A Green Renaissance: Moving the Needle for a Gentler Society

Commemorating the 50th Earth Day amid the COVID-19 pandemic offers a chance to look to a sustainable future and embrace the unifying concept of One Health.

We live in a hyper-connected world, a coexistence of human cultures and customs across continents. We’re one vast ecological community with sympatry, competition and association — and, at times, rising tensions and increasingly shared environmental stresses.

That’s why COVID-19 has had such wide-ranging ripple effects. The culture of eating wildlife from markets in East Asia can now, through our cultural and global connections, dampen the practice of cheek-kissing when greeting in Italy or imperil multigenerational living in Indigenous communities in the Americas.

What comes next is on everyone’s minds, and that includes the question of how we reduce the risk of a pandemic on this scale happening again.

The parallels between our global health emergency response and our collective climate emergency response are hard to ignore. As science journalist Sonia Shah put it, when new viral infections emerge, we wait for modern medicine to save us with a vaccine rather than take preventative steps to change our behavior or public health systems. It’s not unlike the waiting game we play with other environmental threats, anticipating technological fixes such as planet-cooling and geo-engineering when we already have existing nature-based solutions we could be working to safeguard, such as wetlands and mangroves that play pivotal roles in carbon storage.

wetlands
Wetlands flanked by mangroves in South Africa’s iSimangaliso Wetland Park, a world heritage site and part of a transfrontier conservation area. Photo: Katarzyna Nowak (used with permission)

Similarly, we’re now realizing too late that the ways we exploit other animals can make a pathogen so dangerous it can shut down the whole human enterprise.

That needs to change. Markets where wild and domestic animals mix, dead and alive and in various stages of welfare and health, do not have a place in our global society. While the rights to hunt and fish need to be upheld — especially culturally important species and those integral to food security — there’s a concurrent need to acknowledge some of the risks of combining old ways with new methods and contexts.

Of course, even if governments ban the trade in wild animals known to be reservoir hosts, brazen contempt for the rule of law will also almost certainly persist across all parts of the world. As wildlife scientist Margaret Kinnaird points out, there will always be “diehard consumers” who continue to eat bats, civets, pangolins and other species, legal or not. Wildlife consumers aren’t alone: Think of polluters lobbying for decreased regulation amidst the pandemic or certain churchgoers in the United States gathering on Palm and Easter Sundays during the lockdown. Are we capable of showing less contempt for rules that protect human and planetary health?

pangolins
Tree pangolin and monitor lizard being sold at an urban market in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. Photo: Katarzyna Nowak (used with permission)

I believe the answer is yes: A critical mass of us can.

Many of us are already turning the urgency of the novel coronavirus pandemic into impetus for redefining our relationships with each other and the natural world. Some of us are already envisioning a more socially conscious environmental stewardship that uplifts marginalized people in long-lasting ways while prioritizing ecological integrity. This crisis has given us an opportunity to reexamine what we eat, how we consume, what intact habitats we change and fragment, the role of animals for protein, the inequities inherent in our current systems, the mode of transport we opt to use, our teleworking potential, the footprint of our future holiday or excursion, and for whose benefit — individual or community — we do what we do.

Crucially, through this crisis, may we become less estranged from empathy and more able to pull together as a diverse, multicultural community to tread more respectfully and gently, and take only what we need? Could we follow a universal rule of law and set of regulations under the auspice of the unified and holistic concept of “One Health,” which sees us as not just hyper-connected to each other or to other human beings and their cultural practices but intertwined with all other living beings and their habits on the planet? Can we achieve enlightened awareness of how our individual choices about how we use the natural world affect the lives and well-being of others, near and far-flung, human and non-human?

bees
Bees bearding outside their hive during hot weather at an organic bee farm in coastal Chile. Photo: Katarzyna Nowak (used with permission)

Some nations may already be on this path. Writer-activist Rebecca Solnit lists some of the ongoing social transformations previously thought impossible but now taking place: Spain implementing a universal basic income, Ireland nationalizing its hospitals, Canada and Germany coming up with income and coverage of expenses for those who have lost jobs or are running small businesses, Portugal treating asylum seekers and immigrants as full citizens.

I’ve witnessed this shift. Having recently moved to the Yukon, in northern Canada, for a job with a conservation NGO, I received my health card early, after the territorial government waived the traditional three-month waiting period due to the pandemic. Many other foreign workers across Canada benefitted from this waiver — a symbol of national support for its newest residents.

But during the same time period, I’ve learned lessons about selective inaction.

In week two of quarantine a friend of mine passed. Alejandro Nadal was an economist who drew links between the wildlife trade and economic development policies. Among his accomplishments, he advocated for fairer agricultural policies supportive of small-scale producers and genetic diversity of crops such as corn. His last published sentence, amid the growing threat of the new coronavirus, read: “Under capitalism, this will continue to be the history and the sign of the exploitation of the earth.”

A week after his death, the world was scrambling, markets were collapsing, and we were fast realizing the integral community roles played by workers in the food and other frontline sectors. I ordered Alejandro’s book on macroeconomics and sustainability and found that it ends on a topical note: the suggestion that social activists and environmentalists reclaim the right to define the general trajectory of the policies that shape our economies.

The time is ripe for a Green Renaissance. In fact, the time is urgent. We’re in a fight for our lives, a fight that depends on us rallying — now not later — around One Health.

On top of COVID-19, other outbreaks currently happening include a horse-killing virus in Thailand tied to the country’s import of zebras from Africa, and highly contagious swine fever in Poland near its border with Germany. Perhaps these compounded crises provide the opportunity for a global, intergovernmental One Health Treaty that could allow the world governments to universally curtail all potentially unsafe forms of human consumption of animals in live markets, medicine, the pet industry and other realms. While we already have existing international treaties that regulate trade in wildlife, a stand-alone One Health Treaty would call for explicit attention to the intersections of human, animal and environmental health.

As we continue to confront this novel coronavirus pandemic and look back over the lessons of 50 years of Earth Day, we not only can, but must, restructure to become more inclusive, sustainable and resilient. Investing in holistic environmental stewardship and more responsible treatment of animals are surefire ways of getting us there.

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.

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14 Inspiring New Environmental Books to Read During the Pandemic

New books by Carl Safina and other experts offer lessons for making this a better planet — for both humans and wildlife — even while we’re stuck at home.

When things get tough, many of us often turn to books for new information, inspiration or simple entertainment. Well, we’ve got you covered on all three counts, with 14 great new environmental books coming out this month. The list includes books for eco-interested kids, dedicated activists and everyone in between.

revelator readsThe publishing industry isn’t immune to the economic threats posed by the current pandemic. Most local bookstores and libraries have closed their doors to customers and patrons, and many authors have needed to cancel their planned promotional tours. Publishers themselves are feeling the pinch, and at least three additional books that would have appeared on our list this month have been pushed back to later in the spring or summer.

But we’re all adapting. Many publishers and bookstores will happily ship new books to you (or, in the case of local shops, offer curbside pickup). E-books may also be great options (they’re often available through publishers or your local library website). The links below go to publishers’ sites for each new book, which should provide you with a variety of options.

No matter how the books end up coming your way, may they offer the ideas and inspiration you need to keep you going and continuing to find ways to protect the planet.

nature obscuraNature Obscura: A City’s Hidden Natural World by Kelly Brenner

With many of us currently restricted to our homes or neighborhoods, now’s the perfect time to become a backyard naturalist (as we wrote recently). This magnificent book offers stories about the varied plants and wildlife that lives around us — even in the hearts of big cities — and ideas about how to make our urban ecosystems even wilder.

