Texas Power Crisis: Three Causes, What We Can Learn

A power crisis in Texas caused by severe winter weather exposed the need for a climate-resilient system.

The rolling blackouts in Texas were national news. Texas calls itself the energy capital of the United States, yet it couldn’t keep the lights on. Conservatives were quick to blame reliance on wind power, just as they did last summer when California faced power interruptions due to a heat wave. What really happened?

It’s true that there was some loss of wind power in Texas due to icing on turbine blades. Unlike their counterparts further north, Texas wind operators weren’t prepared for severe weather conditions. But this was a relatively minor part of the problem.

The much bigger problem was loss of power from gas-fired power plants and a nuclear plant. The drop of gas generation has been attributed to freezing pipelines, diversion of gas for residential heating and equipment malfunctioning.

Texas faced a wave of very unusual cold weather, just as California faced an unusual heatwave last summer. What’s notable, however, is that in other ways the two systems are quite different. Texas has perhaps the most thoroughly deregulated electricity system in the country.

California experimented with its own deregulation, abandoned much of the effort after a crisis, and now has a kind of hybrid system. California and Texas are in opposing camps on climate policy. Yet both states got into similar trouble.

What happened in these states points to three pervasive problems.

The first is that we haven’t solved the problem of ensuring that the electricity system has the right amount of generating capacity. In states with traditional rate regulation, utilities have an incentive to overbuild capacity because they’re guaranteed a profit on their investments. Since there’s no competition, they have no incentive to innovate either. Iinstead, they have an incentive to keep old power plants going too long, contributing to air pollution and carbon emissions.

In other states, where utilities generally buy their power on the market, the income from power sales is based on short-term power needs and doesn’t necessarily provide enough incentive for long-term investments. That could be part of the problem in both California and Texas.

Some regional grid operators have established what are called capacity markets. At least judging from its record in the largest region (PJM), this has resulted in excess capacity and has encouraged inefficient aging generators to stay in the market. In short, we’ve got too little generation or too much, but we haven’t found the Goldilocks point of “just right.”

The second problem is that we haven’t made the power system resilient enough.

The heatwave that interfered with the California grid has been linked to climate change. It’s not clear whether the exceptionally cold weather in Texas was also linked to climate change, although climate change does seem to be disrupting the polar vortex that can contribute to severe winter conditions.

power lines and clouds — Power lines in Webster, TX. Photo: BFS Man (CC BY-NC 2.0)

In Texas, the weather didn’t just impact the electrical system: the natural gas system suffered from frozen pipes, reducing gas supply to power generators.

Climate change is throwing more and more severe weather events at energy systems from Puerto Rico to California, yet our planning has not come to grips with the need to adapt to these risks. Microgrids, increased energy storage and improved demand response may furnish part of the answer.

The third problem relates to the transmission system.

Among the causes of the California blackouts, a key transmission line to the Pacific Northwest was down for weather-related reasons. This is another example of the broad failure to make the grid resilient enough for an era of climate change. Texas has deliberately shackled itself by cutting the state off from the national power grid in order to avoid federal regulation.

This leaves it unable to draw on outside resources in times of crisis. This is all part of a much larger problem: The United States badly needs additional transmission, but political barriers have stymied expansion of the transmission system.

The term “wake up call” is over used but seems applicable here. If we don’t wake up to the need for a climate-resilient power system, we will face even bigger trouble ahead.

This story was reprinted with permission from Legal Planet. Read the original here.

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

The Staggering Decline of Oceanic Sharks and Rays

New research shows that oceanic shark and ray abundance has declined by nearly three-quarters since 1970, and industrialized fishing is to blame.

Oceanic sharks and rays live so far from land that the average person is unlikely to ever see them. But these species, which live in the vast open ocean, are also among the most revered, and include the great white shark and the giant manta ray. For millennia, their remoteness has allowed these species to largely avoid humans. But since the early 1950s, industrial-scale fishing fleets have been able to reach distant waters and gradually spread to exploit the entire global ocean.

Rising demand over the same period for shark and ray meat, as well as fins, gill plates and liver oil, has caused catches of the 30 or so oceanic species to soar. Marine biologists have been raising the alarm for several decades now, but their warnings were often limited to what regional trends showed. Now, new research has brought together disparate threads of data into a single, global analysis of shark and ray populations in the open ocean.

Worldwide, oceanic shark and ray abundance has declined by 71% since 1970. More than half of the 31 species examined are now considered to be endangered, or even critically endangered. Compare this with 1980 when only one species, the plankton-feeding basking shark, was thought to be endangered. These are stark statistics, and they indicate that the future for the ocean’s top predators is fast deteriorating.

Nose Dive

To arrive at the first global perspective on oceanic shark and ray population trends, the study synthesized a huge amount of data. The researchers calculated two separate indicators of biodiversity, using indexes established by the Convention on Biological Diversity to track progress towards international targets. They used state-of-the-art modeling to estimate trends in the relative abundance of species. One of the indicators combined assessments of 31 species by the IUCN Red List over a 38-year period.

The results revealed huge declines in the abundance of sharks in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans. Once abundant species such as the oceanic whitetip shark have declined by 75% globally in just the past half-century, while populations of the endangered shortfin mako shark — valued for its meat and fins — have shrunk by about 40%. Manta ray populations have suffered even greater losses.

The study attributes these declines to overfishing. The researchers documented a greater than twofold increase in fishing pressure from longline fisheries for instance, which use lines stretching 100km and bearing 1,200 baited hooks. These lines are deployed each day by any one of the thousands of longlining vessels worldwide, snaring sharks in the open ocean either intentionally or as bycatch while targeting other marine life.

