But not without consequence. A new special report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shows that in a vicious feedback loop, this vital life-support system is under threat as the planet warms. As we feed our addiction to fossil fuels, levels of carbon dioxide continue to skyrocket, causing the ocean to become more acidic. As it acidifies, its capacity to act as a carbon sink falls.
And that’s very bad news. We need our oceans to help stabilize the climate. A healthy ocean, teeming with plant and animal life, fixes and stores carbon — a key survival tool for all of us.
A transect line runs over purple rice corals at Lisianski Island that have bleached from warming waters. (Photo by Courtney Couch/ Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology, CC BY-NC 2.0)
A Paris Agreement for the Ocean
Climate change isn’t the only crisis affecting the oceans. Since industrial fishing began in the early 1950s, 90 percent of the world’s large ocean fish — such as sharks, cod and swordfish — have been lost. And 90 percent of the planet’s fish stocks are now either fully exploited or overfished, according to the latest report from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.
Researchers say we’ll need to safeguard at least 30 percent of the oceans by 2030. But our track record so far is pitiful: Less than 4 percent of the ocean is protected. On the high seas, which lie beyond national jurisdiction, industrial exploitation continues almost entirely unchecked. These waters are home to some of the world’s most extraordinary wildlife — from the blue whale to the vampire squid — yet just 1 percent is protected.
This lack of regulation and transparency allows the lawless plunder of the oceans to continue, often driving with it the horrific abuse of fishing vessel crews — far from land and unable to escape.
But change could be on the way. As I write, the United Nations is hashing out the details of a new Global Ocean Treaty — due to be agreed in 2020. This legal framework would allow for the creation of high seas sanctuaries — a move that would be nothing short of essential for the future of our oceans and the survival of humanity.
Researchers have already supplied a protection plan that would work. By analyzing each hundred-square-kilometer area, of the 25,000 of these that make up the high seas, they have found the 30 percent that would be best for conservation and would help build the healthy and resilient sea that we need for the future of the planet.
Environmental Justice at Stake
There is, of course, much political maneuvering going on at the U.N. negotiations — who gets what and how each country can maximize their slice of the pie. But the truth is that proper protection for the high seas is the only fair solution.
Just as rich nations have reaped the benefits of carbon-fueled development, and now suffer fewer of the consequences of climate change, out on the high seas just 10 rich nations, including Japan, Korea, and Spain, take 71 percent of the catch.
Climate and ocean injustice again go hand in hand. For every degree Celsius of warming, caused mostly by wealthy industrialized countries, global fisheries catch potential will fall by more than 3 million metric tons. The impacts of this will be worse nearer the equator, where some countries may see their annual catches fall by half. Once again poorer countries will suffer —those more reliant on seafood protein, who have done far less to destabilize the climate and destroy ocean ecosystems.
Protection of the high seas is desperately needed for both ocean health and human well-being. It would mean havens for ocean wildlife that sustain and replenish the waters closer to shore. This would enhance fish stocks and food security, providing resilience to the challenges of a changing climate.
Time is of the essence. Change is already upon us. All around the world people are being forced from their homes, losing their livelihoods. The ocean does much to protect us from our own greed and insatiable need for growth; we need to protect it in return. This proposal would see just 30 percent of the ocean freed from the pressures of fishing, mining and pollution — surely the least we can do.
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 public has long supported a state program to provide water for wildlife, but now human threats, including border-wall construction and climate change, are making a bad situation worse.
August is normally Arizona’s wettest month.
Not this year, though. The usual monsoon season failed to arrive, and just 1.5 inches of rain fell sporadically on the state throughout the month — the same period that the city of Phoenix experienced record high temperatures of up to 114 degrees Fahrenheit.
The soaring temperatures and specter of drought have left many Arizona residents worrying about their access to water.
It’s also driven wildlife managers to fret over whether the state’s abundant wildlife — which rely on infrequent rains — will have enough water to survive.
“As the drought has deepened, the waters that wildlife traditionally used are going away or have completely disappeared,” says Kevin Woolridge, a teacher at Blue Ridge High School in Arizona who, with his students’ help, has collaborated with the Arizona Game and Fish Department to monitor the drought and its impact on wildlife.
Meanwhile a new manmade threat to Arizona’s water has cropped up. The Trump administration has begun construction on a stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border wall at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, a UNESCO biosphere reserve. As part of construction, the Trump administration plans to pull up some of Arizona’s precious groundwater — not to hydrate people or animals, but to mix with concrete to build a 44-mile section of the border wall.
While the federal government spends billions on its wall across the border and sucks up some of Arizona’s last remaining ancient groundwater in the process, Arizona wildlife officials are asking the public for millions of dollars in donations to fund the delivery of water to animals in parched areas across the state.
A History of Water Capture Turns to Delivery
Beginning in the 1940s, long before the world was aware of climate change, ranchers in Arizona made the arid landscape more hospitable to their cattle by building concrete rain catchments.
At the same time, Arizona wildlife officials began doing the same thing to provide supplemental water to game birds such as quail and dove. When they noticed that all kinds of wildlife — including insects —were also drinking from catchments, they built more. In total 3,000 units for all species have been constructed across the state.
Arizona’s first efforts to collect water for livestock and wildlife date back to the 1940s. (Photo by Arizona Game and Fish Dept.)
For decades rainwater was enough to fill the catchments regularly. But as the global climate has continued to warm, Arizona fell into a long-term drought, and many catchments are now dry. With natural water sources also drying up, and animals going thirsty, officials with the Arizona Game and Fish Department have resorted to trucking out water to fill these catchments at a rate of 1.5 million gallons annually. They rely on donations from the public to keep the $1 million-a-year water deliveries going.
Experts say humans are the clear culprits for this water loss and need for water delivery.
“It’s hard not to see the effect of urban development on natural streams in Arizona,” says Hector Zamora of the University of Arizona, who has studied watersheds in southern Arizona. “Rivers that used to freely flow in the 1900s — such as the Gila River, the Sonoyta River and the Santa Cruz River — are now bone dry. Climate change will likely further degrade these already stressed systems.”
And Arizona is not alone. Similar situations are playing out around the country and the world. Wildlife officials are trucking in water to animals in southern Nevada, where the Bureau of Land Management has had to deliver water to feral horses in order to prevent their certain death. Water deliveries to wildlife are becoming more common in fast-warming areas, such as southern Australia, where without aid the country’s iconic koalas would die of dehydration, and in Kenya where elephants have also been spared by truckloads of water.
Across the world wildlife officials say rivers are drying up, and they are increasingly being forced to transport water to wildlife by truck and monitor catchments by helicopter, two costly and carbon-intensive modes of transport.
“My assumption is that burning fossil fuels to deliver the water to the catchment areas is impacting and exacerbating the overall situation,” says Woolridge, who is overseeing a catchment-sensor project developed by one of his students that could make it easier for Arizona to monitor water levels. “However, the cost of doing nothing is potentially catastrophic.”
