

Collectively the BRUVS documented 13 species of sharks and rays, including wedgefish (which have also been photographed by local dive operators), but no sawfish.

Wedgefish
Wedgefish in New Ireland Province: documented by BRUVS during the FinPrint project (left) and by scuba divers (Dorian Borcherds, Scuba Ventures) (right)

But with that success, we’re expanding our search. Over the next 12 months, a further 100 BRUVS will be deployed in areas with a sandy seafloor, where wedgefish and giant guitarfish often rest. Because sawfish typically live in estuaries — where water is often murky — BRUVS will not work due to the poor visibility of the water. In these areas gillnets that have been carefully positioned in river outlets by trained local community members will be monitored for sawfish that may be present. If any sawfish are present in the nets, they will be documented and carefully released.

Opportunities for Conservation

Despite the vulnerability of sawfish and rhino rays — with five of the ten documented species in Papua New Guinea classified as critically endangered — there are currently no protection laws in place. However, since 2017, WCS has worked with over 100 communities in New Ireland Province to establish the country’s largest network of marine protected areas.

The MPAs have been developed through a community-first approach, with extensive local outreach, engagement and education. In that way WCS has been actively informing local residents about the biology, threats and management opportunities for sawfish and rhino rays. We anticipate that new laws to protect and manage these endangered animals will be incorporated into the management rules for the new MPAs.

outreach poster
Example of education and outreach materials produced by the WCS team. This poster presents management methods that can be used by community residents to help manage sawfish and rhino ray populations in their customary waters.

While the mystery as to whether sawfish and rhino ray populations are alive and well in PNG has largely been solved, they are still rare and in need of additional conservation efforts. We hope that this work will help bring awareness and conservation action to these highly threatened species — and make sure they don’t become mythical creatures of the past.

The opinions expressed above are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of The Revelator, the Center for Biological Diversity or their employees.

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Wildlife Rehabilitators Are Overwhelmed During the Pandemic. In Part, That’s a Good Thing.

An increase in calls and wildlife rescues means people are paying more attention to nature. That’s an opportunity to learn about animal behavior — and save lives.

Molly Craig’s day begins with feeding hungry baby birds at 6 a.m. The birds need to be fed every 15 minutes until 7 at night. If she’s not feeding them, other staff at the Fox Valley Wildlife Center in Elburn, Illinois take turns helping the hungry orphans.

When the center’s resident birds, opossums, squirrels and other wildlife aren’t being fed, cleaned or cared for, Craig, Fox Valley’s director of animal care, finds herself trying to answer the seemingly ceaseless stream of calls from concerned citizens who’ve come across a hapless animal and don’t know what to do about it.

“Phones have been ringing off the hook,” she says.

Fox Valley and other wildlife rehabilitation centers across the country have seen a large increase in calls from the public since coronavirus-lockdown orders took effect in March. Wildlife Rescue League in Virginia, a help line that gives advice or directs callers to local rehabbers, reports their calls have increased by 62% compared to last year, with staff now fielding more than 50 a day.

In any other year, this increase in volume wouldn’t surprise rescue centers. Spring is the normally their busiest season. It’s when birds make their spring migrations, snakes and bears come out of hibernation, and many animals time their mating behaviors to produce young as the days get warmer. This means people can encounter fledgling birds hopping on the ground, fawns lying still alongside a trail, or baby cottontail rabbits curled up in the grass. To humans they appear to be orphaned, when in fact the parents are usually keeping a watchful eye nearby or gathering food. Injuries also increase this time of year as lawnmowers nick rabbit nests, young squirrels fall out of trees, and birds encounter domestic cats or fly into windows.

“People have a tendency to panic,” says Beth Axelrod, president of the board of directors at the Wildlife Rescue League. “They feel empathy for an animal that they think is in need, which is good, but that puts them into panic mode, and they feel like they want to get this animal help right away.”

But this year things have shifted into overdrive. The pandemic has changed our normal routines — more people are spending time outside and becoming aware of the wildlife in their backyards or local parks.