Not bad animalsThe Not BAD Animals by Sophie Corrigan

An utterly delightful kids’ book that tries (and succeeds) to soften the reputation of the critters “that make us squirm and wriggle in our seats,” but which, beneath their sharp teeth and odd habits, fulfill important roles in the world. You’ll never look at a spider or vulture the same way again.

Becoming Wild Beyond WordsBecoming Wild and Beyond Words by Carl Safina

Two new books from the famed ecologist and bestselling author. The first, for adult audiences, examines “how animal cultures raise families, create beauty and achieve peace.” The second, for younger readers, adapts one of Safina’s earlier adult books and discusses the inner lives of wolves and dogs. Both are must-reads.

Green MeatGreen Meat? Sustaining Eaters, Animals and the Planet edited by Ryan M. Katz-Rosene and Sarah J. Martin

This book tackles some tough questions about meat, examining issues related to production and consumption through a wide and varied set of lenses. Throughout, the book and its contributors invite readers to examine what they eat, where it comes from and how it’s produced. You won’t find easy answers inside, but it’ll give you something to chew on.

Anxiety EmergencyA Field Guide to Climate Anxiety by Sarah Jaquette Ray and Facing the Climate Emergency by Margaret Klein Salamon

“Climate grief” is both real and draining. These two complementary titles offer readers some great psychological tools necessary to keep going in these trying times — and beyond. Field Guide is aimed more at young adults (“the climate generation”), but both books provide key tips for turning your negative emotions into powerful action.

Electric CarsDo Androids Dream of Electric Cars? Public Transit in the Age of Google, Uber and Elon Musk by James Wilt

Public transportation was already in crisis before the pandemic, thanks in no small part to the Koch brothers’ assault on local transit systems. Things could get even worse now, with ridership in trains and busses on the decline while we maintain safe distance from each other, a trend that could undermine critical low-carbon transportation initiatives. This book, which addresses issues ranging from transit to electric cars to ridesharing, aims to provide a model for a greener future.

How Birds and Insects WorkHow Birds Work and How Insects Work by Marianne Taylor

These two heavily illustrated science books provide great insight into both intriguing groups of species. Taken together or individually, they may offer hours of fun educational opportunities in this era of home-schooling.

CapitalismReimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire by Rebecca Henderson

The pandemic reinforces the tragic reality that our systems are terribly broken. Many experts and activists feel that this crisis — which comes on top of the already existing climate and wildlife crises — also provides an opportunity for change. This book offers an ever-so-timely economic model, along with working examples, for a safer and more just future. (Expect several more books on similar topics in the months ahead.)

FootprintsLeave Only Footprints: My Acadia-to-Zion Journey Through Every National Park by Conor Knighton

We probably shouldn’t personally be visiting national parks during the pandemic, but here’s the next best thing. This thoroughly delightful travelogue (from a CBS Sunday Morning correspondent) brings national parks to you and delivers a deeply personal and revelatory take on what makes America’s natural spaces so important.

Human PlanetThe Human Planet: Earth at the Dawn of the Anthropocene by George Steinmetz and Andrew Revkin  

Steinmetz is renowned for his aerial photography projects, which often capture the stark reality of climate change, agriculture and sea-level rise. Revkin is a prominent environmental journalist and educator. Together they’ve delivered a beautiful, haunting coffee-table book that provides a powerful portrait of the ways we’re changing the planet.

sea ottersSea Otters: A Survival Story by Isabelle Groc

Your required dose of cuteness combined with important conservation messages, all wrapped up in a fun and heavily illustrated book for teen readers. Dame Judy Dench provides the foreword, which may be the most unexpected fact in this whole column.

That’s it for this month. Stay safe and stay tuned for another batch of books on May’s list in a few short weeks. Until then you can find dozens of additional eco-books in the “Revelator Reads” archive.

10 Things We’ve Learned a Decade After the Deepwater Horizon Disaster

We know a lot more now about the ecology of the Gulf of Mexico and the risks of deep-water drilling, but that doesn’t mean we’re any safer.

It’s been 10 years since flames engulfed the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and triggering the largest accidental oil spill in U.S. history. The resulting 168 million gallons of oil that spewed into the water for 87 days killed thousands of birds, turtles, dolphins, fish and other animals.

The messy slick washed up on 1,300 miles of beaches, coated wetlands with toxic chemicals, imperiled human health, crippled the region’s tourism sector and shut down fisheries — costing nearly $1 billion in losses to the seafood industry.

In the years since, scientists have studied the far-reaching and longstanding ecological damages. And it’s clear that problems persist.

A decade later, what have we learned? Are we any closer to preventing a similar — or worse — catastrophe? Here are some of the takeaways.

1. The spill was bigger than they told us.

Right from the start, industry downplayed the size and scope of the spill. The Unified Command formed to deal with the disaster consisted of officials from federal agencies, as well as representatives of BP — the oil company responsible for the mess.

Independent analysis using daily satellite images from NASA done by the conservation technology nonprofit SkyTruth, along with Ian R. MacDonald, a professor of oceanography at Florida State University, found that the amount of oil gushing from the failed Macondo well was likely 20 times greater than what officials were claiming at the time. Scientists hoping to measure the flow directly at the seafloor were blocked.

The obfuscation came with a big cost. “What followed was a series of under-engineered attempts to stop the flow of oil, wasting weeks of precious time as millions of gallons gushed into the Gulf,” recalls John Amos, president of SkyTruth.

2. Most other spills are bigger than reported, too.

Research in the Gulf of Mexico following the Deepwater Horizon disaster also led to other findings about drilling in the region. Not surprisingly, the size of most spills is underreported.

“This culture of misinformation doesn’t emerge just during catastrophes,” says Amos.

It turns out that slicks reported to the National Response Center were 13 times larger than provided estimates, according to research conducted by Florida State University and SkyTruth. And while companies can get in trouble for not reporting a spill, they don’t get penalized if they incorrectly estimate the size of a spill, the analysis found.

And these spills are ongoing, with more than 18,000 reported in the Gulf since the mammoth 2010 disaster. While many of them are small, their cumulative impact is not.

3. Deepwater Horizon isn’t the worst-case scenario.

A massive spill from a well that can’t be plugged for months is truly troubling, but there’s a worse scenario: a spill that can’t be stopped at all. And that slowly unfurling disaster has already been underway — it just wasn’t widely known until researchers began investigating the Deepwater Horizon spill.

A hurricane in 2004 triggered an underwater mudslide in Gulf waters that sank an oil-drilling platform owned by Taylor Energy. The mess of pipes, still connected to wells but covered by a heap of sediment, resulted in a leak that continues to this day.

A study by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Florida State University in 2019 determined that the wells may be spewing 380 to 4,500 gallons of oil a day — about 100 to 1,000 times more than the company has claimed.

After several attempts by Taylor Energy to cap the wells and contain the plumes didn’t do the trick, in 2019 the U.S. Coast Guard stepped in to have a containment system installed to catch the oil before it disperses into the waters.

4. Natural forces remain a threat.

A deep-sea mudslide like the one that damaged the Taylor Energy platform could pose a threat to dozens of production platforms in the Gulf. Florida State’s MacDonald, who has been studying the leaking Taylor Energy site, believes such an event could happen again.

Triggered by earthquakes or hurricanes, underwater avalanches of sediment slip down the continental shelf moved by “turbidity currents.” And we’re not well prepared for understanding how and when it could reoccur.

“Conducting studies to identify unstable slopes will improve our understanding of the seabed,” he wrote in an op-ed for The Conversation. “Better technology can make offshore infrastructure more durable, and informed regulation can make the offshore industry more vigilant.”