The study also found increases in the proportion of sharks that are being fished beyond sustainable levels. But it’s particularly worrying that unreported catches weren’t included in the study’s analyses. This means the number of sharks and rays killed by fishing boats is likely to be an underestimate and the actual declines of these species may be even worse. Unlike most species of bony fish, sharks and rays produce few offspring and grow slowly. The rate at which they reproduce is clearly no match for current levels of industrialized fishing.

dead sharks at fish market — Shortfin Makos. Photo: José Antonio Gil Martínez, (CC BY 2.0).

Regulating the High Seas

Immediate and far-reaching action is needed to rebuild these populations. It’s clear that the rate of overfishing has outstripped the implementation of fisheries management measures and trade regulations. Since most oceanic sharks and rays are caught in the high seas — areas beyond national jurisdictions — agreements between fishing nations within management organizations are needed for conservation measures to work.

But, as this new study details, fishery limits imposed by management organizations of regional tuna fisheries — bodies tasked with managing oceanic sharks and ray populations — have been largely inadequate in following scientific advice. As recently as November 2020, the European Union and United States blocked a catch retention ban for North Atlantic shortfin mako sharks, despite scientific evidence clearly indicating that it was the first rung on a ladder to restoring this population of an endangered species.

To begin the recovery of oceanic shark and ray populations, strict measures to prohibit landings of these species and to minimize their bycatch in other fisheries are needed immediately. This must be coupled with strict enforcement.

Reducing the number of sharks and rays caught accidentally will be crucial but challenging, especially for longline fishing, which is not very selective and inadvertently catches lots of different species. This currently means that bans on intentional fishing are unlikely to be effective on their own. One solution would include modifying fishing gear and improving how fishers release sharks and rays after capture, to give them a better chance of survival.

An equally important measure, noted in the current study, would be banning fishing fleets from hotspots of oceanic sharks and rays. Research published in 2019 highlighted where these areas in the global ocean overlap with fishing vessels most. Led by the United N, negotiations are underway for a high seas treaty which would create no-take marine reserves to protect threatened species in the open ocean. This new study should urge the international community to take such action while there’s still time.

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

Previously in The Revelator:

Sharks: Imperiled, Maligned, Fascinating

The Rebuilding Years Begin

The Biden-Harris administration must act quickly to reverse and repair Trump’s environmental destruction. Here’s how to do it.

(Originally published Jan. 20, 2021. Updated.)

The period of the 45th presidency will go down as dark days for the United States — not just for the violent insurgency and impeachment that capped off Donald Trump’s four years in office, but for every regressive action that came before.

It’s been said that Trump was the worst environmental president in history, and that’s easy to see from his administration’s record. They rolled back decades of environmental progress by slashing protective regulations, strangled the agencies tasked with enforcing the regulations that remained, pushed corporate agendas damaging to wildlife, human health and the climate, and stoked the flames of right-wing extremists — including people whose radical agendas often attack public-land protections or climate science.

That barely covers it all, of course. It would take an entire book — a whole library — to fully convey the environmental damage done under Trump.

And now it’s up to a new administration — and the work of a lot of people on top of it — to undo the damage and hopefully make up for four lost years of potential progress.

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, together with the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, have a tough task ahead of them.

Make that many tough tasks. They’ll need to rebuild the ranks of government workforces while reinforcing the trust in government and the trust in America on the world stage. They’ll need to pass and restore regulations that don’t just return us to the status quo but radically improve on it — taking the world forward at a time when the effects of climate change and the extinction crisis continue to worsen. 2020 tied for the hottest year on record, and Trump added fewer species to the Endangered Species Act than any other president while slashing protections for those already on the list. They’ll need to address environmental justice at a time when white supremacy is at its most vocal point in decades and firmly entrenched in some areas of government. They’ll need to resist the usual corporate influence that could slow things down along the way.

And they’ll need to do it all while helping the country stabilize and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and Trump’s botched response to the crisis, not to mention the continued threat from seditious domestic terrorists.

That’s a lot on one plate, but they’re already off to a good start. Biden and Harris ran on a strong climate platform and have assembled an experienced climate team. Neither the platform nor the team is perfect — progressives think they can do much better — but they’re light years ahead of anything we saw under the previous administration.

And of course, now that the Democrats have won the Senate, Biden’s cabinet picks are more likely to be confirmed and the country will no longer face the obstruction ever-present under the majority leadership of Mitch McConnell.

But at the same time, Republicans have risen to power in cities and state legislatures around the country, and many of them are still fueled by MAGA Trumpism and unhinged conspiracy theories. The right-wing media, meanwhile, continue to shape and mold millions with their unique brand of misinformation and discord. Both trends will present a barrier to progress at every level.

So what’s the agenda for moving forward under the Biden-Harris administration? Below, you’ll find a series of articles and expert commentaries from The Revelator’s archives addressing key steps the incoming team can take to restore the EPA, protect key species, address the COVID-19 pandemic in a just and climate-focused manner, and more.

We’ll continue to add to these roadmaps as the administration gets its footing, and we invite any insiders and experts to contribute their own voices.

Reform the Bureau of Land Management: Biden Must Succeed Where Obama Failed

For a Path Forward on Climate, Let’s Learn From the Original New Deal

Gray Wolf Recovery and Survival Require Immediate Action by the Biden Administration

Biden Can Restore the EPA, But It Will Require Steadfast Effort

How Biden Can Do More Than Just Restore Trump’s Environmental Rollbacks

Biden-Harris Climate Plan: ‘Not Trump’ Is Not Enough

Biden Must Take a Leadership Role Against Wildlife Crime

Multisolving Our Way to COVID-19 Economic Recovery

Biden Can Leverage Larger Trends to Make Climate Progress

Biden Moves to Dial Down America’s Soaring Methane Emissions

And here’s a report from our parent organization, the Center for Biological Diversity:

50 Critical Environmental Reforms President Biden Can Enact Without Congress

The Extinction Crisis: Coming to a Dinner Table Near You?