Joseph Currie, habitat-planning program manager for the Arizona Game and Fish Department, agrees. “At present there is no relief in sight from the drought conditions and reduction in free surface water.”
It’s not a stretch to think humans might be next: According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, population growth, increased development and intensifying climate changes will lead to “greater water demand in growing cities and reduced water availability could also affect [residents’] access to drinking water” throughout Arizona and the Southwest.
The Wall: Making Things Worse
Arizona Public Media reports that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection estimates building along Organ Pipes Cactus National Monument will require at least 84,000 gallons of water per day pumped from the ground around Quitobaquito Springs and other natural water sources along the border.
Such springs are uncommon, according to Zamora, who adds that besides serving as important sources of water to wildlife, they are also culturally important.
“Quitobaquito Springs has been visited since prehistoric times by Native Americans and is considered sacred by the Tohono O’odham Nation,” he says. They were also visited by missionaries and the Forty-Niners during California’s Gold Rush.
Ancient waters feed the springs, meaning that they’re not currently being recharged, says Zamora. Once the water’s gone, it’s gone.
Working for Solutions
With waters around Arizona drying up, Currie is leading a long-term project updating existing water catchments across the state with troughs and tanks that are more smartly designed and placed.
One way he’s boosted the catchments’ design efficiency is to increase the size of the rainwater collection aprons, allowing for more rain to be caught and less to evaporate, and spacing catchments at least two miles apart — increasing the availability of water to a larger number of wildlife.
But replacing catchments is a slow process. The department is currently on track to replace just 20 a year. At that rate it would take 150 years to upgrade the entire system.
A big horn sheep visits a water trough in Arizona. (Photo by Arizona Fish and Game Dept.)
Historically the use of catchments to provide water for wildlife has been a controversial subject because of their potential to stagnate and spread disease, and possibly lead to deadly predator-prey interactions where water is made available. However, a small but growing body of recent research — including in California’s Mojave Desert — suggests that presence of manmade water catchments appears to increase biodiversity more than natural precipitation.
While the scientific consensus on water catchments is currently unsettled, Currie says he’s observed what appear to be positive effects of providing water for wildlife. Water catchments in Arizona bring a resurgence of mule deer, javelin, quail and other species in former ranching areas where they’d disappeared, he says. His team monitors catchments with trail cameras, which reveal that virtually every native species in Arizona — from chipmunks to eagles to elk — does indeed drink from troughs across the state.
He adds that building well-planned water catchments can make it possible “to better distribute wildlife in usable habitat so that certain areas are not over grazed by wildlife,” helping preserve the integrity of Arizona’s wild landscape. In his 22 years working with water catchments, Currie says the spread of disease hasn’t been a problem, and water quality in Arizona Game and Fish Department’s catchments remains high.
While Arizona’s water catchments and deliveries may help keep wildlife hydrated, a better strategy — not just in the state but worldwide — would be to more intelligently plan water use, says Benjamin I. Cook, climate expert at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
“It’s less about humans needing to proactively provide water for wildlife and ecosystems,” he says, “and more about managing human water withdrawals and water consumption so that enough is left for natural systems.”
As for the situation at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, sucking out Arizona’s natural groundwater to build the border wall, Zamora says, is probably an unwise use of water that will leave Arizona’s fauna — including its people — high and dry.
In a warming climate, some bat houses could be death traps. But community-level bat boxes can help give bats more room and options to raise young safely.
From Batman to Bat Week, Stellaluna to FernGully’sBatty, bats — both fictional and real — capture our imagination. But their plight is becoming increasingly desperate because of the spread of deadly white-nose syndrome, increasing habitat loss and other environmental pressures.
That’s led to a new interest in constructing bat boxes — the bat equivalent to a bird house. Even “Shark Tank,” the entrepreneurial-themed reality show, is fronting the idea of building artificial homes for bats. While it’s good to see interest in helping our night-flying neighbors, there are important factors to consider before you dig out the wood and screwdriver or purchase a pre-fab bat box.
Recent observations suggest possible problems with bat houses, and a need to revisit artificial roost structures. In fact, existing approaches may only meet some of the varied needs of bats and could, in some cases, create death traps in a rapidly warming climate.
First we have the problem of too much of a good thing. Bats, particularly reproductive females and their offspring, need a warm environment to roost in during the day. Without it, reproduction is unlikely to be successful. But not too hot! Bats have small bodies with large wings of skin, making them susceptible to overheating and dehydration.
After an overheating event at this bat box, when bats succumbed to the heat, this landowner installed an awning (mounted at peak of roof) that he opens and closes daily during peak afternoon heat, enabling bats to warm, but not overheat. (Photo by S. Dulc)
Bats dying from overheating has become a real concern around the world, with temperature records being broken and heat waves lasting longer every summer. What once looked like an inviting sunny location may now be a deadly hot spot.
When bats take up residence in an old building attic, they will move around inside the space to find just the right temperature to raise a pup, just like Goldilocks testing each bowl of porridge. In a bat house, this option is far more limited, meaning bats have a harder time finding a roosting spot that is “just right.”
In the wild, bats often move between rock or tree crevices that may be just right in the spring but too hot in summer, or too cold in spring but just right in summer. As outside temperatures fluctuate, bats move around to find just the right temperatures — whether in large attic roost spaces, between rock crevices or among tree bark cavities. Individual bat houses pose the same challenge.
Finding just the right temperature is important for bats because as our only flying mammal, they face a unique challenge — flying is energy-intensive.
Instead of burning fat to stay warm, reproducing female bats rely on surrounding air temperature to maintain body heat. Their warm bodies develop a fetus in a short period and produce ample milk for nursing their young. A roost that is warm ensures they don’t burn through too much fat and keeps their pup’s little body warm so it can grow and fatten fast, ready for winter. Roost temperature plays a critical role in determining whether a mother bat successfully raises her pup.
Bat “boxes” provide valuable shelter to a small but important subset of bats that are very important for helping control insect pests in our community gardens, farms and backyards. As older buildings give way to new tightly-sealed structures, roost sites grow scarcer. Long-lived females may be surprised to discover that the roosts to which they faithfully return each year are gone, with no other local options.
Bat boxes can help, but bats need more than a solitary outpost. Instead of just one box in one back yard, consider a few in different climatic corners of our neighborhoods — sunny, mixed sun and shade. Giving bats accommodation options that are all a short flight away is a great way to help them avoid problems with overheating and overcrowding. And a community approach is pretty much guaranteed to succeed because even though not everyone’s bat boxes will be occupied all of the time, or every year, each box plays a role in helping your local bats over time. This may be a better way to get to know your neighbor than asking to borrow a cup of sugar!
But as anyone who has dragged a stroller up the steps of a bus can attest, moving young can be difficult and energy draining. So keeping some boxes close together is an important tactic to provide passageways between boxes for females with young to move to cooler or warmer areas as needed. Building boxes back-to-back with passageways between is one option.