It’s not that there are more orphaned or injured animals, it’s that people are paying more attention.

“People are home, they’re bored, they’re looking out the window, they’re going on walks, they’re actually paying more attention, or they have the time to look an animal up and find out where it’s supposed to go, “ says Melissa Anahory, programs and operation assistant at Woodlands Wildlife Refuge in Pittstown, New Jersey.

Woodlands Wildlife Refuge has taken in 250 more animals than this time last year. At Fox Valley, they’re up 1,000 animals. Several rehabbers I reached out to for this article were unavailable for interviews because they were so overwhelmed with constant animal intake and care.

 

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Wildlife rehabilitators in big cities aren’t experiencing the same surge in calls as their more suburban or rural counterparts. Downtown Washington, D.C. is seeing fewer calls than its surrounding counties. In Manhattan, Jerry Basford, a volunteer and board member at the Wild Bird Fund, says he isn’t surprised. “Fewer cars on the road means fewer pigeons getting hit.”

What did surprise Basford, though, was the increase in donations. Both online and onsite donations have doubled.

“We thought our donations were really going to dry up,” he says. “You know, people out of work, et cetera. And it’s been just the opposite. It almost seems like people really want to do something.”

People who bring animals to wildlife rehabilitators tend to become donors, explains Anahory. This year that means the more animals that come in, the more donations they receive to help rehabilitation centers stay open during the pandemic.

Beyond donating money, volunteerism is on the rise — or at least, the desire to volunteer. The Woodlands Wildlife Refuge, Wildlife Rescue League and the Owl Moon Raptor Center in Boyds, Maryland, have all seen an uptick in requests to volunteer. Jaci Rutiser, a longtime volunteer at Owl Moon, says there have been so many requests to help since the start of the pandemic that they’ve had to start a waitlist.

Unfortunately, for wildlife rehabilitation centers, the threat of COVID-19 has meant cutting volunteers and limiting the amount of staff that can be present at the same time. Many wildlife rehabilitators who are licensed to practice in their homes have shut down their operations because the risk of exposure to illness is too great. The animals that would normally go to them are now going to the centers that have remained open.

This places additional stress on workers and volunteers. Axelrod says a typical summer was already demanding, with up to 30 calls a day. “So having over 50 calls a day is even more challenging.”

Craig points out that a lot of the calls Fox Valley receives are from people who don’t understand normal wildlife behavior — and that means more opportunity for education.

“Most of our calls are from people finding animals in their yard or out on nature walks,” she says. “And since so many more people are doing those things right now, we’re getting a lot more of those kinds of calls. A lot of them we’re able to give advice over the phone, and the advice is typically, that’s a natural behavior. Leave it be.”

The pandemic may be unprecedented in our experience, but experts says this desire to do more follows patterns we’ve seen during other tumultuous times. Alison Cawood, marine ecologist and citizen science coordinator at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, notes that big changes such as elections or natural disasters often inspire spikes in people wanting to do something bigger than themselves, whether it’s reporting a species on a citizen science app or calling a wildlife rehabilitator about an injured animal.

“When things are more stressful, I think a lot of people want to do something to help,” she says. “You can’t fix whatever the big thing is, but here are these things that you can do. You can help the environment.”

What happens next? As many states ease lockdown restrictions, and as summer turns to fall, wildlife rehabilitators expect they’ll soon experience a well-earned reprieve from tending to baby animals and answering continuous phone calls. But this period — and rehabbers’ efforts — could leave a lasting impact. Thanks to them, many people will be returning to work or classrooms better informed about the wildlife that exists around them.

And those concerned citizens and rehabilitators may emerge from this first perilous chapter of the pandemic knowing that, because of their attention, thousands of animals have been given a second chance at life.

Previously in The Revelator:

Rehabilitating Injured Wildlife Taught Me to Look at Both Life and Death

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The Informal Blue Economy: East Africa’s Silent Shark Killer

Subsistence, artisanal and small-scale fisheries represent a previously unrecognized threat to many protected shark and ray species.

