Fins from Protected Shark Species Still Heavily Traded

A new study shows that CITES-listed sharks remain some of the dominant species in the retail fin market.

Last month you were probably busy watching celebrities jump in the water with great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) and tiger sharks (Galeocerdo cuvier) and then attach satellite tags on their fins to track their movements. But while many were glued to their televisions for Shark Week, an important step in shark conservation was happening in a small laboratory in Hong Kong.

I was a part of a team that analyzed fins from Hong Kong’s market, and we found that protected sharks are still frequently being traded. That’s a big problem, as one of the leading threats to sharks is the trade of their fins, and Hong Kong is a leading importer.

The work to protect sharks and other wildlife threatened by trade started back in 1973, when the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) was formed. Every three years since then member nations and organizations meet at the Conference of the Parties. Proposals are made then to list various wild species on different lists called appendices that either ban (Appendix I) or control (Appendix II) their international trade.

The first shark species listed on CITES Appendix II were whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) and basking sharks (Cetorhinus maximus) in 2001, followed by great white sharks in 2004. After that CITES parties were unwilling to list more shark species on its appendices for almost a decade.

But after years of data collection and advocacy, the parties took a sharp turn in the right direction and, in the past six years, have listed nine commercially important shark species on Appendix II. Exporting countries now must obtain permits to prove that trade of sharks listed on Appendix II is legal, traceable and not detrimental to the survival of these species.

Scalloped hammerheads (Sphyrna lewini), smooth hammerheads (S. zygaena), great hammerheads (S. mokarran), oceanic whitetip sharks (Carcharhinus longimanus), porbeagle sharks (Lamna nasus), silky sharks (C. falciformis), pelagic thresher sharks (Alopias pelagicus), bigeye thresher sharks (A. superciliosus) and common thresher sharks (A. vulpinus) are now on that list. They were known to be among the most common sharks found many small- and large-scale fisheries around the world and on the international shark fin market.

But a big question remained unanswered: Are hammerheads, porbeagles and oceanic whitetips still common in the international fin trade following their CITES implementation started in late 2014?

This question has now been answered in our new study, published in Conservation Letters. Our main objectives were to assess the global position of Hong Kong as legal importer of fins from CITES-listed species according to trade records and to evaluate the relative importance of these species in the Hong Kong fin market after listings were implemented. Silky and thresher sharks were not considered for this study because enforcement for these species has not been implemented in Hong Kong to date.

We searched the CITES Trade Database for all legal importations of CITES-listed shark species in 2015, the first year of implementation. Hong Kong was the top legal importer of CITES-listed shark fins with about 22,000 kilograms (nearly 25 tons) from six different countries in 16 individual shipments. This relatively small amount in these listed species contrasts with the more than 5.5 million kilograms (6,000 tons) of shark fins from all species entering Hong Kong in 2015 alone.

shark fins
Shark fins ready for testing. Photo © Diego Cardeñosa, 2018. All rights reserved.

If records are an accurate representation of imports, we would expect CITES-listed species to be rare among fins being processed in 2015 and 2016.

To test this hypothesis, we gathered in that small laboratory to genetically identify 9,200 processed shark fin samples collected from the retail markets of Hong Kong between February 2014 and December 2016.

shark fins
Bags of shark fins. Photo © Diego Cardeñosa, 2018. All rights reserved.

This analysis revealed that scalloped hammerheads and smooth hammerheads — whose trade should be highly restricted — were consistently the fourth- and fifth-most-common species in the retail markets. Official numbers suggested they should have been much lower down the list.

The difference between legal importation figures and the actual prevalence of these species in the retail markets underlies the fact that nations exporting to Hong Kong known to land protected species were not among those reporting trade to CITES. This suggests that compliance with reporting requirements was low in the first years of implementation.

What happens now? Nations around the world with large exports and imports now face the challenge of enhancing their capacity to monitor this high-volume trade.

Our study highlights the urgent need to assist nations that are struggling to monitor the high-volume international shark trade. This is a top priority for many nations since failing to meet CITES requirements can lead to the application of international trade sanctions.

Several important steps, such as fin identification workshops, have already been taken to improve the quality of inspections in Hong Kong and other key shark trading countries. Nevertheless, the relative importance and high volume of CITES-listed species in trade suggests that this capacity to monitor the trade is likely already exceeded.

To increase inspection efficiency in major trading hubs, rapid and cost-effective wildlife forensics tools are being developed for sharks and other endangered species. There is a key role to be played by developed countries and other international bodies, such as non-governmental organizations and industries, to help developing countries in the transfer of such technologies and building capacity.

In recent years shark conservation has been subject to public attention and there is a positive momentum for shark trade management by CITES parties. This has the potential to trigger international cooperation to ensure a more effective implementation of CITES listings for sharks — for the benefit of all protected species.

© Diego Cardeñosa, 2018. All rights reserved.

Climate Change Got You Down? Let’s Talk

We have five questions for Kate Schapira, founder of Climate Anxiety Counseling.

About once a week, Kate Schapira goes to a public space in her city of Providence, R.I., and sets up a Lucy-from-Peanuts-style booth with nine simple words painted on it:

Climate Anxiety Counseling
5 Cents
The Doctor Is In

She sits down at the booth and, for the advertised fee of five cents, talks to people about their anxiety about climate change.

the askWhen people stop at the booth, Schapira invites them to share what they’re most worried about, whether it’s related to climate change or to something else. They talk and afterwards, with her client’s permission, Schapira sometimes documents the session at her Climate Anxiety Counseling website. All of the booth’s income is donated to the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island.