Wild plants related to our main agricultural crops are important to future food security. But more than half are endangered, a new study finds.

For 10,000 years we’ve relied on domesticated plants for our staple foods. But it’s the wild relatives of those crops that are becoming increasingly important to our future food supply.

Over hundreds of thousands of years, these wild foods have adapted to pests, diseases, extreme climates and other inhospitable conditions. That makes their genes particularly important for plant breeding, especially when we’re looking for foods that can withstand a changing climate. Some varieties are still key food and cultural resources today, too.

In a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers have taken stock of these wild foods and the conservation threats they face. They inventoried and modeled the distribution of 600 native wild taxa in the United States, including the relatives of barley, beans, grapes, hops, plums, potatoes and other foods.

What they found was concerning: More than half of the wild relatives are endangered in their native habitats. And that poses a threat to our future.

“The contributions of crop wild relatives to food security depend on their conservation and accessibility for use,” the researchers wrote. With mounting extinction threats, the researchers recommended that three quarters of the taxa be deemed an “urgent priority” for collection to boost conservation.

To do that we need a multipronged approach.

“Given the diversity of U.S. native crop wild relatives prioritized for action, ambitious collaborative conservation efforts are needed among gene banks, botanical gardens, community conservation initiatives, and organizations focused on habitat conservation,” they wrote.

So far ex situ conservation — in gene banks and botanical gardens — is insufficient. The study showed 14% of the plants were entirely absent from these repositories, and another 33% were found in fewer than 10 locations. That leaves us with “relatively limited genetic variation for research and education,” the researchers concluded.

drawer with seed packets — Crop Wild Relatives seed bank at the International Potato Center, Lima Peru. Photo: Michael Major, Crop Trust, (CC BY-ND 2.0)

Better collaboration with botanical gardens, hobby gardeners and citizen conservationists can help close that gap, they recommend.

Outside of seed banks and gardens, protecting the habitat where these species grow naturally is also important.

Based on the researchers’ mapping of the potential distribution of the plants, some are likely to be found in areas that are already protected — such as the Patuxent Research Refuge, the Grand Canyon, Olympic National Park, the Indiana Dunes, Gulf Islands, Yellowstone and other areas.

But more habitat conservation efforts are needed, and that may include the widening of current protected areas or the establishment of new protected spaces, they write.

That can be tough to do with competing demands on land, but it will also provide additional benefits.

Conserving these natural habitats, the study finds, will help safeguard ecosystems and other species, providing both “known as well as currently unrecognized benefits to society.”

Beyond the work of scientists and land managers, the fate of these wild foods may come down to better public awareness. And for that, botanical gardens could be the best champions.

“While all involved organizations will need to enhance their public outreach around native crop wild relatives,” the researchers conclude, “botanical gardens, which receive more than 120 million visitors a year in the United States, could play a particularly pivotal role in introducing these species to people, communicating their value and plight, and better connecting the concepts of food security, agricultural livelihoods, and services provided by nature for the public.”

Previously in The Revelator:

A Crop Pandemic Would Be as Devastating for Biodiversity and Food Security as COVID-19

Stormwater Could Become an Important Water Source — If We Stopped Ignoring It

Collecting runoff from rain and other precipitation to aid water supply has great potential, but its many benefits are often overlooked.

Climate change and other environmental pressures are already putting the pinch on water resources in California, the Southwest and other arid parts of the world. Over-tapped groundwater, rivers and lakes are forcing water managers to find new supplies.

Some of these can be costly, like treating wastewater for drinking water. Or they can come with a hefty price tag and outsized environmental footprint, like desalination or new dams.

There’s another option on the table, though: stormwater. If we do the accounting right, runoff from precipitation is a cost-effective supplementary water resource, experts say. But it’s often overlooked because we don’t know how to fully assess the economics of its many benefits, finds a report by Sarah E. Diringer, Morgan Shimabuku and Heather Cooley of the global water think-tank the Pacific Institute.

The water that runs off hard surfaces like streets and roofs has typically been considered a nuisance. It can result in flooding and cause water-quality concerns. Usually it’s directed into storm drains in urban areas and funneled to treatment plants or, in coastal communities, dumped into the ocean.

But in our water-constrained world, stormwater can be a benefit and not a burden. For example, a 2014 report found that urban communities in the San Francisco Bay Area and Southern California could get up to 10% of their water supply from stormwater.

Stormwater projects vary in size, scale and scope. Some can be small-scale harvesting projects that can collect rainwater from rooftops before it flows across city streets. Others are large aquifer-recharge efforts where stormwater (or sometimes floodwater outside urban areas) is infiltrated back into the ground to boost overdrafted groundwater.

stormwater storage pipes — Construction of the underground storage tanks at Edison High School in Minneapolis to capture stormwater runoff to irrigate the nearby athletic fields. Photo: Mississippi Watershed Management Organization, (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Many stormwater projects can provide additional benefits besides just supplementing the water supply. Experts have found they can also reduce flood risk, improve habitat, reduce urban temperatures and energy use, create recreational space, and increase property values.

For their study, the Pacific Institute researchers looked at dozens of proposed projects in California. They found that properly accounting for all these additional benefits can be difficult and is often overlooked as water agencies and municipalities compare the economics of different options to boost water resources.