At the community level, green spaces can make an excellent location for a “mini-attic” built especially for bats. These provide more temperature and humidity options than a single bat box — more closely simulating old building attics. Constructing these “bat condos” can help any neighborhood become bat-friendly because what bats really need is not just a house, but a community.
This large “bat condo” built to house thousands of building-roosting bats provides a large range of microclimates, ideal for female bats to raise pups. (Photo by S. Dulc)
Fortunately, community bat programs, like those in British Columbia, Alberta, Alaska and Vermont are starting the work of talking to people about creating better conditions for bats across wider areas.
As white-nose syndrome spreads across the United States and Canada, bats need a helping hand more than ever. We are working hard to figure out how to do this in urban landscapes where our dependence on bats has largely been taken for granted. We recently piloted a promising new white-nose syndrome prevention tool, adding probiotic dust to some bat boxes in Metro Vancouver, with the goal of arming bats with the ability to fight off the deadly disease. This could give us another reason to erect bat boxes in our urban landscapes, but we won’t know how well this tool works for at least another year, as we test bats coming back from hibernation.
Overall bat boxes can be great tools for bat conservation, but if we want to help bats survive and reproduce by building artificial roosts (or protecting natural ones), it is important that our neighborhoods and local governments work together to ensure a wide range of nearby roost options for bats to move — so they always have the opportunity to find conditions that are “just right.”
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 decline of a rare cactus in a national park epitomizes the Trump administration’s failure to protect endangered species along the border.
Construction is underway on a 30-foot-high steel wall along Arizona’s southern border in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. As several reports have recently warned, the wall will hurt many endangered desert species, from Sonoran pronghorns to cactus ferruginous pygmy owls. To understand how the wall will further fragment habitats for these already-declining plants and animals, let’s go deep with one rare species that’s at grave risk: a cactus called the night-blooming cereus.
Sacamatraca, a beautiful and rare cereus known as Peniocereus striatus, has declined markedly over several decades and is highly threatened in much of its range, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Its scattered populations are often small — roughly 50 to 200 plants — and widely separated from each other. An important population of about 200 of these cacti finds its home on the southern border of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.
The night-blooming cereus in Sonora, Mexico. (Photo by Sue Carnahan, CC BY-SA 3.0)
This binational cactus patch was even in trouble before Trump’s call for a wall.
Why? The answer lies in the border that fragments nature’s cohesiveness. In 1849, when the Gadsden Purchase drew a line through the middle of the Sonoran Desert, roughly half of the cereus cacti along the Organ Pipe border became U.S. citizens, while the others still lived under the flag of Mexico. Over the past few decades, construction of roads in the United States and irrigated farms in Mexico have destroyed about one-tenth of the original population. Even more habitat has been degraded. Wood-cutting by Mexican families to heat their homes and cook food triggered further cactus declines by eliminating host plants the cereus cacti needed to survive.
When I first noticed the mortality 25 years ago, I asked the brilliant Mexican ecologist Humberto Suzán Azpiri to help me study this threatened borderline cereus population. At that time we had full cooperation from both Mexican and U.S. officials, including the biologists and law-enforcement staff inside Organ Pipe. With their permission we spent hundreds of hours in the field on both sides of the border, detailing the causes of the decline and planning possible solutions.
Each night we surveyed opposite sides of the border as darkness fell to catch sight of the gorgeous, ghost-white blossoms of the cereus emanating from what otherwise looked like dead sticks.
The night-blooming cereus in bloom. (Photo by Dr. Juergen Menzel, CC BY-NC 3.0)
We passed our research equipment back and forth over the waist-high vehicle barrier and collected data on floral blooms, visiting pollinators and seeds. We learned that on any single night, each cereus flower had fewer than a dozen potential sources of pollen from neighboring cacti on either side of the border. We learned that moths would fly up to 300 yards between flowers to gather nectar and deposit the pollen essential to fruit set.
Out in the stinkin’ hot desert, that’s a pretty long distance for pollen to travel from mate to mate.
When our technical paper on the effects of habitat fragmentation on the cereus cacti came out in Conservation Biology, we concluded that international cooperation would be critical to preserving host plants and allowing for pollination by sphingid moths — the two key factors for the survival of the cactus.
Now our capacity for transborder monitoring of this binational population has been fragmented. Though we remain fast friends, Humberto and I will never be able to replicate our first study with an impenetrable wall and two sparring government bureaucracies between us.
But it’s not just the collaborations of transborder conservation researchers that have been lost. The true danger is to the plants and animals that live there.
Border-wall construction will clear more landscape along the border and inevitably knock out more cacti. For each mile of wall, more habitat will be bulldozed for “enforcement zones,” then paved with high-speed patrol roads, staked with sensors and blasted with 24-hour flood lighting.
Both the 30-foot steel bollard wall and the flood lights will doom “collaborations” between hawkmoths — the co-evolved pollinators of the cacti — and the cereus themselves. Hawkmoths spend most of the night flying at heights of 9 to 30 feet, trying to sniff out cactus floral scents. For the moths that can make it over the 30-foot barrier, their perception of the flowers and their attractive scents will likely be disrupted by lights, noise and dust from construction.
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument is not the cereus’ only habitat, but similar situations will play out throughout their range and across the length of the border. New walls will disrupt ecosystems, stop wildlife migrations and push dozens, if not hundreds, of species in the borderlands closer to extinction.
And so the sacamatraca cactus has become “the canary on the border line,” foreshadowing localized extinctions as an immediate example of how border walls will harm plants and animals.
This unprecedented, lit-up, 30-foot monstrosity is a nightmare in the making, but it’s not one that either the Park Service or local Customs and Border Protection has recommended. There are already “Normandy barriers” that effectively block vehicle passage into the United States but do not fragment habitat or stop wildlife migration. Border Patrol has hundreds of cameras and sensors scattered throughout the wilderness, amounting to a complex network of surveillance technology. We already have a virtual wall — and one that’s far more effective than a medieval bulwark.
So what is the true price we’ll pay for an unneeded, frankly absurd wall in a national park that’s being built only to fulfill an uninformed political promise?
For one, it’s 624 million taxpayer dollars, and that’s just for the stretch along the park border.
But the true cost also includes things that are priceless: a cactus with a brilliant night blossom that makes a sphinx moth swoon; disrupted relationships among plants, pollinators and seed dispersers; and a half-century of cooperation among Mexican and U.S. biologists who now fear that their collaborative conservation efforts are all for naught.
The story of the sphynx moth and the night-blooming cereus is just one small tale in this looming national tragedy. From the desecration of Indigenous sacred sites to the scar it will cut across our public lands, the border wall will leave devastation in its wake.
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.
Successful conservation means more sharks, which is great for the health of the ocean but could also be problematic in a few important ways. Here’s how experts say we should prepare.
For decades scientists and environmentalists have been sounding the alarm about shark population declines and calling for new and stronger laws to help sharks and related elasmobranch species recover from overfishing.