Schapira, who is a poet, author, teacher, and activist, has been doing the climate counseling project for more than four years. It can be understood as ongoing gift, collaborative living artwork, awareness campaign, community building, and personal practice. We talked to Schapira to learn more about the inspiration for this unique project, what happens during her counseling sessions, and the impact on herself and her “customers.”

So what’s your own anxiety level like today?

Wildfires in California and the Arctic Circle, a brutal heat wave in my region, my state’s apparent eagerness to build fossil fuel energy projects, scientists talking about human extinction — my anxiety level’s high.

Why did you start the climate anxiety counseling project, and can you describe what it means?

I wanted to build a vocabulary for the fear, helplessness and anger that I felt when I read or heard about climate change. An interlocutor described anxiety as “what you feel about things you think you can’t change,” and that’s a good description, although I try to connect people with paths to collective action if that seems possible and desirable for them.

There’s a standard answer I’ve given in response to the question of why I started the project: I’d start talking to other people about how horrified and miserable I was about the climate, and they’d look at me strangely. I started the project to learn more about what other people were thinking and feeling about climate change, and as an invitation to connect. But recently I remembered that before any of that, I responded in the same way to someone else: I asked her not to talk to me about climate change because it made me feel so bad, and it essentially ended our friendship. I was wrong, and we can’t go around doing that. We need to be able to feel and work together in this time, whether or not we survive.

Are there any particular climate-related anxieties you tend to hear from people?

A few things come up regularly: food shortages and scarcity, displacement of groups of people, flooding and sea-level rise. Sometimes people will say, “We’re basically fucked, right?” and then I try to get them to articulate what that means to them. When people mention something far away, like the polar ice, I try to get them to connect that with things closer to home.

What emotion should people endeavor to hold instead of anxiety? Hope and anger both might be too far on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Since feelings aren’t actions, for me it’s less “try to feel this way” and more that I’d like people to notice what they’re feeling and what the feeling is “asking” them to do. So with climate change, what is that demand? To me, it’s twofold: that we prepare to mourn together (for species, places, cultures, people and the futures we thought we’d have) and that we imagine — and learn about! there are precedents! — the structures that would allow us to live well enough without hurting ourselves and each other, and without helping the people currently hurting us. How could we live in the present in a way that would be good for us in the present in case there’s no future, but that could also potentially help to bring about a livable future? How would it feel to live that way?

I listen and ask questions about what the other person’s thinking, feeling, doing, what they’ve tried and what they know. The more I do that, the more generous, honest and deep the conversations go. Then, when we get around to the “But what can I do?” part of the conversation, it’s based in a real understanding of what that person wants and is capable of. And there’s more potential to ask people to consider things that they have previously not considered, or rejected, but that might change how they participate in the world.

Does talking about climate change help to reduce those anxieties? Or does talking about it in a specific way help?

It’s more like, “What do I do with this anxiety; how do I live with this knowledge?” I try to ask questions that draw out people’s sense of and potential for connection — recognizing the living systems that we’re part of and enmeshed with, knowing about and moving toward acting together to combat a fossil fuel project or push for expanded producer responsibility or support a less monopolized food system.

Another thing they can do is just speak frankly with the people they know about their worry and fear. We are not alone. We need each other, and that’s a feature, not a bug.

A Move to Preserve the Night Sky

In Idaho, a breathtaking new reserve promises to preserve the darkness — and shows how other communities can follow.

With August comes the Perseid meteor shower, that time of year when Earth passes through a cloud of cometary dust and gravel that can produce hundreds of shooting stars in a single night. The annual phenomenon reminds us that all of humanity resides upon a single stone hurtling through space at breathtaking speed. Closer to home, it also reminds us of the growing problem of light pollution, which each year prevents most Americans from seeing the Perseids and other common celestial events.

Fortunately, awareness of the value of natural darkness is building. One promising new development is the Central Idaho Dark Sky Reserve, an oasis of wilderness located about 150 miles east of Boise. Last December the reserve was recognized by the International Dark-Sky Association as the world’s 12th Dark Sky Reserve and the first designation of its kind in the United States. The reserve, which was years in the making, reflects collaboration among municipalities, land managers, private citizens and others. Their work demonstrates that communities can enjoy the modern benefits of well-lit lives without sacrificing the wonders of the night sky.

The new reserve spans over 1,400 square miles and includes the communities of Ketchum, Stanley and Sun Valley. Its heart is an expanse of remote national forest that encompasses the Sawtooth National Recreation Area and most of three federally designated wilderness areas. Vast and largely undeveloped, these public lands provide one of the best windows onto the universe in the contiguous U.S.

To qualify as a dark sky reserve, a place must have a remote core large enough to preserve an exceptional nocturnal environment, with nearly pristine views of the night sky. Just as important, public and private landholders must support the designation, and a buffer of surrounding communities must demonstrate commitment to preserving natural darkness. In the case of Central Idaho, years of coordination occurred between communities, county governments, private landowners, businesses, conservation groups and public land managers. The payoff came when the International Dark-Sky Association awarded the new reserve with a “gold tier” status, its highest rating.