Gunter Pauli famously developed his Blue Economy concept, a global business model for marine resource use, based on the principles of using local resources in a responsible manner and injecting money back into the local economy. This has been widely applied to fisheries around the world. Yet because much of the world’s fish is caught by foreign vessels and consumed thousands of miles from capture sites, Pauli’s locally focused concept is not that simple in our globalized economy and world fisheries (and COVID-19 reminds us that globalization is not always positive).

Such fishery products are neither local nor low-cost. They carry the burden of big input costs (often requiring financial subsidies) and take away potential food and income from local communities. Furthermore, (over)fishing linked to these international operations has already caused major declines in fish populations globally. Nevertheless, fishing remains central to the Blue Economy plans of many nations.

As this concept continues to grow, and as the world celebrates television’s Shark Week, we have an important question: How will global Blue Economy plans treat sharks and rays?

Healthy ecosystems (upon which fishers rely) depend on sharks and rays fulfilling their ecological roles as apex and meso-predators. Furthermore, because they grow slowly and produce few offspring, few shark and ray species are resilient to fishing pressure. Despite this many species are caught as bycatch or targeted for meat, fins or other lucrative products. As a result a quarter of all shark and ray species globally face the threat of extinction. This makes sharks and rays very poorly suited to Blue Economies built around fishing.

We see this clearly in East Africa, where the Western Indian Ocean contributes significantly to world fisheries, including 13% of reported global shark catches from 2003-2018, according to data compiled by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. Many of these species are threatened and listed on one or more global conservation conventions, such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) or the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS). Few are legally protected in this region.

Hammerhead
Scalloped hammerhead shark (IUCN critically endangered) constitute significant proportions of artisanal catches in East Africa. Photo: Christelle Razafindrakoto © WCS

But there are other fishing sectors, which often slide under the radar. Subsistence, artisanal and small-scale fisheries operate across much of the globe and, despite their relatively informal operations, provide critical sources of income and protein for millions of people in coastal areas, particularly in developing nations. But what impact are they having on fish stocks, and how does this compare to industrial fisheries?

In most cases we simply don’t know, because many such fisheries are poorly regulated and their catches are poorly monitored.

Fishermen
Fishermen in Tanzania. Photo: Rod Waddington (CC BY-SA 2.0)

However, where such fisheries are being monitored, emerging data reveal that some contribute significantly to national catches. In Mozambique, for example, catch reconstructions indicate that artisanal and subsistence fishers may be catching as much as three times the industrial sector, suggesting that total catches are being grossly underestimated.

These fisheries therefore play a major role in the overall fisheries of many countries and contribute enormously to peoples’ income and food security.

In the process these fisheries also contribute to an economy we might describe as “informal” because they’re barely monitored or regulated. At the same time, these operations form part of a highly organized and efficient network that has informally “unlocked” local marine resources.

We might call this the Informal Blue Economy, the Blue Economy’s not-so-little cousin — and it has a staggeringly large impact on sharks and rays.

wedgefish
Near full-term bottlenose wedgefish (IUCN critically endangered) removed from a large pregnant female, landed in a coastal fishery in East Africa. Photo: Faki Haji © WCS

Thanks to an increase in monitoring of these Informal Blue Economy fisheries in recent years, we now know that in East Africa subsistence, artisanal and small-scale fisheries catch many threatened shark species. Longlines and gillnets set in shallow areas catch a diversity of ray species, including endangered mobula rays and guitarfishes, and critically endangered wedgefishes.

There appears to be a targeted fishery for critically endangered hammerhead sharks in northeast Madagascar. Targeted fisheries likewise appear to exist in Tanzania and Kenya for pelagic sharks, including vulnerable silky sharks, endangered mako and thresher sharks, and critically endangered oceanic whitetip sharks — all of which are CITES-listed and heavily affected by industrial fisheries.

Of the 27 CITES-listed shark and ray species that occur in the region, at least 20 are caught and killed in these fisheries. In some places juveniles and pregnant females form significant components of the catches, compounding the challenge of these species’ slow reproductive rates.