While globally many shark populations are still imperiled, efforts are starting to pay off as science-based management is leading to some shark population recoveries. Great white sharks on both coasts of the United States are starting to recover, as are leopard and soupfin sharks off the West Coast and seven species of sharks off the Southeast, for example.
In what has in some places become a “dog that caught the car moment,” many are wondering what we should do now that we’re starting to succeed. Or, as the title of a new paper published in the journal Environmental Conservation on this topic boldly asks, “Are we ready for elasmobranch conservation success?”
Shark conservationists have long touted the ecological benefits of healthy shark populations — predators help keep the food web in balance by eating sick and weak members of prey species — but the success of shark conservation means, quite simply, that there are more sharks around. That’s great for the health of the ocean, but it can lead to new conflicts if we don’t properly plan and prepare. The authors of the Environmental Conservation paper highlight three ways that increased shark populations can lead to new conflicts and suggest ways we can prepare.
Grey reef sharks swim in the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument. (Photo by Kydd Pollock, CC BY-NC 2.0)
Conflict With Fishers
Higher populations of marine predators mean that fishers trying to catch the same prey are having more competition.
“Sharks are consuming fish that are of importance or high value to communities,” says Michelle Heupel, director of the University of Tasmania’s Integrated Marine Observing System and a coauthor of the study. Shark consumption of fish can lower their abundance, leaving less for fishermen to catch. Or sometimes sharks directly “steal” catch from fishermen by consuming fish caught in fishing gear.
Another new study in the journal Ecology and Evolution has shown that shark population recoveries result in declines in the population of mid-level predatory fish such as those commonly fished by humans like snappers and groupers. Researchers found that “The eradication of illegal fishing allowed numbers of sharks and other large predatory fishes to rebound, which in turn resulted in lower numbers of smaller predatory fishes due to an increase in predation pressure,” says Conrad Speed, a postdoctoral researcher at the Australian Institute of Marine Science and the lead author of that study. “In other words, the recovery of sharks and large fish suppressed the abundance of smaller predatory species.”
Speed noted that this change in ecosystem structure represents a success in terms of ecological restoration, but it is undeniably a major change in the type and number of fish.
More Shark Bites
While the risk of a shark bite remains extremely low, simple math indicates that having more sharks in more places means that the risk will likely go up — especially as recovering shark populations move into areas where there haven’t been large sharks in decades.
“In general, people are happy to see wildlife conserved when it doesn’t inconvenience them in any way, and feelings are more mixed when we have to share space with wildlife and assume the risks that can entail,” says Catherine MacDonald, a lecturer in marine conservation at the University of Miami and the director of research and education organization Field School, with whom I’ve collaborated on several past research projects involving human perception of sharks.
For example, in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, great white shark populations are beginning to recover, but Cynthia Wigren, CEO of the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, says that even though it’s a conservation success story, they aren’t popping the champagne cork just yet.
In an act of good will toward the species, beachgoers there helped rescue a stranded great white in 2015 and the chance to see sharks is even attracting some tourists to the area, but after a swimmer died in 2018 from a shark bite on the Cape, public feelings are mixed.
“People no longer feel like they can enter the water without thinking about sharks and the need for heightened awareness about safety,” Wigren says. “For some in the community, having to change their behavior when recreating in the ocean is a hard pill to swallow. We believe that conflict related to negative human-white shark interactions is the greatest threat to the continued conservation of the species.”
And then there are also economic considerations, too. While there’s a financial value to be gained from sharks aiding diving and wildlife tourism, preventing negative interactions between sharks and humans also takes resources. Money is often spent on “spotting planes, beach closures, boat patrols, and netting or fishing to reduce the size of local shark populations,” says MacDonald.
Protected Species at Risk
While the risk of humans being bit by sharks remains low, other species may not be as lucky.
A great white shark attacking a sea lion. (Photo by Greg Schechter, CC BY 2.0)
More sharks means more sharks eating other animals, and sometimes those other animals are also threatened species we’re trying to manage and recover. “For example, increased shark predation on seals based on increased numbers of sharks can cause concern for the status of seal populations, ultimately leading to conflicts over protection of both sharks and seals,” Heupel says.
Sea otters in California are also threatened by rebounding populations of white sharks, although the otters are usually an accidental victim, as the sharks prefer meatier prey.
Sometimes sharks and their relatives are also the victims of this same problem. In Canada’s Gulf of St. Lawrence, recent research finds that a unique population of winter skates, which may represent a yet-unidentified new species, is now at risk of localized extinction because the nearby population of grey seals has recovered.
Beyond Conservation
For good reason, most conservation programs focus on stopping the decline and promoting the recovery of imperiled species, and don’t necessarily have the time or resources to think about what happens next.
“The implications of recovery happen after the initial goals are achieved, so in some ways they’re beyond the scope of the conservation program,” Heupel says. “However, if we don’t consider the factors around recovery from end to end, we may overlook competing or complicating factors that arise after conservation goals are achieved and which have the capacity to undermine conservation efforts.”
Fortunately increased public education to help people know what’s happening in their environment, and understand how to safely use the ocean as things change can go a long way toward making conservation truly successful.
“Proactively communicating with the public and stakeholders about the objectives of conservation efforts and hearing their perspective is key to formulating decisions that can suit as many needs and priorities as possible to avoid scenarios that undermine conservation efforts,” says Heupel.
Wigren agrees. “Our role is to increase knowledge and understanding of white sharks through research and to share that information with the public and beach managers,” she says. “Our hope is that informed decisions will be made based on data and facts rather than fear, and that the conservation of the species will remain a priority.”
It’s important to consider that the success of some conservation programs may lead to complications in the future, but that doesn’t mean that conservation isn’t good.
“We’re not claiming that recovering shark populations is a bad thing, despite some [potential] negative impacts,” says John Carlson, a research biologist with NOAA Fisheries and a coauthor on the Environmental Conservation paper. “But we do want the public to recognize that alternative management policies may be needed in the future.”
With more sharks around, we’re going to need to change how we fish, how we spend time at the coast for recreation and how we manage other species — all of which will require public education efforts.
And this gets to the heart of why conservation efforts are so important in the first place. The real question, MacDonald says, comes down to “whether we’re willing to accept some inconvenience and risk in order to live on a wild planet where other species can thrive.”
People displaced by drought, sea-level rise, wildfires and other environmental threats are not currently considered “refugees,” like people fleeing violence or oppression. That needs to change.
“God knows what will happen. We know the end is coming.”
These were the words of Saber Saladas, a Bangladeshi fisherman and farmer, after his village, home and livelihood were destroyed by floods last year.
Saladas is just one of 8 million people in Bangladesh who have become climate refugees in their home country — forcibly displaced by flooding, river erosion and saltwater intrusion.
“Once, [my] village was green with paddy fields,” he told the Environmental Justice Foundation from an inland shelter after he and his family had fled their home. “But now the water is salty and the trees have died. We can only farm shrimp… We just want to breathe, to live a long life.”