5. There’s no such thing as a “cleanup.”

smoke and flames on the water
A controlled burn of oil from the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill sends towers of fire hundreds of feet into the air over the Gulf of Mexico on June 9, 2010. Photo: Coast Guard Petty Officer First Class John Masson, (CC BY-ND 2.0)

Efforts that began in the aftermath of disaster should be termed “spill response,” and not “cleanup,” says Lois Epstein, an engineer and Arctic program director for The Wilderness Society.

Studies of previous spills have shown that oiled birds “cleaned” after spills usually fail to mate and suffer high mortality rates.

The use of booms, skimming, burning and the dumping of dispersants hasn’t proven effective in containing large spills — and seems to happen more to give the illusion that something’s being done, explains an article in Hakai Magazine.

During the Deepwater Horizon spill, only around 3% of the oil spilled was recovered from skimming, says Epstein. About 5% was burned off. And while dispersants decreased the volume of surface oil by about 20%, they increased the area over which the oil spread by nearly 50%.

Some advances have actually been made in improving the technology, but there’s “little incentive and no legal requirement for companies to upgrade their existing spill response equipment,” says Epstein.

6. The Problems Run Deep

Some of the most concerning findings from post-spill research came from the depths of the sea.

Research in 2017 found that, “the seafloor was unrecognizable from the healthy habitats in the deep Gulf of Mexico, marred by wreckage, physical upheaval and sediments covered in black, oily marine snow,” wrote Craig McClain, the executive director for the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, one of the scientists involved.

It’s likely that millions of gallons of oil ended up on the seafloor because of a process known as “marine oil snow” where chemicals from burning oil, along with dispersants and other sediment in the water, adhere and sink.

For life at the bottom, that dirty blizzard was incredibly harmful.

The researchers noted that animals normally found in that deep-sea environment, such as sea cucumbers, giant isopods, glass sponges and whip corals, weren’t there. And many colonies of deep-sea corals hadn’t recovered.

“What we observed was a homogenous wasteland, in great contrast to the rich heterogeneity of life seen in a healthy deep sea,” McClain explained. “In an ecosystem that measures longevity in centuries and millennia, the impact of 4 million barrels of oil continues to constitute a crisis of epic proportions.”

7. The effects on wildlife were both significant and, in some cases, sustained.

oiled pelicans
Heavily-oiled brown pelicans captured at Grand Isle, LA on June 3, 2010 wait to be cleaned of Gulf spill crude. Photo: IBRRC, (CC BY 2.0)

The spill caused problems at the surface too, including the longest known marine mammal die-off in the Gulf of Mexico, and experts say it could take many species decades to recover.

For example, a report from Oceana found that in the five years following the spill, 75% of bottle-nosed dolphin pregnancies failed. Endangered Bryde’s whales lost 22% of their already small population; 32% of laughing gulls in the Gulf died, and as many as 20% of adult female Kemp’s ridley sea turtles, already critically endangered, were killed in the spill.

Threatened populations of gulf sturgeon exposed to the oil experienced immune system problems and damaged DNA. Scientists found skin lesions on tilefish, Southern Hake, red snapper and other fish in the area near the blowout for two years after the spill.

Coastal wetlands, critical habitat for numerous species as well as an important buffer against storms, were also damaged.

It’s believed that chemicals from the spill and dispersants have made their way from plankton up through the entire marine food chain.

8. The regulatory failure continues.

“There was nothing that happened with Deepwater Horizon that couldn’t have been foreseen,” says Mark Davis, a senior research fellow at Tulane University Law School and director of the Institute on Water Resources Law and Policy.

And that makes the policy and regulatory failures that enabled the disaster that much more painful.

In a 2012 study on the lessons learned from the disaster, Davis pointed to a long history in the Gulf of oil and gas development superseding risk assessment and planning. That was compounded by a cozy relationship between industry and its regulators in the Minerals Management Service.

“The federal government has a stake in the financial success of oil and gas development,” says Davis, and that doesn’t provide much incentive for strict regulation.

In the fallout from the disaster, the Minerals Management Service was disbanded and was replaced with the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. But how much has really changed?

A story in E&E News found that problems still abound in the new agency and it’s “fractious, demoralized and riddled with staff distrust toward its leadership.

Davis said dissolving the Minerals Management Service was needed, but he’s not sure it’s achieved the needed improvements to regain public truth. The new agency “is still too focused on not being a burden to exploration and production to really be a guardian of public/worker safety and environmental health,” he says. And “until we get our policies and legal architecture in line with the risks we’re running, we’re going to be very vulnerable.”

9. Trump is making it worse.

Given the track record of the Trump administration on environmental policy, it should come as no surprise that the limited provisions made to improve safety and environmental health after the spill are being undone.

Last year the Interior Department changed its well-control rules to appease requests from industry. The rule change “reduces the frequency of tests to key equipment such as blowout preventers, which sit at the wellhead at the ocean floor and are the last-ditch defense against massive gushers,” explained Politico. “It also allows drillers to use third-party companies instead of government inspectors to check equipment and gives them more time between inspections, among other things.”

10. The Gulf of Mexico isn’t the only place at risk.

The ecological and human health imperatives for preventing another Deepwater Horizon — or worse — are important for Gulf communities and beyond.

In the past few years, the Trump administration has signaled that it wants to vastly expand offshore drilling, including lifting drilling bans in parts of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans. It’s a proposition that would lead to more spills and more greenhouse gas emissions at a time when it’s critical we reduce both.

His plan has been met with stiff opposition so far. But as the 10th anniversary of the Gulf disaster reminds us, we’re still on course to repeat one of our worst mistakes.

“The takeaway here is that people learn, but institutions react,” wrote Tulane’s Davis. “The Deepwater Horizon blowout may have taught many important lessons, but as yet, most of them are still unlearned by those most responsible.”

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Will Climate Change Threaten Earth’s Other ‘Lung’?

Phytoplankton produce half of the oxygen in our atmosphere, but understanding how they respond to climate change is complicated and critically important.

Ask someone on the street about the importance of the Amazon, and there’s a reasonable chance the response will include an understanding that forests play an essential role in storing and cycling global carbon. Follow that question with another on the importance of ocean phytoplankton, and there are good odds on it being met with a shrug.

Yet the significance of ocean phytoplankton is nearly impossible to overstate.

Drifting in the top layer of the world’s oceans, phytoplankton are a diverse group of microscopic, photosynthetic organisms. Most are single-celled algae, some are bacteria, and others are classified as protists – neither plant nor animal. Phytoplankton are estimated to produce nearly half the daily oxygen in our atmosphere, and as the basis of the ocean food web, sustain all major marine life forms. When they die, a percentage sink to the ocean floor, sequestering as much carbon as all terrestrial plants.

“If phytoplankton populations were to suffer significant decline, there would be serious consequences for marine food webs, including fisheries, and changes to the balance of nutrient cycling,” says Dr. Katherina Petrou, senior lecturer in phytoplankton ecophysiology at the University of Technology Sydney in Australia, via email.

How phytoplankton will respond to the effects of climate change is a pressing and stubborn research question. Study is made complicated by an array of interdependent variables that include warming surface sea temperatures, ocean acidification, and changes in sea ice and cloud cover.

A decade ago, Canadian researchers made headlines with an alarming study estimating ocean phytoplankton populations had dropped 40% since 1950, and were continuing to decline at a rate of around 1% per year, with ocean warming from climate change suspected. The findings were hotly debated, and in the years since, a more nuanced yet still alarming picture of how phytoplankton will fare under climate change has begun to emerge.