If stormwater doesn’t appear cost-competitive, it’s much harder to get the capital necessary to build and scale new projects. That can cause municipalities to miss out on a potential source of water — and its other associated benefits.

The researchers say including stormwater projects’ economic benefits in the way those projects are presented to community decision-makers could help make runoff capture and use more widespread.

“By including the economic value of co-benefits provided by stormwater capture, projects can be more fairly compared, and the full benefits of these projects can more easily be realized by water agencies and the public they serve,” the researchers wrote.

As climate change brings both bigger storms and bigger droughts, harnessing the potential of stormwater capture could become a crucial tool for resilience.

Why Indigenous Knowledge Matters to the Future of Fisheries

A groundbreaking program at the University of British Columbia draws from Indigenous knowledge and western science to develop the best tools for helping fisheries and communities.

Andrea Reid grew up surrounded by water on Canada’s Prince Edward Island with fish “very much just in my blood,” she says. When she went to college, she realized that fish could be a career, too.

The shape of that career began to form when she worked as a biologist on fish and fisheries in Uganda, Indonesia, the Philippines and the Solomon Islands. “I really began to see just how much fishers know,” she says. “And I started bringing that thinking home.”

Last month Reid, a citizen of the Nisga’a Nation, helped launch the Centre for Indigenous Fisheries at the University of British Columbia, where she’s an assistant professor in the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries.

The center aims to work on culturally significant fish and fisheries “through community-based approaches that put Indigenous needs, priorities and voices at the center of all our projects, research and outreach,” explains Reid, who serves as its principal investigator.

The Revelator spoke with her about how this approach to research differs from Western methods, how it can expand scientific processes and the challenges Indigenous fisheries face.

It seems like the work the center aims to do would break new ground. How do you think it could change research and the way fisheries science is conducted?

Andrea Reid, principal investigator at the Centre for Indigenous Fisheries. Photo: Alex Sarna

There’s nothing else that we know of that centers on community-based research and creating a space for Indigenous fisheries knowledge and methodologies in the university space in this country. We’re trying to fill a pretty critical gap.

At its core, it’s really about employing key principles of respect, responsibility, relationality, reciprocity — building those elements that are foundational to many Indigenous world views into how we move through the research process.

A lot of Indigenous research methodologies are deeply community centered and are trying to move us away from the model that has pervaded in Western science for a long time, which is researchers coming into communities, extracting data and using it for their own needs and purposes.

Putting Indigenous knowledge and communities at the forefront of research has the potential to change outcomes, but I think it can also change the way that we even ask questions. It certainly changes the way we go about answering them and how much difference the work actually makes. In the fisheries world there’s this slogan, “Bring fishers on board or miss the boat.” And the same applies to communities, right?

If we want to have people buying into these recommendations that we’re putting forward as scientists, we need to engage them in that process, have them understand what it is that we’re talking about and what the research is intended to achieve. If you do that, you can get a lot more buy-in and credibility in the work. It’s a whole different way of operating in many respects.

What threats do Indigenous fisheries face?

The Indigenous fisheries in which I have done a lot of my work on the Pacific Coast of Canada have been extremely long standing. They date back millennia and have really been shaped by the knowledge systems that have been passed down generation to generation.

Indigenous fisheries systems are often very well matched to the environment in which they’re set, where certain gear types or the times of year that you’re fishing or how you fish all match that environment.

There’s a great diversity in Indigenous cultures around the world so I don’t want to paint with too broad a brush, but a lot of Indigenous fisheries adhere to worldviews that center on relationality. Many see the fish as an extension of our lives. On the Pacific Coast, we identify as salmon people and we see salmon as relatives, not necessarily as commodities or resources.

That view really changes the way that one might operate in the fishery — whether you take everything that you can get your hands on, or maybe you take a small amount and leave some for the next family, the next person that comes along.

But Indigenous fisheries along the Pacific coast, but also around the world, share a lot of parallels in terms of colonial processes and their dispossession and displacement through colonization. In many cases Indigenous fishery systems have been placed in pronounced bounds where they can only operate in certain ways and under certain conditions. A lot of Indigenous fishery practices have been outlawed, banned or totally criminalized.

That’s the focus on one of your upcoming projects called “Fish Outlaws,” right?

Yes. That’s a new National Geographic Society-supported project that centers on telling stories around dispossession and criminalization, and how, in many cases, what we see here in Canada quite frequently today is that simply exercising constitutionally protected fishing rights can be deemed illegal in certain circumstances, with people getting heavy fines and even facing jail time for practicing what our constitution protects.

A big part of this project is aimed at bringing this to light to understand the histories of what we call “fish outlaws” — people who’ve been criminalized for simply participating in the fishery that has been passed down across generations and to which they have clear well-defended rights.

Where do you see the center’s work going as it develops? Will you start by focusing on Canada?

People on boat with fish — Taylor Wale, Andrea Reid and Collin Middleton on board the *Ocean Virtue* in 2016 where they were tagging and tracking Pacific salmon on BC’s North Coast. Photo: Katrina Cook

To begin we are focusing on British Columbia First Nations and partnering with communities and nations here. But I am also on the front end of developing a partnership in the Great Lakes of North America with nations and tribes on either side of the border looking at invasive sea lamprey.

There are also budding partnerships with fisheries in other contexts and communities. There’s a lot of parallels with Aboriginal fishers in Australia, with Māori fishers in New Zealand and native Hawaiian fishers. But again, we are focusing local and then overtime building into more of that trans-local community.

We’re starting as a small group of principally Indigenous scholars. And over time we really hope to grow what we’re doing so that this becomes a space for community members, fishers and managers — that they feel welcomed and see room for themselves in [academia, which] historically, has not been very kind to underrepresented groups. And there are not many Indigenous students in post-secondary education. There’s not many Indigenous students typically in science.

