topic: Disasters

topic: Disasters

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In Brazil, half a century of salt mining sinks a city, displacing thousands
- Decades of salt mining in Maceió, in northeastern Brazil, have led to earthquakes and cracks in several of the city’s neighborhoods, making buildings there unhabitable. As a result, about 60,000 people have been displaced.
- Braskem, the chemical giant that acquired the original salt mining company, has agreed with authorities to clean up the affected neighborhoods and compensate locals. But those affected complain that Braskem has offered them meager amounts, with no negotiation; the sums don’t cover the value of their properties, while compensation for moral damage is also extremely low.
- Locals indirectly affected do not receive compensation and continue to suffer losses, as properties within a 1-kilometer (0.6-mile) radius around the disaster zone can no longer be insured and lose value; businesses adjacent to the now unhabitable neighborhoods have also lost customers.

Sumatra villages count cost of deadly river tsunami swelled by illegal logging
- Several days of extreme rainfall beginning March 7 triggered fatal flash flooding across Indonesia’s West Sumatra province, resulting in at least 30 deaths and devastating villages on the fringe of Kerinci Seblat National Park.
- Deforestation upstream of the affected areas has exacerbated the risk of landslides and flash floods, according to officials.
- The Indonesian Forum for the Environment, a national civil society organization, called for government action to address illegal logging and land management practices to prevent future disasters.

We need rapid response support for Indigenous peoples in the face of growing extreme weather events (commentary)
- Climate change can sometimes feel distant and intangible, but the increasingly frequent extreme weather events in tropical forest regions like the Amazon and Congo Basin are already having very real-world impacts on Indigenous and other local communities in these areas.
- While Indigenous and grassroots organizations are often the first responders and are best placed to know the needs of their communities, they face huge challenges in accessing heavily bureaucratic disaster response funding.
- This is why we are calling for the establishment of a dedicated fit-for-purpose rapid response fund for them to be able to respond and recover from such events.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

‘Another catastrophe’: Flooding destroys Indigenous agroforestry projects in Peru’s Amazon
- Heavy rains likely caused by El Niño began flooding Peru’s Ene River at the beginning of March, with waters reaching around 2 feet high and spreading across 5,000 hectares (12,355 acres) of land occupied by around 300 Indigenous Asháninka families.
- Families in five Asháninka communities lost their homes as well as years of work on successful and sustainable agroforestry projects for cacao, coffee and timber, among other products.
- The flood waters have only recently receded, so a long-term or even mid-term plan for recovering their agroforestry projects hasn’t been developed yet.
- The Asháninka have faced many other setbacks over the years, from drug trafficking groups to unsustainable development projects, but have often overcome them to defend their territory. This flood marks the latest setback.

In climate-related flooding, a Ugandan river turns poisonous
- Uganda’s Nyamwamba river, in the Rwenzori Mountains, has begun to flood catastrophically in recent years, partly due to climate change.
- Along the river are copper tailings pools from an old Canadian mining operation, which are becoming increasingly eroded by the flooding.
- According to a series of studies, these tailings have been washing into the water supply and soil of the Nyamwamba River Basin, contaminating human tissue, food and water with deadly heavy metals.
- Cancer rates are higher than normal near the tailings pools, and scientists fear that as the flooding continues to worsen, so will the health crisis.

Fears of marine disaster loom after fertilizer-laden ship sinks in Red Sea
- The MV Rubymar, a cargo ship carrying about 21,000 metric tons of ammonium phosphate sulfate fertilizer, has sunk in the Red Sea following an attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, raising fears of an environmental disaster.
- In addition to the fertilizer potentially entering the ocean, the vessel is also leaking heavy fuel, which experts say will impact the marine environment.
- The Red Sea is known to harbor some of the world’s most heat-resistant coral reefs, which makes the sinking of the Rubymar particularly concerning.

Climate change brings a river’s wrath down on western Uganda
- Since the 1960s, Uganda’s climate has warmed by an average of 1.3°C (2.3°F).
- The warming is partly responsible for an increasing number of catastrophic floods on the Nyamwamba River, in western Uganda’s Rwenzori Mountains.
- In 2020 alone, 173,000 people were affected by flooding in Kasese district, when 25,000 houses were destroyed.
- Many of those rendered homeless by the floods continue to languish in temporary housing camps four years on.