As it stands there’s no clear-cut legal definition for people like Saber Saladas. Although they’re unable to stay in their homes due to both immediate danger and/or an inability to survive there (as is the case when food sources and livelihoods are ruined by inhospitable conditions), they’re not covered by the global “traditional refugee” model.
This model was established by the 1951 Refugee Convention, which states that people may claim their right to asylum if they have a “genuine and well-founded” fear of being persecuted to the point that their life and safety are threatened. This persecution can be for any reason, but common grounds tend to be based on religion, sexuality, political belief or gender identity.
The issue with this longstanding definition of a “refugee” is that the environment does not personally persecute people or communities. There are certain demographic groups, such as working-class and poorer communities, that are more prone to being environmentally displaced, but nature itself is arbitrary. Because of this, legally defining displaced people becomes difficult.
Some arguments suggest that even the term “climate refugees” is problematic. Dina Ionesco, the U.N.’s head of Migration, Environment and Climate Change, suggested earlier this year that displaced people should be categorized as “climate migrants” instead.
But the term “migrant” implies some element of choice, which forcibly displaced people don’t have. Those who are forced to flee their homes by environmental problems find themselves in a very similar position to those who are forced to flee their homes by persecution. Many of them face danger or destitution. People who migrate voluntarily are not usually in this position, as they leave their home countries to pursue careers, start businesses or join a partner or family member.
Even Ionesco recognized that. She argued that reopening the 1951 Refugee Convention to include victims of displacement could “weaken the refugee status” in its current form, risking those who already qualify for protection under it.
But the difficulty of defining displaced people has weakened and delayed their very necessary protection. While steps have been taken by bodies like the United Nations and G7, which have held discussions and commissioned research in efforts to address the issue of environmental displacement, an objective immigration category has yet to be set up for those who are affected.
According to a report commissioned last year by the European Parliament, 26.4 million people have been displaced by floods, windstorms, droughts and earthquakes every year since 2008. Notably, this period has seen the fastest acceleration in recorded global temperatures, marking a clear link between climate change and environmental displacement.
And the situation is only going to get worse. According to NASA the planet’s global temperature has risen by approximately 0.9 degrees Celsius over the past century, which is primarily attributed to an increase in CO2 emissions and other human activity. This has led to the melting of ice caps in the Arctic ocean and rising sea levels, in turn causing increased flooding, erosion and salt-water intrusion. Droughts, wildfires and storms have also become more common, with countries and communities across every continent feeling the effects.
These kinds of conditions threaten people’s homes and lives both directly and indirectly. Aside from the explicit danger and threat to life posed by powerful windstorms, earthquakes or floods, adverse conditions come with other risks. Droughts kill crops, salt-water intrusion wipes out species of freshwater fish, and wildfires obliterate rainforest. All these factors help contribute to the millions of people being displaced across the world.
Climate change and the impact it has on sea-levels, weather systems and natural disasters are a serious cause for concern. If the Earth continues to heat up, irreversible damage will be done to its ecosystems, and destructive and inhospitable conditions will increase. While this happens more communities will become displaced. More people will be unable keep their jobs, feed their families and stay in their homes. And more will be forced to flee from their home countries.
It is of course important that we do not allow the ongoing displacement debate to distract too much from the goal at hand — to make considerable, united efforts to tackle and overturn climate change and its effects on the planet’s ecosystems. In the words of Saladas, “we know the end is coming,” and we cannot ignore this any longer.
But even as we do that, it remains essential that displaced people be granted lawful status within global immigration and asylum policy. This could be achieved by expanding existing laws and practices, such as in human-rights and humanitarian-protection laws, or by creating a new global migration or asylum category to ensure the protection of displaced people. Whatever approach is chosen, policymakers must act quickly to close the protection gap for displaced individuals, families and communities. Until then they remain in a legal gray area, unable to be defined and, as a result, unable to be protected.
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.
From Bogota to Baltimore climate strikers turned out for the first of a week of events to push for action on climate change.
In August 2018 Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg stood alone outside the Swedish parliament with a sign that said “Skolstrejk för klimatet.” On Friday 4 million people across the world joined her and walked out of their schools, jobs and homes and into the streets for a global Climate Strike.
New York, which hosted Thunberg, saw an estimated 250,000 show up. “If you belong to that small group of people who feel threatened by us, we have some very bad news for you, because this is only the beginning,” Thunberg told the crowd.
Greta Thunberg in front of the Swedish parliament in August 2018. (Photo by Anders Hellberg, CC BY-SA 4.0)
More than 100,000 people turned out in Melbourne in Australia’s largest climate demonstration yet. And similar numbers were reported in London and Berlin.
Actions continued around the globe. As the New York Times reported:
Banners in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, ranged from serious to humorous. One read, “Climate Emergency Now.” Another said, “This planet is getting hotter than my imaginary boyfriend.” In Mumbai, children in oversize raincoats marched in the rain. Thousands turned out in Warsaw, the capital of coal-reliant Poland.
An estimated 5,800 events took place in more than 160 countries. More are planned throughout the week.
In San Francisco thousands streamed down Market Street through the city’s shopping and financial district with signs that ranged from “Panic” to “Peaceful Rebellion.” The event was organized by young people but everyone from toddlers to grandparents showed up in support.
Here are some images from the day:
On the streets of Philadelphia. (Photo by @EarthNatureNews)Young protesters at San Francisco’s climate strike. (Photo by Tara Lohan)An even younger protester joins the action. (Photo by Tara Lohan)Older generations lent their support. (Photo by Tara Lohan)Teenagers shared how they felt about the future. (Photo by Tara Lohan)Many showed solidarity with the youth climate movement. (Photo by Tara Lohan)
Around the world this week, people will stop what they’re doing and stand up to call for great action against climate change.
It began with 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg and quickly became a global movement.
Starting today, and continuing for most of the coming week, students and workers from around the world will go on strike to call for immediate action to protect the planet and its residents from the threats of climate change.
Its origins were as a student movement, but the Climate Strike is now more far-reaching, with 2,500 local events in 117 countries. Many companies, including Patagonia, will even close their doors and encourage their employees to participate.
The official strike is today, Sept. 20, but events will continue all week, most notably in front of the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York City on Monday.
If you don’t already have plans, you can find a map of events on the Climate Strike website. Many protests have their own Facebook event listings, so check there too for events in your area.
If you go we’d love to see your photos or social media postings and hear your thoughts from whatever Climate Strike event you attended. Drop us a line at tips@therevelator.org.
And don’t worry if you can’t go on strike this week. Not everyone can take time off from work or school, even for such an important cause. You can also help online today, and you can continue to take action every day by calling your elected officials, sharing your stories and knowledge with friends and family, and working to hold companies accountable for creating the climate-change crisis in the first place.
In warming Alaska, Pacific walruses and Inuit craftsmen find themselves facing new and intersecting threats.