In a 2015 study by two of the same Canadian researchers, projections of phytoplankton concentrations are described as “highly divergent.” Taken in aggregate, the paper maintains published research shows phytoplankton numbers increasing in near-shore waters over shorter, more recent time spans, and declining in open oceans over longer periods. “Most published evidence suggests changes in temperature and nutrient supply rates as leading causes of these phytoplankton trends,” the study reads.

“Global modeling studies using historical data have revealed declines in phytoplankton over the last few decades, but with variability between oceans and regions, and even some patches where phytoplankton have increased,” says Petrou. “Based on these data, studies using computer models to project future conditions conclude that in many parts of the ocean, phytoplankton will decline as seas warm and water mixing patterns change.”

Warming Water

Given access to sunlight and nutrients, phytoplankton can bloom in numbers of millions of cells per litre of seawater. But as the oceans warm, the water column is forming into more distinct layers, and staying that way for longer periods. The result is a layer of warmer water sitting atop cooler, nutrient-rich water beneath. When this stratification begins it can promote blooms by keeping phytoplankton cells in the upper layer, near sunlight, says Oscar Schofield, a professor at the department of marine and coastal sciences at Rutgers University. However as the bloom progresses, phytoplankton exhaust the nutrients available to them. Stratification can then prevent the resupply of nutrients into the upper layer, says Schofield, causing phytoplankton concentrations to fall, resulting in a net decline.

Climate change is shifting not only the intensity of phytoplankton blooms, but their composition. Harmful algal blooms (also known as red tides) are expected to increase as the oceans warm. Biotoxins released from the blooms can cause large-scale die-offs of fish and shellfish, with knock-on effects to coastal economies.

Aerial algal bloom
An aerial view of green algae blooms swirling around the Baltic Sea. Photo: European Space Agency, (CC BY-SA 2.0)

“In some cases we see species growing faster, but in many instances warmer temperatures are altering ecosystems,” Petrou says. “Some species are recorded as moving towards the Polar regions, where water temperatures are lower. However, for current Polar species this poses a bit more of a problem, as they have nowhere cooler to move to.”

Schofield studies phytoplankton off the Antarctic Peninsula, the western arm of the Antarctic that reaches up toward South America. “It’s the fastest warming place on the planet in terms of winter air temperature,” he says, “so we see a lot less sea ice being made every year.” There, Schofield says, satellite observation suggests large phytoplankton declines.

But on the Antarctic Peninsula, Schofield theorizes it’s not too little mixing in the water column causing declines, but too much.

Lacking the protection of sea ice, the ocean undergoes deep mixing from strong winter winds. This disperses the free-floating phytoplankton deeper into the water column, limiting their access to sunlight. “It takes longer for that deep mixing to settle down and promote phytoplankton growth,” Schofield says. The warmer, moister climate also promotes cloud formation instead of cold, clear conditions, again limiting sunlight available to the phytoplankton.

Acidification Winners and Losers

In simple terms, ocean acidification is the ongoing decrease of seawater pH caused by the absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide. When seawater reacts with CO2 it creates carbonic acid, which breaks down to release hydrogen and bicarbonate ions. The surplus hydrogen ions increase the acidity of the oceans.

Ocean acidification will reshape marine food webs, most notably by making it more difficult for organisms such as shellfish, starfish, snails, and corals to build their shells or exoskeletons from calcium carbonate. For phytoplankton as a whole, however, the response to ocean acidification is more nebulous.

An exception to this uncertainty is a group of phytoplankton called coccolithophores, which are vulnerable to acidification because they too build calcified exoskeletons. “They cover their cell walls with tiny chalk platelets,” says Petrou. “Increasing acidity has been shown to dissolve these plates, in the same way that a tooth will dissolve in a glass of cola.”

Another type of phytoplankton, diatoms, are single-celled algae that produce around half the organic matter in the ocean, and one-fifth of the oxygen you are breathing right now. Instead of calcium carbonate, diatoms build cell walls out of silica.

Research by Lennart Bach, a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania, tends to indicate diatoms will benefit from increased ocean acidity. “CO2 is required for photosynthesis,” Bach says. “So in itself it is not the issue.”

But it’s not so simple. “There’s winners and losers within the phytoplankton community with respect to basically every environmental factor that will change,” Bach says. “Temperature, CO2, stratification, light, environment, there are a lot of factors. And when you only look at one like acidification, then they are on the winning side, but of course, you have to consider all factors because they will occur all at the same time in the future ocean. So it’s really hard to say.”

Declines or increases of phytoplankton types, relative to other phytoplankton, could also spell trouble. In a 2019 meta-analysis of studies on diatoms’ response to acidification, Bach and a colleague write: “[Diatoms’] prevalence relative to other phytoplankton taxa could profoundly alter marine food web structures and thereby affect ecosystem services such as fisheries or the sequestration of CO2 in the deep ocean.”

As well, a recent experiment by Petrou and other scientists discovered that in the Southern Ocean, future ocean acidification may hamper diatoms’ ability to build silica cell walls. At simulated rates of acidification possible before century’s end, the diatoms were smaller and lighter. With their ballast reduced, the cells would be less able to sink to the ocean floor and sequester carbon.

A study published in Nature in 2018, by an international team of researchers, also suggests that increased acidification could interfere with a poorly understood mechanism that allows diatoms to acquire iron — an essential nutrient for the algae.

“The decline in diatom ability to take up iron will reduce growth, while the loss in ability to form dense silica shells will alter diatom sinking rates and increase their susceptibility to grazers,” Petrou says. “Combined, the two processes suggest diatoms are in for a hard time under future ocean conditions.”

“We’re changing the climate, and that’s going to change a lot of the basic conditions we see in the ocean,” says Schofield. “And the thing about the ocean is, generally, it’s bottom up controls, meaning that if you change the food at the base of the web, it ripples directly up…. If and when that happens globally, it will change our planet. But we’re still at a point where we can’t give a quick, easy answer.”

This story first appeared in the Watershed Sentinel and was published under a Creative Commons license.

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Pandemic Shines a Light on Critical Water Issues — Will Congress Fund Solutions?

Clean water is essential during the COVID-19 health crisis, but so far Congress hasn’t directed funds to help water utilities or stop water shutoffs in low-income households.

Our days now are clouded with uncertainty. How long will the COVID-19 crisis last? What immediate health effects and long-term economic damage will we experience? What’s the best protocol for staying safe and healthy?

On that last front, we know one thing for sure: We need to wash our hands well and often. And for that we need clean, running water.

But so far the federal legislative responses to the novel coronavirus crisis have not included financial support for water utilities, most of which are public agencies. And there’s been no federal mandate to prevent water shutoffs for households unable to pay their bills.

“We’ve known that water is a priority, but it’s just not the top priority,” says David Zielonka, communications manager for the National Association of Clean Water Agencies, which represents public wastewater and stormwater agencies. “There’s been incentive and motivation on both sides to include it [in upcoming legislation], but getting it into the final package hasn’t happened yet.”

Economic Pressures

Water utilities have had to quickly adapt to make sure their vital services keep running, even if staff are sick or otherwise sidelined by the virus. In California the Mercury News reported that a desalination plant in Carlsbad, which supplies drinking water to San Diego, is now housing its 10 most critical employees on site so they remain healthy.

Other agencies have made arrangements to provide beds and food for workers if they need to live at treatment plants. Some are even calling back retired employees to bolster reserves. A survey of industry leaders by American Water Works Association found that nearly three-quarters of utilities expect to face challenges from absentee workers due to illness. Smaller water utilities, with just a few workers, are even more at risk if critical staff become unavailable.