And so I hope that the creation of the Centre for Indigenous Fisheries doesn’t ask students to leave part of themselves at the door or to depart from their worldview in order to gain access. But that instead it creates a space for them and that over time it can really help to build strong partnerships with communities and grow beyond the confines of the university.

There is a Mi’kmaw teaching called Etuaptmumk or “two-eyed seeing.” And it’s carried by a specific elder currently, Dr. Albert Marshall, who’s doing a lot of work to bring it forward into the literature but also into public spaces as well.

It’s defined as learning to see from one eye with the strengths of Indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing, and from the other eye with the strengths of Western dominant or mainstream knowledge and ways of knowing. And learning to use both these eyes together for the benefit of all.

In our fisheries and in biodiversity at large, we’re facing so many big crises where we need all of the tools that are available at our disposal. And those can equally come from Indigenous knowledge systems as well as Western scientific ones. So it’s really about bringing together the best tools for the job.

How to Save Saltwater Wetlands From Rising Seas

The Biden administration has an opportunity — and a responsibility — to help save the coastal ecosystems that protect us.

America’s coastal saltwater wetlands are on a course toward functional extinction in the coming decades. Their demise will come at the hands of steadily accelerating sea-level rise and relentless coastal development. As these wetlands disappear, they will take with them habitat, storm buffering and carbon sequestration benefits of tremendous value.

Fortunately, there is still time to change course. A determined and coordinated effort by local, state and federal governments — led by the Biden administration — could dramatically increase the number of saltwater wetlands that survive and go a long way to maintaining their ecological and societal benefits into the future.

Saltwater Wetlands: To Know Them Is to Love Them

The most recent estimate of the extent of saltwater wetlands along the American coast, published in 2009, found some 6.4 million acres with about half occurring along the Gulf of Mexico. This is a mere remnant of their historic extent and a decline of some 95,000 acres from the previous assessment in 2004, largely in the Gulf of Mexico. Ominously, the rate of loss increased by 35% from the prior five-year reporting period.

The remaining saltwater wetlands still provide an impressive array of ecological services and benefits to society. Often termed “the most productive ecosystems on Earth” they are nursery grounds for fisheries and provide habitat for birds, mammals and other wildlife.

Wetlands also protect communities from storm surges and flooding. Along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts the protective value of wetlands is estimated to be about $1.8 million per square kilometer annually. On top of all that, saltwater wetlands help fight global warming by storing carbon at a rate that is about two to four times greater than that observed in mature tropical forests.

The Saltwater Wetland Extinction Scenario

Rising sea level and steady coastal urbanization pose an existential threat to saltwater wetlands.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts that sea level along much of the American coast is likely to rise by 2 to 4 feet, and may rise by as much as 8 feet, by 2100. And seas will continue to rise in the centuries to come, with an “intermediate” estimate of more than 9 feet by 2200.

scientists install device in wetland — NOAA’s National Geodetic Survey installs a device to provide data to model the fate of a Chesapeake Bay marsh in the face of rising water levels. Photo: National Ocean Service Image Gallery

The rising seas will eventually drown all the saltwater wetlands that now exist, converting them to open water. Some wetlands will survive in place for a time if seas rise slowly enough. But the rate of sea-level rise is accelerating rapidly and other factors, such as land subsidence, will shift the balance in favor of rising seas in the years ahead.

For most saltwater wetlands, survival will require landward migration. This is possible where geography does not present obstacles, such as steep slopes, and where human development has not already staked a claim. There is no national assessment of the feasibility of saltwater wetland migration, but several studies of smaller geographic areas present a bleak picture.

On the Pacific coast, some 83% of wetlands are projected to become open water by 2110 and “migration of most wetlands was constrained by coastal development or steep topography,” according to a 2018 study in Science Advances. Along the Gulf of Mexico, estimated conversion of wetlands to open water varies for each state, with rates from 24 to 37% by 2060.

The outlook for saltwater wetland survival darkens further when one considers new coastal development occupying dry land that might otherwise become a new wetland. Population in the 100-year coastal floodplain is expected to almost double by 2060, significantly expanding the coastal development footprint.

And the rising sea levels that drive wetlands inland will also prompt people to defend the land they are on, often with seawalls, bulkheads or levees. Some 14% of the coast is already armored by this infrastructure and, if the current rate of armoring continues, that percentage is expected to double by 2100.

Finally, wetlands that are able to migrate will need years to provide the same degree of ecosystem services they did originally. A study of over 600 restored wetlands worldwide found that biological structure and biogeochemical functioning “remained on average 26% and 23% lower, respectively, than in reference sites” even a century after restoration, which means that even the wetlands to do survive won’t provide the same benefits.

Envisioning a Strategy for Saving Saltwater Wetlands

What can be done to help saltwater wetlands survive the one-two punch of a changing climate and coastal development?

A critical step is to admit we have a problem and agree that we need a national response strategy. A national strategy should define a goal for saltwater wetlands protection (e.g., a net increase in acreage nationally and by state) and charge a federal agency (e.g., NOAA) with leading the effort.

The heart of a new strategy needs to be carefully planned for landward migration of saltwater wetlands and deployment of new authority and resources toward that end. This key objective is widely supported in the academic literature and the work to address it must engage local, state and federal agencies.