“You don’t want to get it from headhunters,” Leon Kinneeveauk tells me as we maneuver around his crowded art studio in downtown Anchorage. Tools, bones, and unfinished carvings extend over every work surface, covered in a thin layer of white dust.
Kinneeveauk, an Inupiaq artist who specializes in carving walrus ivory, grew up in the remote Point Hope, a northwestern Alaskan village accessible only by plane or boat. His Anchorage gallery, Arctic Treasures, is a trove of work of master craftsmen from around the state. At the back of the shop, which he took over from its previous owner last year, is a growing studio space where he and artists work on native handicrafts, from whale baleen baskets to delicate bird figurines and walrus ivory carvings like the ones he makes himself.
Leon Kinneeveauk carves an ivory walrus tusk into an ornate piece of art. Photo: Katarzyna Nowak.
Kinneeveauk is careful about where he sources his walrus ivory. He has to be. In northwest Alaska large colonies of Pacific walrus now regularly haul themselves out onto land — a phenomenon tied to the loss of sea ice due to climate change that has led to new threats for the massive marine mammals. When these walrus are vulnerable on land, people have killed them and salvaged only the tusks.
“Headhunting,” as this is known, is a violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, under which Indigenous people can hunt walrus but must make use of the whole animal. In recent years four hunters from Kinneeveauk’s community were charged with shooting and headhunting eight walruses hauled out on a beach at Cape Lisburne. The men’s actions during two separate hunts caused herds to stampede, resulting in the death or injury of at least two dozen additional walrus, about half of which were calves.
Catastrophic stampedes such as these would not occur on ice floes, where animals can escape into the water if disturbed.
The men were sentenced in a case of restorative justice, under which they must perform services to benefit their community, such as hunting for the subsistence needs of elders and delivering presentations in coastal villages on hunting ethics and the legal duty to take animals in full.
Kinneeveauk takes his own “full use” responsibility to another level in his art: He uses even the fine ivory dust, created while he carves with power tools, to fill in cracks in his carvings. The piece he’s working on as we visit his studio is a lithe fisherwoman. The sound of his electric drill fills the space with a hum as he shows me his work. While he carves, he wears protective goggles and a mask. As I watch, I can sense the walrus bone dust in the air.
Leon Kinneeveauk carves an ivory walrus tusk. Photo: Katarzyna Nowak.
Alaska Native artists like Kinneeveauk, who use Pacific walrus ivory, have been plying their trade for centuries, but now they’re up against two intensifying threats: climate change and crime.
Walrus hunting, including at terrestrial haul-outs, is managed by the Eskimo Walrus Commission and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Even when walrus ivory is responsibly sourced in accordance with hunting ethics and regulations, sales of carvings are now being forestalled and overshadowed not just by recent illegal activity in Alaska but also poaching on the other side of the world.
Arctic Treasures itself was recently at the center of some of these types of crimes. In March of this year the gallery’s previous owner, Lee John Screnock, who is not Inuit, was indicted for selling walrus ivory carvings that he had carved himself and falsely marketed as “Native-carved.” Screnock further violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act by selling polar bear and walrus bones, including skulls and oosik (walrus penis bone). The case puts Kinneeveauk, who acquired the store in June 2018, under additional pressure to improve the shop’s reputation.
Carved walrus oosik in FWS warehouse. Photo: Katarzyna Nowak
Another ongoing case involves a man who outsourced walrus ivory carving all the way to Indonesia, re-imported the finished pieces back to Alaska, and sold them to tourists alighting from cruise ships in Skagway, a popular destination that was once a Gold Rush boomtown. There are other cases of art being crafted overseas, for example jewelry manufactured in factories in the Philippines, then imported and sold in the United States under the label “Native-made.”
Ironically the poaching threat to walruses may be increasing in part because other target species’ populations are under poaching pressure.
“As elephant populations continue to be decimated, walrus, narwhal or other ivory-carrying species could become the next targets for unscrupulous and large-scale commercial operations,” says Steven Skrocki, deputy criminal chief in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Alaska, which had legal authority in the Point Hope case and now in both the Arctic Treasures and Skagway cases, among others.
Seized elephant and walrus ivory carvings on display at the Beaver Creek border station in the Yukon, 20 miles from Alaska border. Photo: Katarzyna Nowak
This means that Kinneeveauk is also contending with wider controversies, including blanket ivory bans being enacted by some U.S. states as an outcome of elephant poaching in Africa. The bans have been proposed and decreed because of the difficulty in distinguishing ivories from elephants and similar tusk-bearing species such as walruses and even extinct mammoths.
Amid the huge, dramatic changes facing the Arctic, the reverberations of the race to save another ivory-bearing species on the other side of the world, and the crime that too often accompanies the commercialization of wildlife products, can the traditions of Inuit carvers who use Pacific walrus ivory be preserved?
Walruses are the only living member of an entire family of marine mammals distinguished by their upper canines. Their similarly semi-aquatic relatives — sea lions and fur seals — do not have “ivory,” which in walruses is really two canines long enough to be called tusks or “morse.” The tusks can grow as long as 40 inches. Because walruses use them to lift themselves out of the water onto sea ice, the animals’ scientific name Odobenus rosmarus translates into “tooth-walker.”
Walrus surface for air in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea. Photo: NOAA/OER/Hidden Ocean 2016:The Chukchi Borderlands
Pacific walrus, one of two walrus subspecies, inhabit the waters around the United States and Russia and “wander” into Canada and Japan. Unlike Atlantic walrus, which are largely sedentary in their habits, Pacific walrus are highly migratory. Pacific walrus are on the watchlists of wildlife agents and government officials in Alaska because of the high street value of their ivory tusks and the growing number of terrestrial haul-outs, where they are vulnerable to disturbance.
Large terrestrial haul-out of Pacific walruses at Cape Vankarem, Chukotka, Russia. (Photo by Vladelin Kavry)
While walrus harvest is currently considered legally sustainable, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service walrus biologist Joel Garlich-Miller says he’s still concerned about what the future holds given how rapidly sea ice is shrinking and shipping traffic is increasing. The number of walrus now — estimated at some 250,000 — is the same number taken over just a 16-year period by European whalers for oil, tusks and hides in the second half of the 19th century. It took 100 years for walrus to recover to pre-European commercial harvest levels.
Among the biggest current concerns today, says Garlich-Miller, is disturbance at coastal haul-out sites.
“There are tens of thousands of walrus hauling out at locations in Russia and the U.S.,” he says. “On land they’re very susceptible to human disturbance in the form of planes, boats and hunting.”
What makes these large haul-outs risky is that walrus have one direction to go: toward the water. If adult walruses panic and try to rush to safety, calves can get crushed and injured.
“A single stampede can cause tens or even hundreds of animals to die,” Garlich-Miller says. In some years trampling mortalities can exceed the entire legal harvest of Alaska.