But that’s not the only challenge.

With many industries, shops, restaurants and other businesses ground to a halt, water utilities now anticipate a precipitous decline in revenue, which will also reduce funds available for their already tight operating budgets. Zielonka says the National Association of Clean Water Agencies’ members are projecting losses ranging from 20% to 40%.

“These utilities are all publicly owned and they don’t have vast private resources in terms of stock buybacks or other things they can do to recoup this lost revenue,” says Nathan Gardner-Andrews, the general counsel and chief advocacy officer for the National Association of Clean Water Agencies. “They’re basically stuck.”

Drinking-water and wastewater services are usually billed based on the volume of water delivered — it’s revenue based on usage. But the costs for the industry — to maintain the infrastructure and keep treatment plants running — are fixed. When usage falls, costs remain the same, and the utility gets pinched.

The utilities are, of course, not the only ones being hit with economic losses. Some 17 million Americans have filed for unemployment in the past four weeks. For some families, that may mean an inability to pay their water bills. That’s more lost revenue for water agencies and a potential life-and-death health risk for residents if utilities enforce water shutoffs for delinquent payments.

Some utilities, like the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board, have chosen not to shut off water connections in light of the pandemic. At least 12 states have mandated that shutoffs cease during the health emergency, and the governors of California, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin have ordered that water service be restored to those without it. But there’s no federal order, and it’s likely that millions of Americans are still at risk of losing service because of dire financial straits.

Longstanding Problems

This shouldn’t come as a surprise.

An “affordability gap” has been growing in America’s water system over the past two decades, says Gardner-Andrews.

Keeping up with replacing and repairing aging infrastructure, which is 100 years old in some parts of the country, has significantly added to the costs of water services that have been passed on to ratepayers. Between 2000 and 2015, the cost of water and wastewater services rose more than 40% in some major U.S. cities. Rural communities, which lack economies of scale, often pay twice as much for water as urban residents.

As a result an estimated 12% of U.S. households find their water bills unaffordable, according to a 2017 study by researchers from Michigan State University — and that was before millions lost their jobs in the last few weeks. Meanwhile, federal assistance for water infrastructure has fallen 77% since its peak in 1977, but the need is greater than ever.

protest
Actor Mark Ruffalo at a protest against water shutoffs in Detroit, MI in 2014. Photo: UUCS, (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

The American Water Works Association estimated that we’ll need $1 trillion over the next 25 years to upgrade our aging water infrastructure.

The current crisis may help shine a light on this affordability gap, but it also reveals another longstanding problem that we can’t delay addressing: Around 2 million people in the United States don’t have running water and adequate plumbing. For example, about 40% of the Navajo Nation lacks running water, which could put many residents at risk during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Political Pressure

In the months ahead, mounting financial losses for water utilities will likely mean rate increases that will become unsustainable for more and more poorer households, says Gardner-Andrews.

“How bad it is, and the level of pain they pass onto their ratepayers, will in a large part depend on what financial assistance, if any, comes from federal and state governments,” he says.

His organization is asking Congress to direct $12.5 billion in aid for water utilities in the next stimulus bill to offset the loss of revenue, provide assistance for those who can’t pay, and keep water rates from rising. Other nonprofits are calling for a national moratorium on water shutoffs and more support for low-income affordability programs.

Their concerns are supported by at least 80 members of Congress who sent a letter to House and Senate leaderships asking for legislation to “prioritize water infrastructure funding to local water providers and provide assistance to ensure that no American goes without water service due to an inability to pay during this pandemic.”

Other industry leaders are lending their voices in support of addressing shortfalls in access and affordability.

“We have an opportunity now to deliver on the human right to water by including urgent infrastructure upgrades and ratepayer protections in the coronavirus relief packages currently being negotiated,” wrote Peter Gleick, Heather Cooley and Laura Feinstein, researchers with the global water think-tank the Pacific Institute, in an op-ed in the Hill. “After decades of deferred maintenance and disinvestment, it is time to shore up the systems that keep our communities healthy and ensure even the most vulnerable among us have access to safe water and sanitation.”

Many groups, including House Democrats, have pushed for a big infrastructure package that would address decades of funding shortfalls, including $25 billion for drinking water, and $50 billion for wastewater and other clean-water projects.

“The next COVID-19 stimulus package provides an opportunity to invest in ways that create lots of jobs and finally begin to provide the level of resources that are needed to make sure no one is drinking polluted water,” says Scott Faber, senior vice-president of government affairs at the nonprofit Environmental Working Group.

But it’s increasingly looking like the next stimulus package may bypass water issues yet again. When asked about an infrastructure package, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi told E&E News that it’s not off the table, “But what is on the table is more funding for the immediate needs that people have.” It’s not clear yet if that includes help for those who can’t afford their water bills.

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Food Waste in the Time of COVID-19: The Real Reason to Cry Over Spilt Milk

Let’s focus on the economic systems that allowed such waste to be created in the first place, while causing needless pollution, animal suffering and threats to human health.

Earlier this month Wisconsin journalist Shaun Gallagher shared a shocking video of dairy farmers dumping tens of thousands of gallons of milk down the drain as the industry faced reported strains from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“What a waste!” Gallagher wrote in a widely shared tweet. “#COVID19Pandemic is forcing dairy farmers to dump their milk down the drain so the milk market doesn’t implode. Why not give it away to those who need it?”

The question seems a natural one to ask, but the very fact that Gallagher’s asking it reveals how little is publicly understood about the dairy industry, where dumping milk has been a regular feature for decades.

To understand the nature and scale of waste behind milk being dumped, even under business-as-usual scenarios, consider for a minute everything that led up to this dumping incident. Look behind the curtain of industrial dairy production, ostensibly dedicated to feeding us and meeting our nutritional needs.

Vast swaths of land are cleared for crops and tended by agricultural workers to grow the more than 100 pounds of food required every day by each of the country’s 9 million dairy cows. Most dairy operations belong to large, commercial farms, which at all stages consume and release vast quantities of water, chemicals and pesticides.

All this habitat destruction and resource use goes toward producing milk (and related products), which has become an irrevocable brick in the food pyramid not based on its nutritional value but based on decades of work by industry lobbyists.

Dairy cows
USDA Photo by Preston Keres

The U.S. Department of Agriculture already bails out the dairy industry by buying unwanted cheese to the tune of more than $20 million in a year — adding up to a current federal stockpile of 1.4 billion pounds of cheese — produced with heavy taxpayer-funded subsidies in the first place. Note that this is the same federal department that’s meant to “provide leadership on nutrition” of a population where 4 in 10 adults suffer from obesity while 37 million struggle with hunger (with overlap between groups).

Consider that our economic system produced these circumstances before COVID-19 even existed. In 2016 farmers dumped $43 million worth of unwanted, unprofitable gallons of milk in fields, manure lagoons and anywhere else they could find to perpetuate an industry that’s supported more by government bailouts than consumer demand. All this waste is enabled by lobbyists influencing the people’s representatives in government.

On top of that, milk production remains an animal-welfare issue: Nine million cows were forcibly impregnated and had their calves taken away to produce milk in the United States in 2019 alone. It’s also a human-health issue, considering the antibiotics, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, hormones, pesticides and other chemicals present in waste from dairy farms — much of it leaching into America’s waterways — with a typical megafarm estimated to produce 187 million gallons of waste a year.

Coming back full circle to COVID-19, milk is a disease issue, as cramped factory farms have been known vectors for MRSA infections, E. coli, cryptosporidiosis, ringworm, salmonella and tuberculosis.