At each reserve, stakeholders commit to reducing excessive lighting and investing in association-approved lighting technologies such as shields that prevent skyward glare. Municipalities and land management agencies also factor night sky protections into local infrastructure and long-range planning. And since voluntary compliance is the key to a reserve’s success, steady public outreach and education go toward boosting awareness of the value of natural darkness.

Light pollution has attracted growing attention and alarm in recent years. Research published in 2016 estimated that 99 percent of Americans live within its glare, and that 80 percent no longer experience the once-common view of the Milky Way. Health experts point out this excessive exposure to artificial lighting disrupts the human circadian rhythm, increasing our susceptibility to obesity, depression, dementia, cancer and other health problems. And our exposure to artificial lighting is increasing, through sprawling development, home lighting choices, and even the tendency to stare into the bright lights of our phones until we roll over to sleep each night.

Beyond well-established health effects, light pollution also deprives us of awe-inspiring encounters with stars and other heavenly bodies. For me, that realization dawned one September while camping in Montana’s Bob Marshall Wilderness. On that trip I saw bears, wolves, endangered bull trout and the wonders of a landscape enlivened by natural fire. But when I think back, my most vivid memory is of the purity of the night sky. Each night I lay on my back with my tent door open and my head in the grass, peering up at the universe. I’m sure I saw the 2,500 to 3,000 stars that experts say should be visible in a naturally dark sky. It was a novel experience for me, and I thrilled in seeing the same celestial bodies that our earliest ancestors used to cross the planet’s deserts and oceans, and that inspired generations of mythology, religion, art and science.

But preserving natural darkness is about much more than human health and experience. From plants to wildlife, dark nights are vital for sleep, migration, hunting, feeding, reproduction and much more. In Puget Sound, research found artificial lighting draws endangered juvenile Chinook salmon out of dark waters, increasing their exposure to predation. In Florida, streetlights lure young sea turtles off course as they try to navigate toward the safety of the ocean. Perhaps most famously, artificial lighting disorients migrating birds, who perish by the millions from collisions with buildings, increased predation or exhaustion from becoming lost in spheres of artificial light. Thus protected natural areas, including the Central Idaho Dark Sky Reserve, provide ecological havens for an array of species dependent on the dark.

Preserving natural darkness is the mission of the International Dark-Sky Association, founded in 1988. Their work builds global awareness, and their system of protective designations has real sway. Examples include their Dark Sky Communities, which include Ketchum, Idaho; Borrego Springs, California; and Flagstaff, Arizona, where well-attended star parties showcase how local cultures can reconnect to the night sky. The association’s Dark Sky Parks include over forty U.S. national parks committed to maintaining nocturnal environments, including Natural Bridges in Utah and Big Bend in Texas.

Federal land management agencies increasingly recognize the value of dark nights. In 2009, the National Park Service formed its Night Sky Team after construction of a prison threatened to spray light into California’s Pinnacles National Monument (now a national park). Today the team is active across the park system. In 2016 they helped Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota successfully negotiate for efficient lighting at a nearby crude oil loading facility. The U.S. Forest Service and other agencies also now list natural darkness as a measure for monitoring conditions in federally designated wilderness areas.

These initiatives demonstrate increased appreciation for natural darkness and the abundance of methods — many of them simple and cost-effective — for preserving it. In Idaho, which saw thousands of “astro-tourists” flock to view the 2017 solar eclipse, communities see dark-sky preservation as a potential economic boon.  It also offers potentially swift and meaningful reductions in carbon pollution. After all, light pollution often represents wasted lighting — light that is cast up rather than down. Eliminating wasted lighting saves energy, and on a community level that savings can help make a difference for the climate.

As demonstrated in Idaho with the new dark sky reserve, individuals, businesses, communities and land managers can all play a role in reducing light pollution — and they should, as it would benefit the health and economies of their neighborhoods. A good place to learn more is the International Dark-Sky Association resources page, which features brochures, guides to dark-friendly light fixtures, links to research, materials for educators and more. The association also helped produce a model lighting ordinance, which offers key ways communities can take the steps that both preserve natural darkness and reduce energy costs.

Meanwhile, this month Earth is making its annual pass through the trail of Comet Swift-Tuttle, the source of the Perseid meteor shower. If the sky is clear and you can find a place free of artificial light, it’s an excellent opportunity to watch shooting stars, connect to your local night sky, and bask in its life-sustaining darkness.

© 2018 Tim Lydon. All rights reserved.

Previously in The Revelator:

Big Cities, Bright Lights: Ranking the Worst Light Pollution on Earth

Lemurs in Crisis: 105 Species Now Threatened with Extinction

At least 95 percent of Madagascar’s beloved primates are now at risk, conservationists warn.

Lemurs are the now the most threatened mammal group on the planet, according to conservationists who issued a warning about the animals this month.

Out of 111 known lemur species and subspecies, at least 105 — 95 percent — are now considered to be threatened with extinction.

All lemur species are native to the island nation of Madagascar, where they are threatened by habitat loss, deforestation, hunting for meat, the illegal pet trade and other factors.

“The world loves lemurs, but the government of Madagascar pays very little attention,” says Russ Mittermeier, chief conservation officer for Global Wildlife Conservation and chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission Primate Specialist Group, which conducted the new assessment of lemur species at a recent workshop.