Landslide in Philippines mining town kills nearly 100, prompts calls for action
- A Feb. 6 landslide in a gold mining village in the Philippines’ southern island of Mindanao claimed nearly 100 lives and buried about 55 houses and a government office.
- The mining company was not held liable for the landslide, which occurred inside its concession but away from its mine mining operations; however, activists have called for more accountability by both the mining firm and the government.
- The area has previously been the site of deadly landslides, but neither the local government nor the company issued an evacuation order following landslide and flash flood warnings issued Feb. 4.
- The village that hosts the mine has been declared a “no build zone” since at least 2008, due to the high risk of landslides, but neither the village nor the mining operations have ever been relocated.

As climate disasters claim their children, Bangladeshi mothers seek safety in bigger families
- Climate change is exacerbating child mortality in flood-prone areas of Bangladesh, prompting mothers to have larger families as a response to the fear of losing children to disasters.
- Studies indicate an 8% surge in infant mortality risk in flood-prone regions, resulting in more than 150,000 lives lost between 1988 and 2017.
- While Bangladesh has seen improvements in disaster management, reduced cyclone deaths, and progress in health for mothers and children, climate change poses new threats, especially to vulnerable coastal communities lacking adequate protection.
- A National Adaptation Plan offers solutions such as water conservation and livelihood opportunities, but challenges like funding, coordination and transparency need attention for effective implementation, experts say.

Risky development in Uttarakhand: Interview with environmentalist Ravi Chopra
- Ravi Chopra, an esteemed environmentalist based in Uttarakhand, is renowned for his dedicated efforts to preserve natural resources within the Himalayan region.
- In 2019, the Supreme Court appointed Chopra as chair of a committee to review the controversial Char Dham highway construction project; he later resigned after construction proceeded despite the committtee’s findings that the project could pose significant risks to the ecologically fragile region.
- The Char Dham project drew international attention in November 2023, when a segment of a tunnel collapsed, trapping dozens of workers for 17 days.
- In a recent interview with Mongabay, Chopra discussed the environmental risks and hazards of development in Uttarakhand.

Long-term wildlife impacts at Chornobyl, Fukushima may yield ‘a new ecology’
- The world’s worst nuclear power plant accidents to date, at Chornobyl, Ukraine, in 1986, and Fukushima, Japan in 2011, and the human exclusion zones created around them have given scientists a unique opportunity to study the effects on wildlife of radiation and of reduced pressure from people.
- Chornobyl disaster findings regarding the impacts on exclusion zone organisms vary: Some point to a resurgence of the studied wildlife in the absence of humans, while others indicate radiation negatively impacting certain animal populations.
- Fukushima radiation impacts are statistically harder to detect. But scientists have made similar observation to Chornobyl: Some, but not all, species appear to thrive from reduced human pressure.
- Radioactive contamination moves in ecosystem-specific ways, depending on factors such as water flow. A combination of radioactive contamination and reduced human activity in nuclear exclusion zones may be giving rise to “a new ecology,” with nature overall neither suffering nor thriving, simply different in the impacted areas.

Philippines oil spill may reverberate long after cleanup declared complete
- On March 1, the MT Princess Empress oil tanker sank in the Philippines, carrying 900,000 liters (237,754 gallons) of industrial fuel oil. A huge oil slick polluted local waters and prompted authorities to impose a ban on fishing that sent local communities into a tailspin.
- The wreck occurred in the Verde Island Passage, between the Philippines’ main islands of Luzon and Mindoro, an area with the highest concentration of marine biodiversity in the world.
- The spill cleanup activities are now finished, and life is returning to normal in many places. However, experts say the effects of the oil spill on the ecosystem could linger over the long term.
- The spill has reinvigorated calls for the Philippine Legislature to pass a law declaring the entire Verde Island Passage a marine protected area.

Super flock of pigeons leaves Nepali researchers asking what happened
- Researchers in Nepal say they still don’t know what was behind a massive flock of some 7,500 woodpigeons observed in the country’s plains last December.
- A recently published study suggests a range of factors, from food availability to predator avoidance, combined to bring together the flock, which was 25 times larger than the biggest flock previously observed here.
- Climate factors may also have played a part, particularly the impact of heavy rains on the birds’ overwintering grounds in Pakistan.
- Researchers say more studies are needed to get to the bottom of the mystery, and plan to watch out for another super flock this coming winter.