Since it’s been more than a decade since the last published assessment of the United States’ coastal wetlands, existing saltwater wetlands need to be mapped anew. Then their varying rates of natural change should be assessed and the feasibility of landward migration evaluated. Evaluation of migration should include obstacles, such as natural features, and both existing and likely future development. Coastal places that are not wetlands today but are well suited to become wetlands as sea level rises, should be identified. All this information should be used to develop place-specific plans to protect and preserve the land that wetlands will need to migrate inland on a priority basis.

While that work is going on, we’ll also need to focus on dampening the rate of population growth right along the coast. This will be essential to leave space for successful landward migration of saltwater wetlands. State and local government have diverse tools, including land-use plans and regulations, to apply to this challenge, but the federal government needs to help. For example, FEMA should stop issuing federal flood insurance for new development in coastal floodplains.

Another critical tool is expanded authority to restrict new coastal armoring projects that would prevent landward migration of saltwater wetlands. Eight states have implemented total or partial bans on coastal armoring, but efficacy and enforcement vary. All states should adopt and enforce such bans. These projects also require permits from the Army Corps of Engineers and existing requirements should be revised to give stronger preference for “living shorelines” that replace traditional structures with designs using biological and natural materials.

Workers developing living shoreline — Creating a “living shoreline” in the Delaware estuary. Photo: Danielle Kreeger (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

In some places, regulation will not be enough and acquisition of real estate will be necessary. Some states have land-acquisition programs that consider sea-level rise. For example, Maryland identifies “coastal lands with the highest potential to aid in adaptation if sea level rises a meter per century” and uses the assessment in making conservation investments. People in the San Francisco Bay area voted for Measure AA to provide local funds for wetlands protection in the face of sea-level rise. These programs and some others are a foothold but more states need to follow this example.

Federal agencies need to support these state initiatives by expanding modest existing federal programs that protect coastal wetlands to include purchasing land for prospective wetlands and removing buildings and other structures where needed.

Saving saltwater wetlands will require that Congress, federal agencies, states and local governments collaborate to agree on the strategy and then approve the new tools and funding needed to carry it forward. This will require years of effort, but the start of a new Congress and a new administration is an auspicious time to begin this important work.

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

Origin Stories: Conservation in Nepal and Namibia

Looking at the dramatic effects two people had in these countries decades ago reminds us that individuals and communities can make a difference for conservation.

On most levels, Nepal and Namibia appear to have very little in common. Nepal is a landlocked Himalayan nation with an abundant supply of forests and water, while Namibia is a desert country about six times larger, with a long coastline on the Atlantic Ocean. People in Nepal rely primarily on subsistence agriculture and forests for their livelihoods, while people in Namibia mostly rely on grazing lands and livestock. Nepal was never colonized and remained closed to most outsiders until 1951. Namibia was colonized in 1884 by Germany, then South Africa, only gaining independence in 1990. Nepal, according to the United Nations, has one of the densest human populations in the world at 203 people/sq km, while Namibia has just 3.1 people/sq km, making it the second least dense country in the world, after Mongolia.

But if you look a bit closer, you’ll find the two countries do have something in common. While both were in desperate need of conservation efforts just a few decades ago, with experts making dire projections about the decimation of local wildlife and natural resources, now they’re conservation success stories because both countries effectively incorporated community-based approaches into their national biodiversity strategies. Today nearly 40% of Nepal’s forests are managed by communities, and 20% of Namibia is protected in community wildlife conservancies.

As I found in my time in both countries, one person working with local communities set the process in motion.

Dire Circumstances Lead to Change

The origin story of community forestry in Nepal began when forester Tej Bahadur Singh Mahat was transferred to Sindhupulchowk District in 1973 to be the district forest officer.

Upon his arrival, he came across a file left by his predecessor detailing ongoing issues, included a letter from a village in the district. It said they weren’t willing to cooperate with the forest officer any longer, because a previous officer had allowed forest they relied on for fuelwood and fodder to be cut for timber and sold in Kathmandu.

Mahat went to visit them and made a plan with Nil Prasad Bhandari, the village chairperson: If the community took on the responsibility of managing the forest, he would not allow any outsiders to use it.

It worked — and influenced others. Soon after, the Australian Forestry Project, which had come to the area to start a new venture, saw the success of the work the community and Mahat were doing and built its program based on the model they’d adopted.

Community forest — Entry to community forest near Chitwan National Park. Photo: Teri Allendorf

In Namibia the idea for community involvement came in 1983, when Garth Owen-Smith, the founder of the Namibia Wildlife Trust (now called the Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation), visited with local leaders in Kaokoland, in the northwest. He knew the leaders well, having worked there for many years. He realized that poaching was getting worse and that the government and NGOs didn’t have the resources to patrol such vast areas.

Owen-Smith asked Joseph Kagombe, a local leader, for help. Together they came up with a plan that began with choosing respected men in the community to be community game guards, who would monitor both wildlife and human activities and conduct conservation extension work in their communities.

These were just the beginnings, but the seeds they planted decades ago have grown and expanded.

Today Nepal is home to more than 22,000 community forestry groups, consisting of members from over half of the households in Nepal. The area under community control has tripled in the past two decades, with local communities managing about one-third of the country’s forests. Forest degradation and loss have declined significantly and in some places reversed. Between 1992 and 2016, forest cover increased from 26% to 45%.

In Namibia 86 communal conservancies involving more than 200,000 people protect over 20% of the land. The community wildlife conservancies protect the largest free-roaming black rhino population outside protected areas and an elephant population that has tripled between 1995 and 2016, from 7,500 to 22,800.

Elephant — Old male elephant that comes right up to one the lodge areas, Namibia. Photo: Teri Allendorf

In both countries the success of community conservation has supported the creation of, and experimentation with, multiple types of community-based conservation interventions. In Nepal these include, in addition to community forestry, buffer zones around national parks, conservation areas, leasehold forestry, protected forests and community conserved areas. In Namibia these include national park community conservation associations, community forests, community rangeland management areas and community fish reserves.