According to the analysis, at least 38 lemur species should now be listed as “critically endangered,” up from 24 when the primates were last assessed back in 2012. Another 44 should be considered “endangered,” while 23 are thought to be slightly safer and have been categorized as “vulnerable to extinction.” Only two lemur species, both widespread mouse lemurs, were considered to be of “least concern,” the healthiest assessment category on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Among the most threatened of these popular animals are both the largest and smallest lemur species, the 2-foot-tall indri (Indri indri) and the Madame Berthe’s mouse lemur (Microcebus berthae), which, at about 1 ounce in weight, is also the world’s smallest known primate. The rarest lemur is now the northern sportive lemur (Lepilemur septentrionalis), which has an estimated population of just 50 individuals.

The famous ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta), the most common primate in captivity around the world, is expected to now be listed as “endangered.” Recent research estimates that populations for this species have fallen by as much as 95 percent since the year 2000.

These new assessments are considered provisional and will take another few years to finalize, but Mittermeier says lemurs need action now: “We don’t want to wait two or three years for the final results to come out because it’s too urgent.”

Mittermeier says the Madagascar government has been too besieged over the past few years by a coup and other political crises to accomplish much in the name of conservation. He says the country’s current president, Hery Rajaonarimampianina, “is a good guy, but now we have a new election coming up and it’s heavily focused on politics and the capital city and the rest of the country be damned, which is really too bad.”

Lemurs have been on decline since long before the coup, but we’ve also been learning more about them the whole time. Mittermeier points out that science had only described 60 lemur species when the first field guide to the animals was published in 1994. Nearly that many new species have been discovered since then, including one that was just described this past January. Mittermeier expects the total number will continue to grow, as several species are even now awaiting formal scientific description. “We’re going to add at least 5 to 10 percent more species in the next few years,” he says.

Unfortunately, the improved knowledge has corresponded with the destruction of much of Madagascar’s native forests. “Even as we describe new species, the available range for every species has become smaller,” Mittermeier says. “Some of the new species have no habitat protection whatsoever.”

So what can be done to help lemurs? “Ecotourism is the number-one conservation tool right now,” Mittermeier says, because it supports both protected areas and the people who live near them. “The answer is empowering the communities and getting more and more people going there and showing the benefits of establishing protected areas to communities,” he says. “That’s about the best thing we can do at this point.”

Along these lines, the IUCN Species Survival Commission has raised $8 million for lemur conservation and is in the process of distributing grants for on-the-ground efforts. “That’ll go toward the communities and tourism operations and things like that,” Mittermeier says.

He also points to the Lemur Conservation Network, which links the efforts of more than 50 conservation organizations, research groups and zoos and implements the lemur survival action plan.

Beyond, that, Mittermeier says he hopes other conservation groups and governments will follow up with similar targeted efforts, including aid packages that require the government of Madagascar to rigorously commit to conservation, including to help not just lemurs but also to end the rampant illegal trade in tortoises and rosewood.

How does Mittermeier himself deal with the increasingly bad news about lemurs? “Look, I’m an eternal optimist,” he says. “I just keep pushing and plugging away. If there’s a failure, you just regroup. If you have an obstacle put in front of you, you either knock it down or move around it. These are wonderful animals and we’re working together to save them.”

How Saving Southern California’s Steelhead Trout Could Also Help the State’s Watersheds

A coalition of public and private entities hopes to revive both fish and water supplies in a hotter, drier climate.

Can saving an endangered fish help heal some of California’s regional water woes?

Masses of steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) once migrated freely between the sea and river headwaters along the California coast. That began to change about a century ago as dams, stream realignments, bridges, invasive species and degraded estuaries all took their toll on steelhead, putting this intriguing member of the salmon family on a path toward near-extinction. Now a coalition of private and public entities hopes to reverse the trend — and re-invigorate vital watersheds in California’s most densely populated region in the process.

“It’s not just about water for fish,” says Sandra Jacobson, South Coast director for California Trout, Inc., a state conservation group also known as CalTrout. “Native fish are one of the best indicators of the health of a watershed. If human-caused factors are affecting the fish, it’s only a matter of time before our bays, beaches, recreational venues and even our drinking water are affected.”

The nonprofit spearheads the South Coast Steelhead Coalition, which aims to protect and restore steelhead populations along coastal waters in San Diego and Orange counties.

Steelhead, like salmon, return to the headwaters where they were born to spawn. However, unlike salmon, which die after depositing their eggs, a steelhead can survive to restart the cycle, spawning three or four times in its lifetime. These anadromous (oceangoing) fish can also thrive in fresh water, where they are known as rainbow trout. This and their ability to adapt to drought and flood cycles gives them the best chance of survival in California, where flashy watersheds are the norm, Jasobson says. Steeply sloped catchments such as high mountains channel massive amounts of rainwater into a streambed, producing flash floods and creating a temporary superhighway for anadromous fish.

“The steelhead like these flashy systems,” says Jacobson.

Steelhead populations dropped so precipitously that the species was listed as endangered in 1997. They’re still very much at risk; in the case of the Southern California coast steelhead, just 500 adult fish currently reach their spawning grounds. And they aren’t alone in their decline. A report released in 2017 by CalTrout and the University of California, Davis, found that if current trends continue, 74 percent of California’s 32 salmonid species will likely go extinct within the next 100 years.