In Philippines, climate change tests Indigenous farming like never before
- In the uplands of the Philippines’ Iloilo province, Indigenous Suludnon farmers maintain deep connections to the agroecosystem that has sustained their community for generations.
- Agroforestry systems and diversified planting have helped the Suludnon cope with a changing climate, and traditional knowledge of natural signs of hazardous weather have allowed them to prepare for storms.
- However, with climate change bringing increasingly frequent extreme weather events, along with crop pests and disease, the Suludnon’s time-refined methods are coming under strain.

Tested by COVID and war, an Indigenous conservation system in Ethiopia prevails
- For more than 400 years, communities in the Guassa grasslands of Ethiopia’s central highlands have practiced a sustainable system for managing the area’s natural resources.
- The system’s robustness was severely tested from 2020 with the one-two punch of COVID-19 and the Tigray war, but held strong.
- Threats to the grassland persist, however, from a growing population and road projects, which the community hopes to address through ecotourism initiatives as an alternative source of income.
- The Guassa Community Conservation Area is home to rare plant and wildlife species such as gelada baboons, Ethiopian wolves, and the versatile guassa grass that’s a central part of community life.

Organic farming, and community spirit, buoy a typhoon-battered Philippine town
- After their town was devastated by floods in 2004, residents of Kiday in the Philippines shifted to organic methods when rebuilding their farms.
- Today, the Kiday Community Farmers’ Association practices agroecology and agroforestry, maintaining communal plots as well as private gardens.
- The association receives nonprofit support, but government funding continues to prioritize conventional agriculture over more sustainable methods.
- Farmers in Kiday also face a new threat in the form of the government-supported Kaliwa Dam, which is under construction upstream of the village.

‘Alarming’ heat wave threatens Bangladesh’s people and their food supply
- Temperatures across Bangladesh have hit record highs as the country swelters in the heat wave currently sweeping across much of Asia.
- Dhaka recorded its highest temperature in six decades this month, at 40.6°C (105.1°F), with meteorologists warning that heat waves like this are becoming more common.
- The heat also threatens the country’s all-important rice crop, with the government advising farmers to ensure sufficient irrigation to prevent heat shock to their plants.
- With the heat now easing, a new fear has emerged: Cooler temperatures signal the start of the monsoon, which, in the northeast region of Bangladesh often means floods that can also destroy rice crops.

After historic storm in New Zealand, Māori leaders call for disaster relief and rights
- After Cyclone Gabrielle hit New Zealand and mostly impacted Indigenous Māori homes, Māori delegates attending the United Nation’s conference on Indigenous peoples say the government has left them out of recovery services and funding.
- The delegates hope their presence at the United Nations forum will increase pressure on the New Zealand government to include Māori people in disaster recovery plans, provide more support for Indigenous-led climate initiatives, and fully implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
- Māori knowledge, known as Mātauranga Māori, has been increasingly included in climate and conservation projects across the country as part of the ‘Vision Mātauranga’ framework, but it has also attracted fierce debate on its status within the scientific community.

‘War with weeds’ lacks ecological understanding and empathy (commentary)
- ‘Weeds’ are plants with special botanical and ecological attributes that allow their rapid establishment in disturbed areas, helping to reduce erosion of soils.
- Many weedy species have also proven their usefulness as medicines and food, going back several millennia. Wildlife, too, can benefit from such plants.
- Yet these plants are often the focus of a ‘war on weeds’ which is unfortunate and misguided, the author of a new book on the topic argues. “Can weeds be appreciated for their critical ecological roles? Can they be managed in situations where they may become problematic?” he asks.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

In wake of ‘natural’ disasters, not reducing biodiversity loss is a big missed opportunity (commentary)
- Following the progress of the COP15 biodiversity summit, it’s time to come together to fully leverage the power of nature to build a prosperous, disaster-resilient future, a new op-ed argues.
- “Working with – and making full use of – the power of nature, and taking advantage of much existing knowledge, would prove a major step forward,” writes a NOAA senior scientist.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay or NOAA.