The emerging data reveal that an Informal Blue Economy operates along the East African coastline, where it very efficiently catches and kills sharks, rays and other species. Until recently, this has gone largely unrecorded. To go back to Pauli, while these informal fisheries are using local resources and injecting money back into the local economy, this is not being done in a responsible manner.

Thanks to this new understanding, this problem has started to attract attention on national and international levels. Our colleagues at WCS have been working with government and local partners to achieve a better Blue Economy and ensure that sharks and rays are appropriately and sustainably managed. We look with optimism to seeing progress on shark and ray conservation as a result in the coming years.

The opinions expressed above are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of The Revelator, the Center for Biological Diversity or their employees.

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For Species That Rely on Wind, Climate Change Won’t Be a Breeze

Plants that depend on wind for pollination or seed dispersal may face challenges as warming temperatures force species to shift their ranges, according to a new study.

Warming temperatures on land and in the water are already forcing many species to seek out more hospitable environments. Atlantic mackerel are swimming farther north; mountain-dwelling pikas are moving upslope; some migratory birds are altering the timing of their flights.

Numerous studies have tracked these shifting ranges, looked at the importance of wildlife corridors to protect these migrations, and identified climate refugia where some species may find a safer climatic haven.

“There’s a huge amount of scientific literature about where species will have to move as the climate warms,” says U.C. Berkeley biogeographer Matthew Kling. “But there hasn’t been much work in terms of actually thinking about how they’re going to get there — at least not when it comes to wind-dispersed plants.”

Kling and David Ackerly, professor and dean of the College of Natural Resources at U.C. Berkeley, have taken a stab at filling this knowledge gap. Their recent study, published in Nature Climate Change, looks at the vulnerability of wind-dispersed species to climate change.

It’s an important field of research, because while a fish can more easily swim toward colder waters, a tree may find its wind-blown seeds landing in places and conditions where they’re not adapted to grow.

Kling is careful to point out that the researchers weren’t asking how climate change was going to change wind; other research suggests there likely won’t be big shifts in global wind patterns.

Wisps of cottongrass blows in the wind
Cottongrass blows in the wind at the edge of Etivlik Lake, Alaska. The plant is a sedge with wind-dispersed seeds. Photo: Western Arctic National Parklands, (CC BY 2.0)

Instead the study involved exploring those wind patterns — including direction, speed and variability — across the globe. The wind data was then integrated with data on climate variation to build models trying to predict vulnerability patterns showing where wind may either help or hinder biodiversity from responding to climate change.

One of the study’s findings was that wind-dispersed or wind-pollinated trees in the tropics and on the windward sides of mountain ranges are more likely to be vulnerable, since the wind isn’t likely to move those dispersers in the right direction for a climate-friendly environment.

The researchers also looked specifically at lodgepole pines, a species that’s both wind-dispersed and wind-pollinated.

They found that populations of lodgepole pines that already grow along the warmer and drier edges of the species’ current range could very well be under threat due to rising temperatures and related climate alterations.

“As temperature increases, we need to think about how the genes that are evolved to tolerate drought and heat are going to get to the portions of the species’ range that are going to be getting drier and hotter,” says Kling. “So that’s what we were able to take a stab at predicting and estimating with these wind models — which populations are mostly likely to receive those beneficial genes in the future.”

That’s important, he says, because wind-dispersed species like pines, willows and poplars are often keystone species whole ecosystems depend upon — especially in temperate and boreal forests.

And there are even more plants that rely on pollen dispersal by wind.

“That’s going to be important for moving genes from the warmer parts of a species’ range to the cooler parts of the species’ range,” he says. “This is not just about species’ ranges shifting, but also genetic changes within species.”

Kling says this line of research is just beginning, and much more needs to be done to test these models in the field. But there could be important conservation-related benefits to that work.

“All these species and genes need to migrate long distances and we can be thinking more about habitat connectivity and the vulnerability of these systems,” he says.