The South Coast Steelhead Coalition hopes to reverse the trend and create conditions for steelhead to once again thrive. Recovery efforts include reworking waterways under bridges and dynamiting dams to restore the steelhead’s aquatic pathways up into their home watersheds. The project also works to remove non-native aquatic species like bass and sunfish, which compete for food and even eat steelhead eggs, further depleting the population. The project also actively protects native trout by improving habitats through removing excessive vegetation in streambeds, modifying smaller fish passages for increased access, and on rare occasions rescuing trout during extended drought conditions. These steps were included in a plan developed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 2012 to bring steelhead back from the brink.

Courtesy Pala Band of Mission Indians

In Pauma Valley, where the San Luis Rey River meanders through north San Diego County to rendezvous with the Pacific, the steelhead coalition concentrates on improving water quality, increasing both groundwater and surface-water flows, and removing the species’ biggest migratory barrier: the waterway underneath the Pauma Creek bridge on State Route 76. The most robust steelhead population lives in the headwaters of Pauma Creek as rainbow trout, and Jacobson says improved water quality and reworking the waterway under the bridge will support this population’s ability to migrate to the ocean and undergo smoltification, the process of transforming into their saltwater-adapted steelhead form.

Pauma Creek Bridge
Pauma Creek Bridge. © 2018 Debra Utacia Krol. All rights reserved.

The project also will help provide a sustainable water supply for residents in this heavily agricultural valley. Initiatives in the works include installing a weather station and soil sensors on the Pala Band of Mission Indians’ lands, where rains smack into the 6,100-foot-high western slopes of Palomar Mountain and plunge down Pauma Creek to join the San Luis Rey. Heidi Brow, a water resource specialist with the Pala Band, says farmers and residents can access information from the reporting stations to inform irrigation decisions and conserve water. The Pala Band also participates in rainwater-catchment and graywater-reuse programs, further conserving water and reducing groundwater pumping.

The stakes are high for people as well as fish. Pala’s wells ran dry in 2017 and the tribe had to purchase water from a local water district. Similarly, the five Pauma Valley tribes in the watershed just wrapped up a 50-year lawsuit to restore their water rights, only to encounter a water shortage this year.

Even as the coalition makes progress, some people aren’t convinced that the steelhead’s migration route can be saved, or that restoring them to their old waterways is cost-effective. “I’d love to have trout swimming all the way up,” says Rincon Band of Luiseño Indians Chairman Bo Mazetti, whose tribe’s land lies along the river. “But realistically, we’ve got climate change and drought occurring and there’s just no way the river is going to run all year anymore. We’re not in the old days any longer.” He’s also worried about the significant resources being spent on the project.

Jacobson disagrees with Mazetti’s first concern. “The trout don’t need water in the river all year long,” she says. The fish only migrate between December and May, when the river flows all the way to the ocean, meaning drought during summer months probably won’t affect them.

Weather station at Pala Band. © 2018 Debra Utacia Krol. All rights reserved.

However, nobody can dispute the hefty price tag for saving steelhead: Pala’s weather stations were partially funded by a $176,000 grant from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. The price tag for just one new fish passage project currently in progress in Ventura County is even larger: it’s expected to reach $60 million by the time it’s completed in 2021.

Nonetheless, experts say restoring the coastal watersheds that the fish depend on will also help refill some of California’s most depleted aquifers, increasing water supplies throughout the drought-parched region. As Jacobson says, “The fixes we’re working on to save the fish will also help to save the rivers.”

Reporting for this article was made possible by an award from the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources and with support from the UCLA Laboratory for Environmental Narrative Strategy’s Ethnic Media Fellowship Program.

© 2018 Debra Utacia Krol. All rights reserved.

Granting Legal Rights to Rivers: Is International Law Ready?

Four rivers around the world now have legal rights. But what are the implications of rights for nature for international environmental law?

Last year, four rivers were granted legal rights: the Whanganui in New Zealand, Rio Atrato in Colombia, and the Ganga and Yamuna rivers in India. These four cases present powerful examples of the increasing relevance of rights-centered environmental protection. Like corporations, which have legal rights in many jurisdictions, these rivers are rights-bearing entities whose rights can be enforced by local communities and individuals in court. But unlike corporations, these rights are not yet recognized in international treaties. Which raises the question: what are the implications of rights for nature for international environmental law?

Granting Rights to a River:  Enhancing a Right-Based Approach

In international law, legal standing is principally employed to distinguish between those entities that are relevant to the international legal system and those excluded from it. Current international law conventions do not give legal standing to water resources. Instead, international conventions — such as the Convention on the Law of Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses — mainly address water management from the perspective of the participating states. Similarly, European legislation on freshwater resources, such as the Water Framework Directive, recognizes the importance of protecting water resources, but views them entirely as natural resources belonging to states.

In contrast to international law, some countries have granted rights to the nature, and specifically to rivers, in their national laws. In 2008, Ecuador recognized the constitutional right of Mother Earth and, in 2010, Bolivia adopted the Laws on the Rights of Mother Earth, which gives legal standing to nature and establishes an ombudsman for the protection of its rights. And in May 2017, Colombia’s Constitutional Court recognized the Atrato River as a legal person.