This is happening more frequently, and it doesn’t just endanger the walruses. In the Russian town of Vankarem, dogs and polar bears are drawn to walrus carcasses following stampedes, raising the likelihood of negative interactions between people, their domestic animals and wild carnivores.
In an attempt to minimize these risks, Native leaders in Alaska and Chukotka are working to discourage the practice of hunting walrus at haul-outs. Another alternative they’re promoting involves hunting only with silent bows or spears instead of loud rifles to reduce the likelihood of causing the larger colony to panic.
“The future of walrus has not been written yet,” he says optimistically. “There are things we as a society can do to mitigate, including allowing animals to adapt to new habitat areas, protecting animals at haul-outs and keeping subsistence harvest levels sustainable.”
He adds, “There will always be some opportunists, but most hunters have a strong ethic.”
Could blanket ivory bans and other legislative attempts to solve these problems actually harm Native carvers?
That’s the contention of some Alaska lawmakers, who this past March introduced a federal bill seeking to block other states from banning the sale of walrus ivory, whale bone and other marine mammals carved by Alaska Native artists.
The bill, entitled the “Empowering Rural Economies through Alaska Native Sustainable Arts and Handicrafts Act,” aimed to preempt state ivory bans from including marine mammals, as well as extinct mammoth and mastodon, which are also carved by Alaska Natives. It hews closely in content to a previously proposed bill called the “Allowing Alaska Ivory Act,” a name legislators dropped in an attempt to make the bill more palatable in our ivory-averse times.
“Allowing the sale of ivory has a negative connotation,” says Kate Wolgemuth, rural advisor to Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), who sponsored the Act (it has not moved beyond the submission stage). “States have been enacting blanket ivory bans because they’re worried about African elephant ivory poaching. As a result, they don’t distinguish between different types of ivory.”
Blanket ivory bans, according to Wolgemuth, may cause residents to worry about buying, owning and bringing home legally acquired ivory from Alaska. “These laws go against the MMPA, which explicitly protects Alaska Native artists’ right to carve and sell marine mammal ivory,” she says. “These bans were passed without Alaska’s input.”
“Walrus ivory carving is about culture, not commerce,” she adds.
The sale of any ivory has been prohibited by California, Hawaii, New York, and New Jersey among other states. Wolgemuth says she now avoids traveling with walrus ivory herself, as each state’s ban differs slightly.
Meanwhile bones from extinct mammoths have also been proposed for trade bans. The issue is currently being studied by the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species, an international treaty that regulates the sale of threatened wildlife — the first extinct species being considered for a trade ban.
Some conservationists and researchers fear that African elephant ivory can be mislabeled and smuggled as mammoth, allowing illegal products to be disguised in the legal marketplace. But Wolgemuth says Sullivan’s office believes that having a substitute for elephant ivory in the form of mammoth can help rather than hurt African elephants. Mammoth, she says, should be free for everyone to use.
The importance of mammoth and mastodon carving in Alaska varies from community to community, says Vera Metcalf, director of the Eskimo Walrus Commission. “For Shishmaref, mammoth is important, but on St. Lawrence Island [where Metcalf is from], we have neither mammoth nor mastodon but could trade our walrus for it.”
At the Anchorage Museum I find the work of several Native carvers, including Kinneeveauk, for sale in the gift shop.
Carving by Leon Kinneeveauk in Anchorage Museum gift shop. Photo: Katarzyna Nowak
Another artist whose work is sold there is Jerome Saclamana, an Iñupiaq carver from Nome. He makes clear that walrus tusk carving has given him a living. “I’m not getting rich from it but I’m able to practice what my ancestors did, only in a more modern way,” he says, referring to power tools.
Like Kinneeveauk, Saclamana also now lives in Anchorage as “there’s more of a market for my carvings here than in Nome.” Still, he says the price he can currently charge is 25 percent less than just a few years ago. He theorizes consumer confusion over what ivory is legal to buy has caused the market and prices to shrink.
Joining the conversation, Aaron Tolen, an education intern at the Anchorage Museum, tells me he’s “probably related to Saclamana. My mother is from Nome.”
Tolen brings up a new issue, asking Saclamana if he’s noticed any differences in walrus tusk length and density now compared with the past. Tolen’s studying the issue. He thinks cracks in walrus ivory are caused by reduced tusk density, possibly because climate change is causing shifts in walrus diet.
“Walrus are shallow-water bottom-feeders,” he explains. “Now, with ice receding, walrus must dive deeper down to get shellfish and they’re not getting as much food. Less nutrition means less dense tusks that are more fragile and crack more easily.”
But Saclamana attributes the change to young hunters not being careful enough when hunting and therefore breaking tusks, either during the hunts or when separating the teeth from the walrus skull. “Nowadays new hunters are not taught as well and I see more harvested tusks that are chipped,” he says. “I see more mishandled tusks now than before.”
When I visit Kinneeveauk’s shop and studio again, he says walrus ivory has always had some marks and cracks in it from walruses using their tusks for foraging. The tusks, he says, tell a story of a walrus’s life. “Some walrus even hunt seals.” He shows me a tusk stained with what he says is seals’ blood. “This one was a seal hunter.”
While he feels cracks in ivory are not the fault of a new generation of walrus hunters, he does show me one tusk with a bullet hole where the impact shattered the ivory like a rock cracking a windshield. “This was the hunter’s first hunt,” he says. “I still bought the tusk from him. I can fashion it into earrings.”
When I ask Garlich-Miller about cracks in ivory, he offers yet a fourth explanation. “Female ivory grows more slowly and is denser as a result,” he says. Although adult male tusks are larger, the ivory often has linear cracks. “That’s why there was historically a premium on the market for female tusks.”
What I take away from this is that even as the threats of climate change rise, we don’t have all the insights yet about how wild animals are responding. Traditional ecological knowledge keepers might agree as much as some scientists: sometimes not at all.
For the time being, Pacific walrus are not protected under the Endangered Species Act, although the Fish and Wildlife Service did find that protection was warranted in 2011. While the population appears to be large and healthy at the present time, shrinking sea ice habitat is expected to cause the population to decline over time, Garlich-Miller says.
Even without that potential protection, Garlich-Miller continues working with the Eskimo Walrus Commission to minimize disturbances at terrestrial haul-outs. For example, they work with the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Coast Guard to steer air and boat traffic away from haul-outs to reduce the potential for stampedes.
Seized walrus ivory held by Environment Canada officers. Photo: Katarzyna Nowak
Then there’s the threat from individuals, although it remains unquantified. “I don’t want to minimize the risk of poaching, as it can always spring up,” he says. “I also don’t know what’s happening in Russia.” He says some of his former colleagues who were monitoring the situation there are no longer in their positions, so information on what’s happening in Russia has grown scarce.
But poaching does seem to be occurring. Last year more than 400 walrus ivory tusks, presumably from populations in Russia, were seized in China in a shipment that also contained mammoth, narwhal and elephant ivory, antelope horn, and bear gallbladders and teeth.