The more we learn, the more we may be able to do to help species adapt.

“The idea is that there will be some landscapes where the wind is likely to help these systems naturally adapt to climate change without much intervention, and other places where land managers might really need to intervene,” he says. “That could involve using assisted migration or assisted gene flow to actually get in there, moving seeds or planting trees to help them keep up with rapid climate change.”

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Sharks: Imperiled, Maligned, Fascinating

A collection of our best articles and essays about some the world’s most at-risk groups of species — and what we can learn from them.

Here at The Revelator, we love a good shark story.

The problem is, there aren’t all that many good shark stories. According to recent research, sharks and their relatives represent one of the world’s most imperiled groups of species. Of the more than 1,250 known species of sharks, skates, rays and chimeras — collectively known as chondrichthyan fishes — at least a quarter are threatened with extinction.

That’s just what we know so far. About half of all shark species have a conservation status of “data deficient,” meaning we have no idea how well they’re doing or whether they’re at risk.

But that’s why it’s so important to tell stories about sharks. They’re our lens into issues like conservation, ocean protection, overfishing, coastal development, wildlife trafficking and so much more. And as frequently maligned species — Jaws, anyone? — sharks also help us to understand our relationship with predators that may seem scary but don’t really pose much of a threat.

Sharks also give us an opportunity to talk about people — the people living near them, the people harming them, the people who rely on them, and most importantly the experts working to understand and conserve them.

And honestly, sharks are just fascinating. They come in all manner of shapes and sizes; often boast amazing behaviors; serve important roles in their ecosystems; and have wide and varied reproductive strategies — some of which make them more vulnerable to exploitation. Oh, and most of them look pretty cool (although there are a few oddities in the bunch — we’re talking about you, goblin sharks).

So let’s keep talking about sharks — whether it’s during Shark Week or the other 51 weeks of the year.

With that in mind, we’ve collected our best essays and articles about sharks and related conservation issues (and we’ll add to this list as we go along). Check them out below:

Speaking of Shark Week:

Film Fakery: Does Shark Week Harm Conservation Efforts?

Big Questions:

Are We Ready for Shark Conservation to Succeed?

Sharks and Fisheries:

How to Protect Sharks From Overfishing

Florida Anglers Are Targeting Endangered Sharks

Fishing for Fun? It Has a Bigger Environmental Impact Than We Thought

Fins from Protected Shark Species Still Heavily Traded

‘Essential’ But Unprotected: How the United States Fails Its Most Important Fish Habitats

The Informal Blue Economy: East Africa’s Silent Shark Killer

How the United States Must Help Sharks Around the World

Sharks and the Extinction Crisis:

Found But Lost: Newly Discovered Shark May Be Extinct

A Chance to Save the ‘Rhinos of the Sea’

Shark Quest: Are the World’s Most Endangered Rays Living in New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea?

What Losing 1 Million Species Means for the Planet — and Humanity

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

Broader Ocean and Conservation Issues:

The Top 10 Ocean Biodiversity Hotspots to Protect

How Do You Protect a Species You Can’t See?

Here’s Our Best Opportunity to Save the Oceans — and Ourselves

Coral in Crisis: Can Replanting Efforts Halt Reefs’ Death Spiral?

What Are the Biggest Challenges for Saving the Oceans?

Empowering Communities to Save the Ocean

Something Fishy: Toxic Plastic Pollution Is Traveling Up the Food Chain

Trump’s Offshore Oil Plan: Like Nothing the Country Has Ever Seen

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Can Cities Go Zero-waste? One Japanese Town Tried

Kamikatsu famously declared its goal was to go waste-free by 2020, but it didn’t quite get there. Their experience shows we can’t move further without systemic changes.

One of the many unfortunate outcomes of the coronavirus pandemic has been the quick and obvious increase in single-use plastic products. After COVID-19 arrived in the United States, many grocery stores prohibited customers from using reusable bags, coffee shops banned reusable mugs, and takeout food with plastic forks and knives became the new normal.