More recently, the Parliament of New Zealand granted the country’s third-longest river, the Whanganui, the legal rights of a person, after a 140-year campaign by the Whanganui Iwi tribe. In addition to compensating the Whanganui Iwi for grievances, the move seeks to preserve the river for future generations of Whanganui Iwi and all New Zealanders. As such, the river gains its legal personality not from an abstract legal entity, but from the people that are connected with the river.

India’s Ganges River and one of its main tributaries, the Yamuna River were granted these same rights. The high court in the northern state of Uttarakhand — not the national government, as in New Zealand, Ecuador, and Bolivia—issued the order, citing the case of the Whanganui in establishing that that the Ganges and the Yamuna should be accorded the status of living human entities.

These rivers now have the right to representation in the form of “guardians” or “allies” in legal proceedings against threats to their wellbeing, such as degradation. Like a charitable trust or society, these rivers can have “trustees” looking out for their best interests. Like people, these rivers have the right to sue others, seeking to force communities to take better care of the river, or face penalties.

Critics argue that these rulings could set precedents for granting rights to other natural entities such as forests, mountains, and deserts, inviting lawsuits to protect resources from degradation. Some critics have even pointed to extreme spin-offs in which stones and pebbles could eventually sue people for stepping on them. Defenders reject this view, and say the point is to protect the ecosystems human life depends on.

The practical implications of these legal innovations are not clear yet, but the stage is being set for an interesting comparative study: How does legal representation for rivers play out in different social, ecological, and economic contexts?

The Whanganui River is a relatively pristine ecosystem — especially in contrast to the heavily polluted Yamuna and Ganges rivers. Each day, 1.5 billion liters of untreated sewage enters the Ganges River, and many attempts to clean up the river have failed over the years. Will the river’s legal status improve this situation?

The governance challenge in India is significant: the limitations of a state court’s control over an environmental resource — which is by its very nature inter-jurisdictional — become clear. Furthermore, there are no financial resources to support the implementation. In New Zealand, however, financial redress of NZ$80 million was included in the settlement, as well as an additional NZ$1 million contribution towards establishing the river’s legal framework.

Are Transboundary Rivers People, Too?

The international treaties that govern transboundary rivers focus on the participating countries’ rights and entitlements, to ensure that one riparian country’s use or management of the river does not negatively affect the rights of another riparian. These international agreements rarely grant rights to individuals and local communities—and if they do, they usually only address access to information, public participation in decision-making processes, and access to justice.

In the transboundary context, the concept of trusteeship might be useful. According to the public trust doctrine, a nation has a legal duty to protect its natural resources for the public interest and for the common benefit of present and future generations. International rivers could come under the protection of the public trust, and local communities would be both owners and beneficiaries of the trust’s interests. In 1998, for example, Melanne Andromecca Civic proposed that the United Nations Trusteeship Council should be charged with the management of the Jordan River.

It is not clear whether these are the first steps towards a new international norm in the coming years. It is however clear that an anthropocentric view of the environment is, in some circumstances, being replaced by an eco-centric perspective — at least in some countries.

The anthropocentric and eco-centric perspectives can go hand-in-hand. For example, in 2018, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights recognized, for the first time in international law, an autonomous right to a healthy environment under the American Convention. Moreover, the Global Pact for the Environment, an initiative launched by France during the 2017 UN General Assembly, affirms this right in its first article.

This double movement — on the one hand, recognizing the human right to a healthy environment, and on the other, the rights of nature — are both means to enhancing the legal protection of the environment and to “humanize” it. Granting legal personality to transboundary rivers may reinforce their environmental protections and strengthen the rights of riparian communities. National laws and jurisprudence could pave the way for new features in international legal frameworks that will take into account the granting of rights to shared water resources.

This essay was originally published by New Security Beat.

Lion-Hunting by Trump Donors Is Awful, But the Trade in Lion Bones Is Worse

Experts worry this booming trade could doom the big cats in the wild.

Last week angry headlines around the world decried the news that the Trump administration had issued trophy-import permits for 38 lions killed by 33 hunters — including many high-rolling Republican donors — between 2016 and 2018.

Lions (Panthera leo leo) have experienced massive population drops over the past two decades. The big cats gained some protection under the Endangered Species Act in 2016, but the Obama-era regulations still allowed some hunting and trophy imports as long as the host countries could prove that their hunts were sustainable. The Trump administration did away with that requirement last year and instead decreed that it would allow imports on a “case-by-case basis.”

Those 38 dead lions represent the Trump administration’s shift on hunting of endangered species.

More worrying than these trophies, however, was a story that came out around the same time but barely made a blip on the media’s radar. Just a few days before news of the Trump-era lion imports became public, a leaked letter from the South Africa Department of Environmental Affairs revealed that it had nearly doubled the amount of lion bones and skeletons it would allow to be exported from the country, from 800 a year to 1,500.

That’s a dramatic increase from the 573 lion skeletons exported from South Africa in 2011, which itself was nearly double the number of exports shipped during the three-year period of 2008 to 2010.

Unlike the lions slain by hunters, the South African bones will come from the country’s 200-plus lion farms, where the big cats are raised — often in terrible conditions — for use in “caged hunts.” There, according to the 2015 documentary Blood Lions, foreign hunters pay as much as $50,000 for the opportunity to shoot semi-tame lions in small, walled-off, inescapable encampments. The heads and skins from these caged hunts become trophies, but the rest of the bodies — and many of the other lion carcasses from the factory farms — are shipped to Asia, where the bones are ground down to be used as “medicine” and as a component in wine. (There is no medicinal quality in lion bones.)