Lessons From World’s End

I consider myself extremely lucky to have worked in Nepal since the 1990s. My experiences with conservation and communities there give me more hope for the future than most of my colleagues have in various places around the world.

But I didn’t know how it had all begun until recently. While I haven’t yet had the pleasure of meeting T.B.S. Mahat, I recently learned he’s publishing his memoirs. Owen-Smith passed away in April 2020, but I did have a chance encounter with him a few years ago at his camp in northwestern Namibia, Wereldsend (World’s End), during a trip teaching biodiversity policy to a group of international students. We spent a memorable evening sitting around the campfire while he described the history of the wildlife conservancies. At one point, he listed the leaders, in addition to Joshua Kagombe, who’d helped create community-based conservation in Namibia, saying it was important that we remember their names.

Garth Owen Smith — Garth Owen-Smith at Werelsend. Photo: Teri Allendorf

During his story I got to thinking: What can we learn from these two countries’ experiences?

The origins of community conservation in Nepal and Namibia put our own individual efforts into a larger context and remind us that our actions on the ground, to save a habitat or species, can have a great impact. These are powerful models, but they can take a long time to come to fruition — during a biodiversity crisis that makes us feel we don’t have the luxury of waiting.

In today’s world we often feel powerless when it comes to effecting change on a large scale. We often assume successful projects have arisen from top-down policies, without realizing that policies come after someone has proven the model can work by taking the first step from the bottom up. Individuals make a difference — it just takes time for actions to cascade into greater change.

Origin stories like these show us that conservationists and communities, working together in specific places and times, can create some of the most robust conservation models in the world. And that’s a lesson we can all hold in common across diverse countries, habitats, species, and ecosystems.

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

Decolonizing Species Names

New research points out the frequent inequity of species’ scientific names, a longstanding problem that creates barriers to conservation.

What’s in a species name?

In some cases, the answers include paternalism, colonialism, sexism and racism.

Take the Townsend’s warbler (Setophaga townsendi), for example. This small, bright yellow North American bird was first scientifically described at Fort Vancouver in Washington state, just a few miles from where I live. We get a ton of them in our backyard every year.

But the Townsend’s warbler, beautiful though it may be, is a bird whose name has a dark history. It was named by American naturalist John Kirk Townsend, who described dozens of species in the early 19th century — right around the same time he was stealing human remains from Native American grave sites and shipping the skulls back East to help support a friend’s racist theory that Indigenous peoples were actually separate species.

As you might expect, in these more enlightened times, several experts have proposed renaming the Townsend’s warbler, along with dozens of other North American birds that bear the names of other ethically dubious researchers or historical figures.

And North American birds are not alone.

Around the world, taxonomists and conservationists say we need to address similar species-naming issues, although most aren’t as glaring as the Townsend case.

An example comes from biodiversity-rich New Caledonia, an archipelago in the southwest Pacific Ocean about 750 miles east of Australia.

Like many islands, New Caledonia’s remoteness allowed unique species to develop and thrive. Hundreds of unique plants and animals call the islands home, including the world’s largest gecko, the 14-inch Leach’s giant gecko (Rhacodactylus leachianus), known by many as “the Leachie” and named after English zoologist William Elford Leach, who never set foot on the islands.

“The Leachie” is just one example. A new paper published in the journal Biological Conservation, “The inequity of species names: The flora of New Caledonia as a case study,” examines the names of more than 650 plants native to New Caledonia that have been named after particular people — usually botanists or collectors. It found that just 7% of the species were named after people born on the islands. Further, only 6% of these plants were named after women (and some of those women were the wives or daughters of the botanists).

This isn’t just a function of decisions made centuries ago, either. Most of the species were named by researchers in the past 50 years.

“We should be more inclusive in our taxonomic practice and think about the consequences for the conservation of the species that are newly named,” says Yohan Pillon, the author of the study and a biologist with Institut de Recherche pour le Développement in Montpellier, France.

Of course, naming a plant species in New Caledonia is, at best, challenging due to their stunning variety.

“The flora of New Caledonia is extremely diverse and complex,” Pillon says. “There are over 100 species in the genus Phyllanthus, over 90 species in the genus Psychotria. Few people on Earth can tell them apart.”

Even beyond that challenge, purposefully identifying taxonomic names based on more culturally relevant identifiers poses a few problems. New Caledonia, now a territory of France, was originally inhabited by the Kanak community, who currently represent about 41% of the total population. They’ve been joined over the centuries by people from Polynesia, Europe and southeast Asia. French is the dominant language, and while the dozens of Indigenous Kanak languages are still spoken and taught, they’re not as strong as they once were.

“There are 30 Indigenous languages, some spoken by very few people or poorly studied,” Pillon says, “which makes ethnobiological surveys complex compared to places like Hawai‘i. You need both acute botanical and linguistic knowledge for that. Vernacular names are therefore a very difficult information to collect in New Caledonia and often not very reliable. In New Caledonia, few endemic plants have a known common name.”

But despite any challenges that might come in determining a species’ taxonomic moniker, picking the right name can have conservation benefits. Pillon points out a case from earlier this year in which local people expressed support for naming a new plant species after its sole remaining habitat.

A similar situation occurred last month in South America’s Guiana Highlands, where an orchid newly described by scientists had its name chosen by the Pemón Arekuna Indigenous community. Silesian researcher Mateusz Wrazidlo says “my own cultural heritage and the fact that in my family we use our local, Upper Silesian language in our daily lives has had a profound influence on why I’m paying so much attention to the Indigenous heritage in my scientific work. Science is a great cultural medium, and by registering new species names derived from local languages, we not only contribute to biological sciences, but also promote and preserve pieces of local history and customs.”