Despite recent scientific evidence that reusables don’t transmit the virus, the plastic industry has lobbied hard for a return to all things disposable plastic. Inevitably, a lot of that plastic will continue to flow into our environment.

While COVID-19 has certainly thrown a wrench into the hard-earned progress we’d been making in reducing waste, eliminating plastic pollution entirely was always going to be challenging — with or without a pandemic. The jarring rise of single-use plastics is an expedited version of a familiar trend. Plastic production has been steadily increasing for quite some time.

As a zero-waste advocate, I’ve seen how the tsunami of plastic continuously being produced and flooding our planet has made achieving zero-waste goals incredibly difficult. The sheer amount makes it hard to safely and efficiently dispose of plastic, no matter how hard we try.

But as I examine the problem, and search for solutions, I keep coming back to one noteworthy example.

In 2003 the small Japanese town of Kamikatsu set an ambitious zero-waste declaration, aiming to be 100% waste-free by 2020. The goal was to produce no trash, meaning everything from food packaging to unwanted clothing to yesterday’s newspaper should be reused, repurposed into new goods, or recycled.

Now that 2020 has arrived, we can see the result: In the 17 years since establishing its goal, Kamikatsu transitioned from openly incinerating all its trash to reusing and recycling 80% of its waste.

While the town made incredible progress, it ultimately fell short of its 100% goal. Its main issue? Unrecyclable plastic packaging and mixed materials still end up in the trash.

As one resident explained to the AFP news agency last year, “Our lifestyle depends mainly on plastic. Consumers can reduce plastic waste to a certain extent, but we’ll still have waste if producers keep making plastic products.”

Kamikatsu Yuki Shimazu
Kamikatsu, Japan. Photo: Yuki Shimazu (CC BY-SA 2.0)

This reveals a worldwide truth: Even products made mostly from easily recyclable materials like paper, aluminum or cardboard can’t be sorted and recycled if they contain plastic components that can’t be separated.

The truth is, some materials simply aren’t recyclable, and only 9% of all the plastic ever created has been recycled. As Kamikatsu’s residents have painstakingly proven, no matter how many categories consumers sort their waste into or how diligently they scrub down their plastic food containers, most plastics cannot be recycled.

Meanwhile we keep hearing the industry-driven narrative that recycling can stop plastic from choking our marine life or littering our natural places. That’s intentionally misleading.

Around the world, as in Kamikatsu, plastic is everywhere. With excessive amounts of plastic products and packaging stocked on store shelves, it’s clear that zero-waste goals cannot be achieved by consumers alone. Plastic is not a “zero waste” material, so in order to achieve zero waste, companies must stop making so much plastic.

marine debris
Marine debris collected at Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. Photo: NOAA

We can achieve that. The first steps include banning some of the worst and most polluting single-use plastics, placing a pause on the development of new plastics facilities, and protecting state and local governments’ ability to enact more stringent regulations.

We must also shift the paradigm by holding producers responsible for the waste they create. By requiring new plastic products to contain recycled plastic and making producers fund the collection and recycling of plastic products, producers would be incentivized to design longer lasting products that can actually be reused and recycled.

These goals — outlined in numerous scientific studies and advocacy reports — have some forward motion. In the United States, a federal bill was recently introduced in both the House and the Senate, the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act. If passed this bill — or others like it on the local, state or national levels — could help move the world beyond single-use plastics and make that needed systemic change a reality.

The bill hasn’t moved forward since it was introduced this past February, but the world is still on a deadline. A recent study published in the journal Science looked at rising levels of plastic production and said “coordinated global action is urgently needed to reduce plastic consumption, increase rates of reuse, waste collection and recycling, expand safe disposal systems and accelerate innovation in the plastic value chain.”

Requiring producers to stop making nonrecyclable products designed to be thrown out is the first step toward achieving that goal. Only then will Kamikatsu and other towns, cities and countries around the world finally be able to eliminate plastic pollution and reach 100% zero waste.

The opinions expressed above are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of The Revelator, the Center for Biological Diversity or their employees.

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