Of course, other types of food are also going to waste as well because of a shift in consumer practices during the pandemic. The market forces and policy interventions governing the dairy industry are hardly unique — all commodities experience gluts and creative pricing to some extent — but only some of those commodities have an existential dependence on subsidies. A mere five of the crop types grown in the United States depend on government subsidies — just as vast energy subsidies continue to be funneled to the oil and gas industry during a time when 70% of Americans support a complete transition to renewable energy.

Most people don’t see that, since our economic system runs on turning a blind eye to spilt milk.

Milk pouring down the drain tugs at the heart — for journalists and all of us — because it’s easier, and more emotional, to connect wasted food with hungry people than it is to connect, say, natural-gas flaring as a wasted resource.

Regardless of whether you believe the outcome is important enough to justify the waste, let’s not keep nurturing the myth that our economic system represents the most efficient use of resources — or that it’s the best way to assign value to the resources we have. Industries routinely use their power and deep pockets to stop the playing field from being level — to stop policies being enacted that might be worse for them but would be better for the rest of us.

The myth is hurting us, and we need to call it out. COVID-19 is straining the farcically unjust systems we already lived in — and that could help us to see those systems’ flaws with greater clarity. If the questions seem insane — why are we pouring milk down drains? — it’s reflecting the conditions that created the drains. Giving “extra” milk to hungry people is not even close to a Band-Aid for all the problems that led to the situation in the first place.

Previously in The Revelator:

Can the U.S. Slash Food Waste in Half in the Next Ten Years?

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Elephant Hunts for Sale During a Pandemic

Botswana hides behind national “sovereignty” while selling off its natural heritage to foreign hunters and treating elephants as mere commodities.

In February 2020 the government of Botswana auctioned off the right to hunt and kill 60 elephants — the first salvo toward a quota that aimed to allow the trophy hunting of 272 elephants this year.

Plans for those hunts, which would have been the first since the country’s 2013 hunting moratorium, were put on hold in late March by the worldwide pandemic when Botswana banned travelers from the United States and other “high-risk” countries. But the Botswana Wildlife Producers Association, which represents the hunting industry, quickly asked for an extension of this year’s hunting season.

If the COVID-19 lockdowns end sometime soon, the bullets could quickly begin flying.

Botswana is a cash-strapped nation, so one can perhaps understand the short-term attraction of trophy hunting. The government made $2.3 million in a few hours on that February afternoon from selling 60 elephants at an average of $39,000 per head.

The pandemic has not slowed this thirst for short-term profits. On 27 March, just a few days after Botswana closed its borders, it reportedly auctioned off additional hunting rights for 15 elephants, two leopards and dozens of other animals for a total of $540,000. The auction results have not been publicly reported, but were conveyed to me by a present, concerned party.

An Elephant’s Value

To ecological economists like me, the push for trophy hunts seems to severely undervalue these magnificent creatures.

Notwithstanding their obvious intrinsic value, elephants most likely have even greater ecological-economic value than these hunting permits reflect.

For one thing, each elephant contributes to the dynamics of the ecosystem and improves the functionality of forests and savannahs as effective carbon sinks. A whole host of other species depend on elephants’ movements, which create forest corridors and shape the habitat. Elephant droppings fertilize forests and savannas and carry seeds to new locations. Even tiny tadpoles have been known to live in elephant footsteps.

Botswana elephant
Elephant in Botswana’s Okavango Delta. Photo © Ross Harvey, used with permission.

And then there’s the value to people. A 2014 report estimated that elephants are each worth more than $1.6 million in ecotourism alone. Purchasing an elephant at an auction for $39,000 and selling it on to a trophy hunter for $85,000, therefore, seems not only ethically callous but economically senseless.

Elephants are not alone in this. Recent work by International Monetary Fund economists estimated the value of a single whale at $2 million over its lifetime due to its roles in carbon sequestration, the growth of carbon-absorbing and oxygen-generating phytoplankton, and whale-watching tourism. They estimate that the world’s population of whales alone are worth a staggering $1 trillion. Obviously, there are no whales in Botswana, but the research illustrates the growing trend of valuing large megafauna well beyond their charismatic appearances.

An Important History

The Botswana government, under former president Ian Khama, originally placed a moratorium on trophy hunting back in 2013. In May 2019 the current government justified hunting’s reintroduction as an element of the country’s “sovereign right” — while at the same time abrogating this right to a foreign hunting organization, Safari Club International, which now openly boasts of how it influenced the decision.

During the moratorium wildlife and tourism groups lauded Botswana as a haven for elephants, a conservation and marketing success that saw rapid growth in the country’s ecotourism industry.

When President Mokgweetsi Masisi came to power, however, the political narrative changed from recognizing elephants as critical to the country’s success to labelling them as a problem to be “managed.” The president and other cabinet members have repeatedly peddled the view that there are “too many” elephants and that they are responsible for environmental damage and increased human-elephant conflict.

Of course, this myth has been repeatedly exposed and debunked.

That debunking hasn’t changed Botswana’s messaging. Trophy hunting, the world is told, will result in benefits such as meat, revenue and jobs for local communities in rural areas close to wildlife. These benefits will purportedly increase “frustration tolerance” (acceptance of the risk of living near elephants) among local community members, thus indirectly serving conservation ends.

Excluded from this new narrative is an acknowledgment that the moratorium was originally imposed because of the widespread failures of governance in community trusts. Abuses in the hunting industry were rife. There was also no evidence that trophy hunting revenues were equitably distributed or that hunting was contributing to wildlife conservation. In fact, wildlife numbers for many species were in decline by 2012, and excessive trophy hunting was considered among the potential causes of the decline. There’s good evidence to substantiate this, so the government cannot now argue that the ban was “not scientifically based.”

Moreover, the growth in Botswana’s tourism industry in the wake of the moratorium was remarkable, with increases in both the number of tourists and profits — not to mention growing elephant populations. This alone supports the idea of keeping photographic tourism as the primary revenue opportunity for elephants and other wildlife.

It’s not without criticism, however. We must also recognize that the Botswana Tourism Organisation — set up by the government to take a 65% share of photographic-community joint-venture revenue (leaving only 35% for communities that live with or near wildlife) — has been a governance disaster. In addition, the barriers for citizens to enter the tourism industry are impossibly high. They face formidable red tape in the licensing process and must conduct their own environmental impact assessments, which cost time and a lot of money.

These are long-term problems to solve, regardless of what type of tourism we’re talking about.

Trophy Hunting Is Not Conservation

But the growth of photographic tourism and wildlife populations are not discussed by the current government. Instead the narrative persists that trophy hunting will indirectly serve conservation by giving communities the tools and resources to withstand any human-elephant conflict they encounter. No clear evidence exists, however, that this type of conflict has increased since the moratorium, and it was prevalent long before then.

In fact research shows that hunting makes human-elephant conflict worse. The violent deaths of elder elephants creates intergenerational trauma, leading to increased aggression and delinquent behavior among young bulls. Growing human populations and resultant competition over access to water, which will become increasingly scarce under climate change, will make things even worse.

Botswana elephants
Elephants in Botswana’s Okavango Delta. Photo © Ross Harvey, used with permission.

Trophy hunting is therefore a short-term non-solution to human-elephant conflict.

Yes, some communities lost short-term hunting revenue after the moratorium was put in place, but that should not serve as cause to invite hunting’s return — not even for communities now facing the spectre of lost tourism income during the pandemic.