These factory farms are believed to contain about 8,000 captive-bred lions — an astonishing number compared to the fewer than 20,000 lions estimated to still live in the wild throughout Africa. South Africa itself is estimated to hold fewer than 2,000 adult wild lions.

Where does this demand for lion products come from? Many experts say the increase in the lion-bone trade is a response to the decline in wild tiger populations in Asia. Tigers are also poached for “medicinal” products, although those big cats have become so rare in the wild — an estimated 3,900 animals spread across a dozen countries — that the industry has been forced to turn to other felines to feed its fortunes.

“The lion never had any traditional value in China, but it’s an analog to the tiger so it seems to be acceptable,” Luke Hunter, chief conservation officer of the big-cat conservation organization Panthera, told me in 2016.

As more lions enter the legal bone trade, the danger to wild lions increases. A July 2017 report from the Environmental Investigation Agency said that legal trade in lion bones further threatens wild tigers and lions by stimulating demand for products made from their bodies. In traditional Asian medicine, wild products are considered more potent and valuable than farm-raised equivalents.

Interestingly enough, the farms and lion-bone trade appear to also be inspiring an increase in the poaching of captive lions. A report issued last month found that at least 60 captive lions in South Africa have been killed by poachers since 2016, with dozens of additional attempted killings.

At least five captive tigers were also killed in South Africa during the same time period.  It is unclear how many tigers exist in South Africa, but the country has exported more than 200 captive-bred tigers over the past five years, according to a recent report. About half of those cats were exported to Vietnam and Thailand, hubs of tiger-product smuggling activity.

All of this is big business and while most of it is legal, some of it may not be. Another new report, issued last month by two South African organizations called the EMS Foundation and Ban Animal Trading, accused the legal lion-bone trade of shipping a much greater quantity of bones than officially reported. The two organizations used their report to call for eliminating all lion exports from South Africa, restricting the breeding of lions and other big cats, and investigating the finances of breeders.

What does the future hold for wild lions? A 2015 study predicted that wild lions would see another 50 percent population decline over the next two decades due to poaching, the bushmeat trade (which often catches lions in snares intended for other wildlife), retaliatory killings for predation of livestock, and habitat loss. Add legal trophy hunting and poaching inspired by the legal bone trade into the mix and that timeline may become accelerated — and lions throughout Africa could pay the price.

Orangutans, Drones, Seaweed and Water Wars: The 13 Best New Eco-books for August

Books coming out this month also examine endangered languages, the lingering effects of colonialism and how war hurts the environment.

revelator readsIt’s the height of summer, and there’s no better way to while away the hot August evenings than to curl up with a good book. Luckily there are dozens of great new environmental books coming out in August to keep you reading all month long. Here are 13 thought-provoking new titles publishers have scheduled for release this month, with books for dedicated conservationists, animal-loving kids, history buffs and everyone in between.

Wildlife and Endangered Species:

Extreme Conservation: Life at the Edges of the World by Joel Berger — A globe-trotting, eye-opening journey to view and understand rare creatures living in some of the most extreme places on Earth. In the process Berger reveals how even these remote areas are being affected by climate change and people. One of the must-read books of the month.

Cuddle Me, Kill Me: A True Account of South Africa’s Captive Lion Breeding and Canned Hunting Industry by Richard Peirce — With the horrifying reality of South Africa’s booming lion-bone trade now in the news, and the recent revelation that the Trump administration has allowed the import of several lion-hunt “trophies,” this may be the most timely book of the month.

Decolonizing Extinction: The Work of Care in Orangutan Rehabilitation by Juno Salazar Parreñas — An academic book that uses my favorite apes and the people caring for them as a way to talk about cultural history, colonialism, feminism, grief, science, anthropology and gender identity. This is seriously thought-provoking and challenging material, and it may be essential to understand it if we want to save orangutans from ourselves.

Whales: An Illustrated Celebration by Kelsey Oseid — A gorgeously illustrated kids’ book and mini-encyclopedia on the evolution, mythology and ecology of whales, dolphins and porpoises. I would have eaten this book up as a child, and I really enjoyed it as an adult.

Conservation Drones: Mapping and Monitoring Biodiversity by Serge A. Wich and Lian Pin Koh — Unmanned aerial devices (aka drones) can contain a treasure-trove of technology to help us learn more about wildlife and the natural world in an unobtrusive manner. Wich and Koh are pioneers in the field — most famously for their studies of orangutans — and they’ve turned their experience into this, the first book providing professional guidance on how to use drones in conservation and ecology.

Trees, Plants and Algae:

Seaweed Chronicles: A World at the Water’s Edge by Susan Hand Shetterly — Another of this month’s must-read books, Shetterly dives into the world of iconic algae and the societies and ecosystems that depend upon it, including what some people are doing to try to prevent it from disappearing.

The Revolutionary Genius of Plants: A New Understanding of Plant Intelligence and Behavior by Stefano Mancuso — Plants may not have brains, but they could be smarter than you think. Mancuso, a scientist and the author of Brilliant Green, gets to the root of plants’ ability to learn, remember, react to external pressures and even adapt to avoid future threats. (Can we have some plants start running for political office?)