Pillon echoes that. “Conservation science needs to be more inclusive,” he wrote in his paper, “and the naming of new species offers an excellent opportunity to acknowledge more broadly the diversity of individuals who have contributed to our understanding of the natural world. Areas of high biodiversity often overlap with areas of high linguistic diversity, but the links among biodiversity and cultural and linguistic diversity are often underappreciated. To promote the preservation of biodiversity, species should be named with an eye toward how these names will be perceived by the local communities involved.”

And it’s not just plants and animals that should be named more thoughtfully or renamed to reverse an inequity. Place names also matter. Last year in the United States, Rep. Deb Haaland — currently on track to be the Biden administration’s secretary of the Interior — introduced a bill to reexamine geographic places or features currently known by offensive or racist names, which often belittle Native peoples or erase longstanding Indigenous place names.

That’s no small challenge — there are more than 1,400 of these questionably named locations in the United States alone — but names have power. Renaming something or thoughtfully identifying it in the first place offers one more tool for helping to protect the world’s threatened species and habitats — while they still exist for us to name.

(This article has been updated to include a statement from researcher Mateusz Wrazidlo.)

Previously in The Revelator:

Endangered Languages, Endangered Ecologies

The Western United States Is a Hotspot for Snow Droughts

A new study compares snowpack across the world and offers a tool to help scientists pinpoint where this critical resource is waning — and what that means for ecosystems and economies.

Most of us know a bad drought when we see one: Lakes and rivers recede from their normal water lines, crops wither in fields, and lawns turn brown. Usually we think of these droughts as being triggered by a lack of rain, but scientists also track drought in other ways.

“The common ways to measure droughts are through precipitation, soil moisture and runoff,” says Laurie S. Huning, an environmental engineer at the University of California, Irvine. Her most recent work adds another dimension to that by looking at water stored in snowpack.

Huning is the co-author of a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, with U.C. Irvine colleague Amir AghaKouchak, which developed a new framework for characterizing “snow droughts.” These can occur when there’s an abnormally low snowpack, which may be triggered by low precipitation, warm temperatures or both.

Their research is timely. This winter, southwestern states have received just a quarter to half of the average snow-water equivalent —the amount of water held in the snowpack — the key metric for determining a snow drought.

And that can have sweeping impacts. The water content of a snowpack can change the amount and timing of when runoff occurs, and that has implications for wildlife, ecosystems, water resources, flood control, hydropower and drought mitigation.

Snow droughts can also have far-reaching effects on agriculture — and economies. California’s Central Valley, the heart of its agriculture industry, relies on snow melt from the Sierra Nevada. The state saw $2.7 billion in losses in the sector following low precipitation and warm temperatures during 2014-2015.

Frank Gehrke stands in a field with no snow holding the measuring pole. — Frank Gehrke of the Calif. Dept. of Water Resources during the April 1, 2015 snow survey in the Sierra Nevada, which found zero snow for the first time since surveys began in 1942. Photo: Florence Low / California Department of Water Resources,

Snow droughts can also make conditions dire in regions that are already stressed by conflict and resource shortages. A snow drought in Afghanistan in 2017-2018 triggered crop failures and livestock loses that left 10 million people food insecure.

The concept of a “snow drought” has been around for several years, and it’s been studied in certain key locations, but until now scientists and water managers lacked a worldwide method to assess them.

The study aims to solve that. Huning and AghaKouchak have developed a standardized snow-water equivalent index in an effort better characterize and compare the duration and intensity of snow droughts around the world.

The results already reveal some areas of concern. Looking at data from 1980 to 2018, the researchers found a few hotspots where snow-droughts became longer and more intense during the 21st century.

The most notable area was the western United States, which saw a 28% increase in the length of periods of snow drought. Eastern Russia and Europe also saw increases, though less severe.

And on the flip side, some areas saw a decrease in snow drought duration, including the Hindu Kush, Central Asia, greater Himalayas, extratropical Andes and Patagonia.

“It’s important to remember that not only does the snowpack vary but the impact that it has differs across the world,” says Huning.

Huning hopes the framework developed for the study can help water managers better understand the amount and timing of snowmelt, and to integrate that with drought monitoring systems to recreate better resiliency and management of resources.

“We know that the snowpack is highly variable,” she says. “Further development of this framework can improve our near real-time monitoring of drought.”

The study didn’t delve into the specifics of why snow droughts may be becoming more severe in certain places, but other studies have found that climate change is playing, and will play, a role in reducing snowpack in some areas — including western U.S. states.

A study by UCLA climate scientists published on Aug. 10 found that in California warmer temperatures will cause more rainfall and less snow during the winter in coming decades. This will likely increase flood risks and reduce the snowpack that usually melts slowly over the spring months.

Earlier research found that a decrease in Arctic sea ice leads to changes in atmospheric circulation that creates a high-pressure system, known as an atmospheric ridge, off the Pacific coast. These ridges deflect storms, pushing them northward and leaving the region high and dry. A particularly stubborn system that developed in 2013, nicknamed the “ridiculously resilient ridge,” had a big hand in California’s five-year drought, which extended until 2017.

Better understanding of how to measure and track snow droughts can give water managers another tool to help plan for similar droughts and to better manage this changing resource.

“Snow is a natural resource and, given the warming temperatures that some parts of the world will see, the amount of snow is changing,” says Huning. “We need to recognize that there are so many different ways the environment and humans will be affected.”