A Tragedy in the Making

Lifting the hunting moratorium under the guise of a country’s “sovereign right” is Orwellian doublespeak. Botswana does not own Africa’s shared elephants, which migrate between countries, yet the government has sold them out to foreign hunters and to satisfy foreign interests like Safari Club International. The long-term opportunity costs of hunting have not been considered, yet the government blindly insists that it will produce “significant conservation benefits.” Two plus two equals five here. There is no evidence that the Ministry’s decision has been guided by “the highest ethical standards and principles of science-based sustainability.” No publicly available science warrants the quota of 272 elephants for 2020, let alone the arbitrary allocation across sensitive areas and other areas which likely cannot sustain hunting at all.

Botswana’s decision to lift the trophy-hunting moratorium was ill advised at best and an indication of short-term rent-seeking at worst. It’s ecologically unsustainable, undermining the very foundations of the country’s recent ecotourism successes. Attempting to justify it under the banner of “sovereignty” raises questions, as the right to kill public heritage is being granted to wealthy foreign hunters. The ultimate tragedy is that the rural poor living with or near wildlife will be no better off.

And Botswana’s selling additional hunting rights during a worldwide pandemic, when the world’s attention is elsewhere, shows that the government does not care about its people or its elephants — only short-term profits.

COVID-19 has exposed humanity’s propensity to treat wild animals as mere commodities to be consumed. Animals slaughtered at wet meat markets in Wuhan were the most likely intermediary source of zoonotic spillover — possibly involving transmission of a bat virus from animals to humans. Trophy hunting reflects the very same mentality, that wild animals exist only for our entertainment and consumption.

It would be a real tragedy if these planned hunts simply resumed when the current lockdowns are lifted.

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.

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How COVID-19 Took Hold and Why We Must End the Wildlife Trade

Here’s what we can do to make sure the critical mistakes made after the SARS outbreak won’t be made again.

There will be no silver lining to the suffering caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, but there is a rare opportunity to learn a crucial lesson: The trade in wildlife must end.

In the past this cruel and destructive trade has been dismissed as a “conservation issue” by those who deem protection of the natural world a distraction from the grown-up matter of economic growth. They couldn’t be more wrong. As the novel coronavirus acts as a wrecking ball, devastating the global economy while killing tens of thousands of people, there’s a growing understanding that this “conservation” issue is inextricably bound up in global public health and economic security.

I was in Beijing when SARS hit China in early 2003 and saw the panic it caused. As a founder and director of the international conservation organization WildAid, I worked with students and tutors at the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine to build awareness of the cruelty, damage and other threats that accompanied the multibillion-dollar wildlife trade. The consumption of civet cats was believed to be the probable source of the SARS transmission to humans, and there was a growing realization of the health threats posed by the transmission of disease from wild animals to humans more broadly.

But even in the wake of SARS, China ignored the calls from conservationists to restrict or end the wildlife trade that devastates global animal populations… and the world was set on course for new disease outbreaks and to 2020’s tragic pandemic.

Fatal Errors

The critical mistakes made after the SARS outbreak were threefold.

First, the action taken was short term. Yes, China instigated a ban on the hunting, transport and sale of all wild animals in southern China, and civet cats in the so-called “farms” where they were bred for human consumption were either killed or quarantined, but these measures were temporary and limited to southern China, where the outbreak started.

Second, there was a critical misunderstanding of how the SARS virus was developing and being transmitted. While it seemed highly likely that it had come to humans via civet cats, there was a failure to address the deeper issue of where the virus originated. This is key, as it’s the intermixing of multiple species that occurs in the wildlife trade — species that don’t normally mix closely in the wild — that likely forms the pool for virus transmission, possibly with mutations from one species to another.

Last, but most certainly not least, was the global failure to come to grips with our unsustainable exploitation of wildlife. This meant that as one wildlife population was depleted, others were targeted and brought to market, creating the potential for novel viruses.

Put simply, the response was too narrow and short-lived to work in the long term to prevent another similar outbreak. And here we are today, with many tens of thousands dead, our global economy savaged and worse still to come.

Learning From Our Mistakes

This cannot be allowed to happen again.

China’s legislative committee has issued a welcome ban on wildlife trade from markets, restaurants and e-commerce. But it’s temporary. Unless this is permanent and enforced, it will become a mere PR exercise.

We’re not expecting another coronavirus to develop in the next few months or even year. But we should expect it in decades to come, unless bans are put in place in China and other consuming countries. And it’s crucial that those bans be enforced.

China has huge wildlife markets, with the legal side of the trade, the wildlife-farming industry, worth around $57 billion annually. This “legal” trade, which is already the source of barbaric cruelty, often provides a front for its shadowy, even nastier twin, the illegal trade. Traders in “wet markets” — like the one in Wuhan where this coronavirus is believed to have originated ­— sell live animals in deplorable conditions and are able to launder their products so that any illegality is extremely difficult to detect and prosecute, even when the authorities try.

This is why China’s oxymoronic “ban on illegal wildlife trading” ­(issued before the recent temporary ban on both legal and illegal wildlife consumption and trade) makes even less sense than it first appears to. Cracking down effectively on illegal wildlife trading is almost impossible unless the legal markets are dealt with.

It is also crucial that along with consumption of animals — which is what the temporary ban covers — any legislation must include animal parts procured for traditional Chinese medicine.

Not Just China

China has much urgent work to do, but this is categorically not a “Chinese problem.”

Collectors from across Asia, the United States, Europe and the Middle East, and many other regions drive the destructive trade in wild animals. In Vietnam, for example, the wildlife trade is worth over a billion dollars each year.

There we see hopeful signs of action too, with the prime minister asking the country’s agriculture ministry to draft a directive to stop illegal trading and consumption of wildlife.

But again, it must be all-encompassing, and it must be enforced.

The Real Solution

Underlying all this is our rampant, unsustainable, self-defeating exploitation of the natural world. We are at last beginning to understand that it is not just a danger to the overall ecological security of the planet but to human health — to ourselves. Ebola, bird flu, swine flu, Middle East respiratory syndrome, Rift Valley fever, SARS, West Nile virus and Zika virus: All these made the jump from animals to humans, and experts say it was almost always human behavior that caused the leap.

The new coronavirus is causing suffering and death, but it could be even worse. What if the contagious nature of corona had been combined with the 50% death rate of Ebola? The tragedy would have been unthinkable.

Preventing further, potentially more vicious outbreaks is not just a matter of shutting down wildlife markets like Wuhan’s. It requires us to reassess our connection to nature. To halt the destruction of ecosystems and climate crisis that drive wildlife into contact with people.

This would not only safeguard against lethal outbreaks, it would make us happier, healthier and put us on track for a prosperous, sustainable green economy.

China has acknowledged the need to bring the wildlife trade under control if it is to prevent another outbreak — and that’s an important and welcome step. But, along with the rest of the world, it must follow through, even after this coronavirus has subsided and the world’s attention has turned elsewhere.

We have the opportunity here to safeguard species threatened with extinction, reduce cruelty to animals, and protect our economy and health at the same time.

This planet is our home. It keeps us well and safe, but only if we do the same for it.

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Blood Is Life — The Amazing Dragon’s Blood Tree

New research proposes classifying the threatened tree as an “umbrella species” because of its oversized ecological role.

Dragon’s blood trees (Dracaena cinnabari) are evolutionary marvels of the plant kingdom, but they may not be around forever.

Native to a single island in the Socotra archipelago, off the coast of Yemen in the Arabian Sea, the extraordinary-looking dragon’s blood tree, which is classified as “vulnerable to extinction,” can grow to more than 30 feet in height and live for 600 years. Looming over the island’s rocky, mountainous terrain, it produces rich berries and a vermilion sap — the source of its name — that has been used for centuries as everything from medicine to lipstick, and even as a varnish for violins.