Science Comics: Trees – Kings of the Forest by Andy Hirsch — This is probably the only book you’ll read this month that stars an anthropomorphic acorn. These Science Comics volumes from publisher First Second are universally excellent. They may be geared toward kids, but anyone with an interest in ecology, trees and forests is sure to learn something from this latest addition to the series.

Endangered Languages:

The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages, edited by Kenneth L. Rehg and Lyle Campbell — Species aren’t the only things that can die out. Right now hundreds of languages around the world are at risk of extinction. The loss of these languages matters for preserving culture and science, but their disappearance also has important implications for biodiversity and climate change. This textbook, edited by two of the world’s most esteemed linguists, tackles the thorny issues impacting the words of the world with contributions from dozens of experts.

Inspirational How-to:

Writing for Animals: New Perspectives for Writers and Instructors to Educate and Inspire edited by John Yunker — How can fiction writers give authentic voices to animals and the issues that affect them? Playwright and novelist Yunker has gathered an all-star team for this valuable how-to book.

Looking Back and Ahead:

When the Rivers Run Dry, Fully Revised and Updated Edition by Fred Pearce — When it was first published in 2007 Pearce’s look at the worldwide water crisis quickly became one of the all-time most praised books on sustainability issues. Now he’s back with a new edition that shows us how water issues could be the defining crisis of the century.

The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene by Simon L. Lewis and Mark A. Maslin — A new history book examining how we’ve done the Earth wrong, combining science, philosophy and politics to look not just at the past (as the title would suggest) but also “the future of humanity in the unstable world we have created.”

Environmental Histories of the First World War edited by Richard P. Tucker, Tait Keller, J. R. McNeill and Martin Schmid — The War to End All Wars was almost a war to end the planet, causing ecological disasters wherever the bloodshed took place. This anthology looks back at how the war devastated rural and urban environments, consumed vast quantities of natural resources and led to widespread famine. It feels painfully relevant today.

That’s our list for this month. For dozens of additional recent eco-books, check out our “Revelator Reads” archives. Did we miss any of your favorites? Feel free to post your own recommendations in the comments.

Podcast: How Extinction Affects Everyone

Plus, a few tips on how to deal with the gloom and doom of environmental issues.

Sustainability expert Kaméa Chayne recently invited me to appear on her excellent Green Dreamer podcast to talk about the topics we focus on here at The Revelator. It ended up being a pretty broad conversation, addressing why everyone should care about endangered species and extinction, how we can inspire more conversation about eco-friendly values, and what people can do to avoid the feelings of “doom and gloom” that all-too-often accompany news about the environment.

Listen to the entire discussion below:

The Last Straw?

What’s the real environmental impact of a plastic straw compared to the 80 million people we add to our population every year?

There’s been a lot of press recently about Starbucks, Hyatt Hotels, McDonalds and other companies replacing plastic straws with more eco-friendly alternatives or eliminating them altogether. It’s true that Americans use a lot of plastic straws — somewhere between 200-250 million a day, based on comments by the president of the Foodservice Packaging Institute, a trade organization; extrapolations from BBC Reality Check in conjunction with McDonald’s; and figures provided by the National Restaurant Association.

But do straw bans really add up? Drawing upon data provided by Thomas Corporation, a data company for industrial manufacturers, and a number of other sources, let’s take a look at some of the things that the average American consumes in addition to those plastic straws that are currently grabbing the lion’s share of attention from the national media and environmental groups.

Over the course of a projected 79-year lifetime, the average American currently uses:

As this partial list clearly shows, straws are just one small piece in the much larger mountain of our collective consumption. This feel-good movement of giving up straws is an easy and convenient “sacrifice” and greenwashes the reality of our environmental emergencies. It does nothing to address all of these products we consume, nor the resources such as fossil fuels and water that are used to extract, manufacture and deliver these goods and services.

The real question is, are Americans, other developed-world citizens and those aspiring to move into this category really ready and willing to sacrifice the stuff that causes truly profound impacts on the environment?

The honest answer, sadly, appears to be no.

And that’s a problem that we need to address as a society. All these goods carry with them an enormous ecological price tag of disruption, pollution, death and destruction to natural habitats like forests, soils, fresh water, oceans and the air. The impact is multiplied by the weight of our collective humanity — almost 8 billion people, with 80 million more being added to the earth every year — which, coupled with our consumption, is becoming too great for our planet to bear.

In fact, Earth Overshoot Day falls on Aug. 1 this year, marking the day that our global consumption exceeds the capacity of nature to regenerate. To maintain our current demand for resources, we would need 1.7 Earths, according to Global Footprint Network, an international nonprofit whose mission is to help end ecological overshoot. The Aug. 1 date projected for this year is earlier than any time in the dozen years the calculation has been made — and a warning about the heightened challenge from our escalating consumption exacerbated by our exploding global population.

Study after study shows that reducing our footprint on Mother Earth through curtailment of consumption will not work unless we fight the rising tide of humanity.

If we truly want a sustainable future, the answer isn’t straws. It’s acknowledging the elephant in the room, having an honest conversation about our human numbers, and compassionately and forthrightly working toward a better, safer and less crowded world.

© 2018 Terry Spahr. All rights reserved.

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.