Moving forward, Garlich-Miller notes that collaboration, monitoring and a commitment to following the law will help sustain both walrus and traditions. That’s where he focuses most of his efforts. “Today, I’m more of an outreach and people person,” he says. A walrus ambassador, I suggest.
If the Pacific walrus ever gains Endangered Species Act protection, exceptions will remain in place for Native subsistence hunters and artisans, just as they currently exist under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, says Andrea Medeiros, public affairs specialist with the Fish and Wildlife Service office in Alaska.
Even today most carvers already make sure to source their ivory responsibly and make a case against wanton waste. Saclamana, the carver from Nome, lists for me the many ways walrus bodies can be employed, including for food. “The stomach is used for drums, and I even use the whiskers in my carvings.” An Anchorage Museum exhibit expands on that, displaying information on how walrus intestines can be cooked or frozen to make everything from waterproof parkas to boat shells and spray skirts for kayaks.
Diversifying to other materials may also play a part in protecting both walruses and carvers. Saclamana says that as he gets older he finds himself tiring of hearing the sound of power tools while he carves. He’s applied for a grant to learn how to carve wood instead.
Kinneveuk, meanwhile, is starting a nonprofit, The Native Artist Alliance, which he says will ensure that his studio remains both safe and sober. “The space gets people off the streets,” says Kinneeveauk, who’s self-rehabilitated with the help of art. It will not, he adds, be exclusive to Alaska Native persons. “We already have two non-native artists, and as long as they don’t touch the ivory, they’re welcome here.”
Many of the experts I spoke with told me it’s important that Alaska Native artists and craftspeople not find themselves pitted against conservationists, and that there’s mutual respect for the common cause of protecting walrus and Inuit traditional food and culture into the future.
But that future for people, culture and walruses remains at risk as the climate continues to heat, a message visible in a short film called “The Walrus” that plays on a continuous loop at the Anchorage Museum.
Two women watch The Walrus in the Anchorage Museum. Photo: Katarzyna Nowak
In the film a hybrid walrus-man appears despondent — something’s lacking from his life. Land-enslaved, he repeats a dull routine while striving for self-recognition in his bathroom mirror. At last, the walrus-man steps onto a beach, looks nostalgically out at sea, and plunges in. Although he’s finally in the water, he’ll find there isn’t much ice left to tooth-walk on.
Author’s note: Since reporting for this story was conducted in Alaska, budget cuts made by the state governor resulted in the temporary closure of the Alaska State Council on the Arts, including its Silver Hand Program, which offered authentication for Native handicrafts. The Silver Hand seal was intended to show that materials were legally sourced and carved. It is unclear if this authentication program will persist.
Some people object to placing limitations on trade in threatened species, but new rules will benefit both the gecko and the countries in which it lives.
One of the most heavily trafficked animal species on the planet, the tokay gecko (Gekko gecko), got an important boost last month when the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) agreed to regulate any future trade of this species.
CITES, a treaty signed by 183 member nations, aims to ensure that international trade in wild animals and plants doesn’t threaten their survival. In this case tokay geckos were included in what’s known as CITES Appendix II, which places controls on trade. The proposal to list the species came from India and the Philippines, two of the 15 countries where tokay geckos live in the wild. They were joined on the proposal by the European Union and the United States, acting mainly as importers of tokay geckos.
As we previously discussed, the Appendix II proposal stemmed from concerns that large-scale and almost completely unregulated trade in tokay geckos from South and Southeast Asia to East Asia would lead to a significant decline in wild populations. Already some countries have reported declines and localized extinctions, something this new regulation will hopefully help to stem or even reverse.
Appendix II: What Does This Mean?
Despite what’s claimed and even feared by some individuals and organizations, listing a species in Appendix II of CITES does not equate with a trade ban. Instead, species on Appendix II may be traded under a permitting system that allows for regulation and opportunities to track and analyze trends. This provides an early warning system if wild populations begin to decline further.
Appendix II is valuable because illegal trade in non-listed species is difficult, if not nearly impossible, to track. For one thing, the trade in plant and animal specimens is usually accepted at face value by consumer states, as there’s no easy mechanism to formally recognize whether a commodity was legally or illegally sourced without contacting the authorities or exporters in range states for each and every shipment. On top of that, some countries do not have legislation that allows for them to block any trade in illegally sourced species that aren’t already listed under CITES. With the CITES Appendix II permitting system such a mechanism is in place; if there’s no permit from the exporting country, the shipment should be deemed “not legal” and should not be allowed to continue. Simple.
And yet, there are still those who oppose listing species in Appendix II.
Obviously, some dealers and officials oppose a CITES-listing due to the increase in paperwork and administration. But the real concern is money. For financially motivated individuals not concerned with sustainable trade or the conservation of species, any limits are a frustration.
We’re already hearing some of these complaints from tokay gecko dealers and officials in range countries.
But there are obvious benefits, not just to wildlife but to officials and law enforcement.
Most notably, listing species in Appendix II helps source countries to enforce their own domestic legislation or ensure that traders abide by nationally set quotas.
For example, in India, tokay geckos are legally protected, and no export is allowed, but without a CITES listing it’s nearly impossible to enforce this national legislation once the animals have illegally left the country. Appendix II strengthens India’s internal laws.
Indonesia, another range country, does allow export of tokay geckos, but it has set a limit on the number of individuals that can be harvested and exported. Approved exporters are obliged to indicate on each export permit how much of their allotted quota remains. If quotas are exceeded, importing countries are beholden to inform Indonesia and assist in preventing the trade in the illegally-exported extra animals. In this case, Appendix II listing reinforces Indonesia’s existing quotas and will help to ensure that wild populations are not overexploited.
For those that want trade in tokay geckos to be sustainable — and thereby avoid the potential need for all-out trade bans — listing the species in Appendix II is key.
What Next?
The new CITES listing goes into force this December, after which all export of tokay geckos must be accompanied by a permit. Countries will report their annual quotas for the number of wild-caught specimens and all countries exporting, re-exporting and importing tokay geckos are obligated to provide annual reports to the CITES Secretariat.
As with all other CITES-listed species, these records are maintained in the CITES Trade Database, which is open for all to see and use. This important resource allows governments, conservationists and anyone else who’s interested to monitor trends and identify potential abuses. It also provides an early-warning system for population declines. The permitting system will allow countries to seize any tokay geckos in international trade that are not accompanied by a CITES Appendix II permit, in the process supporting source countries’ efforts to protect wild populations and regulate sustainable trade.
We applaud the CITES parties’ decision to include the tokay gecko in Appendix II, showing once again that the treaty deals with more than just well-known megafauna such as elephants, rhinos and tigers. In the coming years we’ll keep a close eye on the import and export of this species, and we eagerly await the first annual report to be submitted to CITES for hard data to help us with our analyses. In the long run, and possibly even sooner, we hope to see the current decline of wild tokay geckos begin to reverse itself and look forward to seeing the species’ presence in illegal trade also start to decline.
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.