Visually, the trees are stunning. Their branches grow in an outward-forking pattern that gives them the look of a giant mushroom or an umbrella sucked inside-out by the wind.

extinction countdownAnd that appearance isn’t the only umbrella-like aspect of the dragon’s blood. New research, published in the journal Forests, suggest the tree could also be considered an umbrella species — the protection of which would benefit a wide range of other species.

The umbrella species concept has traditionally been applied to large, wide-ranging, charismatic mammals and birds such as giant pandas, mountain gorillas and northern spotted owls. The theory is that by protecting these animals and their habitats you also, directly or indirectly, conserve everything else that lives near them.

A team of researchers from Socotra, Spain and Portugal wanted to find out if the dragon’s blood tree could do the same thing — even though, unlike other umbrella species, it stays in one place. It’s not that big a leap: The tree has long been considered an indicator species, meaning it quickly shows signs of changes to its environment and plays host to a wide range of the island’s other unique wildlife. But would protecting the dragon’s blood also help other species?

The researchers studied 280 trees for two months and found that they provided food and shelter to at least 12 of Socotra’s endemic reptile species, including 10 geckos, one chameleon and a snake. Some of these species were only observed a few times, so they probably don’t fully depend on the dragon’s blood, but others, like the critically endangered gecko known only as Hemidactylus dracaenacolus, appear to only live amidst the trees.

Dragon's blood trees
Photo: Rod Waddington (CC BY-SA 2.0)

The trees themselves weren’t the only part of the equation. Bushes from the Cissus genus grow near and around the trees, providing a shared habitat for many of the observed lizards.

Although the researchers caution that their research period was relatively short, they say this supports their hypothesis that the dragon’s blood tree should be considered an umbrella species on the Socotra archipelago and protected for the good of the whole.

And that protection is sorely needed. Dragon’s blood trees face a wide range of threats, including logging, habitat fragmentation, and overgrazing of seeds and young shoots by livestock. Few new trees survive to maturity. The trees currently occupy just 10% of their potential habitat.

Climate change will make things even worse. The island is already getting drier, and research cited in the Forests paper calculates the dragon’s blood will lose up to 45% of its remaining range by the year 2080.

As the researchers write, this means dragon’s blood forests are in urgent need of protection now.

But Yemen remains in the grips of a five-year war that includes a power struggle for control of Socotra. This conflict, which has killed more than 100,000 people, has curtailed conservation efforts on the island. The researchers, who conducted their study before the conflicts began, note that international funding to help nurseries grow dragon’s blood seedlings has been placed “on hold due to the country’s political situation.” (Saudi Arabia just announced two-week cease-fire, which was expected to begin on April 9 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.)

For now the dragon’s blood tree persists, and its umbrella-like branches continue to serve as vital shelter and resource for the both the human and ecological communities around them.

Watch this 2014 video about the dragon’s blood tree and the threats it faces from climate change:

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Now’s a Great Time to Become a Backyard Naturalist — Here’s How

Connecting with nearby nature can give people a much-needed boost — and help save wildlife, too.

Millions of people who aren’t frontline workers in the COVID-19 pandemic are adjusting to a new routine that means staying home — or close to it. Many are seeking solace outside.

Nature is good for our health. And during stressful times, it can be a lifeline.

“I’ve become convinced that even in the background — green space, biodiversity, birdsong — access to nature is crucial for good population health,” Lucy Jones, author of the new book Losing Eden: Why Our Minds Need the Wild, told Huck Magazine. “And it’s not a luxury, an add-on or a frill: It’s central to our humanity and our sanity.”

You don’t need to flock to dangerously overcrowded national parks to do this. Experts say you can find nature where you are already — whether that’s your backyard, a window box, or whatever sliver of wild is within reach. For many people, including kids, that may begin with learning what kind of nonhuman neighbors they have.

If you’re not sure where to start, try birds.

“Since we share our community with birds wherever we are, I think it’s a great way to think about being grounded and connected right now,” says John Rowden, director of Audubon’s Plants for Birds program, which supports planting native flora. “If you’re out for a walk, it’s an opportunity to begin to listen to what life is in your neighborhood.”

And fortunately, you may not even need to leave your house.


“Backyard birding by putting out feeders is a lot of people’s entrée into the birding world,” says Andrea Jones, director of bird conservation for Audubon California. Birds are easier to spot when they sit still to eat. (Just make sure you know what to safely feed them and how to keep the feeder clean.)

You can simply delight in their presence or go further and learn which species they are. There are lots of apps that can help you identify birds and birdsong, including one from the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology that can match your photos with species and another from Audubon that lets you track what you’ve seen and share it with friends.

Birding in the days of quarantine doesn’t have to be an entirely solitary pursuit.

And now’s an especially good time to get into birds, since the spring migration in North America is underway — or, in the northern areas, will be starting soon.

Swifts entering chimney
Vaux swifts swoop into an abandoned chimney in downtown Los Angeles. Photo: waltarrr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

Migration is a bonus for those who lives in cities, where biodiversity is usually lower than in rural areas.

“Many cities can have huge waves of migrants and really high diversity,” says Jones. “Parks with flowering trees and ornamentals attract a lot of insects and get huge pulses of migrants, particularly warblers.”

Watch for Yourself — and for Science

As important as it is to connect with nature on a personal level, you can also be a part of something bigger by recording what you’re seeing and sharing that information with scientists who track bird migration over time. Your data could help them to better understand how factors like climate change, habitat loss and pesticides may be affecting bird populations and movements.

“Cornell University [uses that information] to build maps that show how birds are moving across our landscape in real time,” says Jones. “You can see a wave of tanagers coming through.”

Audubon has used volunteer data to build climate maps showing what kind of habitat birds prefer, how that may have shifted, and whether birds will have the habitat they need in the future as the climate changes, she says.

Birding may help give people a reprieve from the day’s stress, but birds can also tell us a lot about the places around us.

Diseases passed between migratory waterfowl can provide a warning about contaminants in water. Or a lack of insect-eating birds could indicate a loss of insects from things like pesticides and insecticides, Jones says.

“We see that with flycatchers not showing up in some areas, and we think it may be attributed to loss of a food source they need,” she says. “They tell us a lot about the health of the environment because of what they eat.”

Changes are afoot. A 2019 study found that the population of North America’s birds has dropped 30% since 1970 — a loss of nearly 3 billion birds.

Learning about birds can translate into learning to protect birds, says Rowden. And it can provide an opportunity to learn more about other parts of our natural world, too — like native plants.

“As people are mandated or encouraged to stay home, there are lots of plants that can support birds that can be grown from seeds — even in window boxes if you don’t have a yard,” says Rowden.

Finding more than just birds? Another app called iNaturalist, a joint project of the California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society, can help you identify and track just about any plant or animal you see around you — and share that information with scientists and other users.

Ready? Some Tips to Get Started

If you want to see more birds and other wildlife, try going outside around dawn or dusk. Or change your perspective — get down low to see what’s crawling, hopping, or slithering on the ground. There’s a lot more to see than birds, after all.

And record what you see over time. That’s particularly important right now: As our routines change, how’s wildlife in our communities responding?

Stay quiet, walk slowly, or better yet, try sitting still for a bit. That may take some practice.

Connecting with nature can make these difficult days more bearable — even, at times, beautiful.

This is an opportunity to appreciate what you’ve got in your backyard, says Jones.

“I discovered there’s an oak titmouse nesting on my back patio,” she says. “If I wasn’t working from home every day, I wouldn’t know that and I’d be going to some far-off location to look for birds and not know I had something cool five feet from my back door.”

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