Humanitarian experts report ‘cascading crises’ as climate, health emergencies soar
- Globally, humanitarian aid workers are facing complex climate and health crises that require urgent adaptations within a shrinking humanitarian space, according to a recent piece in the Lancet.
- About 274 million people worldwide are now in need of humanitarian assistance — up from 235 million in 2021 — as climate emergencies intensify.
- In Kenya, families on the shores of Lake Victoria were displaced at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic and humanitarian organizations played a key role in supporting villagers to cope with the dual shocks.
- Data from Children Service Department show that currently, at least 3,420 children and 12 households in the Lake Victoria area are headed by children living in makeshift camps.

Japan’s example: Can forest planting reduce climate disaster risk?
- In disaster-prone Japan, torrential rains exacerbated by the climate crisis have caused serious flooding and landslides in recent years, including in the country’s many forests.
- While acknowledging the limits of forests’ ability to prevent landslides occurring in the bedrock, Japan’s Forestry Agency is implementing both forest improvement activities and erosion control facility construction to help mitigate future landslide disasters.
- Japan’s monoculture plantation forests, which represent 40% of the nation’s total forest cover, are seen by some experts and civil society members as insufficient to prevent mountain disasters. However, other experts say that a much wider range of geological and environmental factors, not just tree species, determine a forest’s disaster mitigation ability.
- Along Japan’s Pacific coast, others are using trees planted on raised embankments as an as-yet-untested countermeasure against future tsunamis, a type of disaster experts say can also be exacerbated by sea level rise due to climate change.

Deadly landslides prompt Philippine president to call for tree planting
- Typhoon Nalgae, which made five landfalls on Oct. 29, killed 123 people across the Philippines, including at least 61 who died in floods and landslides on the southern island of Mindanao.
- After inspecting the damage wrought by the storm, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. blamed deforestation and climate change for the scale of the disaster, and called on flood control plans to include tree planting.
- The Philippines already has an ambitious tree-planting program, but an audit found it has so far fallen short of its target.

Haiti: An island nation whose environmental troubles only begin with water
- As Haiti plunges into the worst social unrest the nation has seen in years, shortages abound. One of these is water. But in Haiti, water scarcity has deeper roots, that connect to virtually every other aspect of the environment. Haiti’s ecosystems today, say some, are under stress due to regional and global transgressions of the nine planetary boundaries.
- The planetary boundary framework originated in 2009 to define required limits on human activities to prevent collapse of vital Earth operating systems. They include biodiversity loss, freshwater, air pollution, climate change, high phosphorus and nitrogen levels, ocean acidity, land use changes, ozone layer decay, and contamination by human-made chemicals.
- Scientists defining the global freshwater boundary warn that tampering with the water cycle can affect the other boundaries. Haiti, as a small isolated island nation, suggests a laboratory case-study of these many interconnections, and offers a graphic example of the grim results for humanity and wildlife when freshwater systems are deeply compromised.
- Haiti today is plagued by an extreme socioeconomic and environmental crisis. As it fights climate change, freshwater problems, deforestation and pollution, it may also be viewed as a bleak bellwether for other nations as our planetary crisis deepens. But scientists warn that research on applying planetary boundary criteria on a regional level remains limited.

Fires in the world’s largest wetland turns Brazilian farmers into firefighters
- Fires in 2020 ravaged an area larger than Belgium in the Brazilian Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland, killing at least 17 million animals and leaving locals without water.
- Several initiatives by local nonprofits are taking on the challenge of protecting this unique region by educating residents about fire hazards and training Pantanal cattle ranchers as volunteer firefighters.
- Most of the 2020 fires in the Pantanal started on private farms, according to a study, underscoring the importance of training farmers to suppress flames before they surge into wildfires.
- Experts say fire alerts in the Pantanal are down by 91% so far this year compared to the same period in 2020, thanks to increased efforts by the state government and volunteer programs, as well as wetter weather.

As stronger storms hit Bangladesh farmers, banks are climate collateral damage
- Farmers in coastal areas of Bangladesh are increasingly defaulting on their loans due to climate change-driven storms that are destroying the farms they put up as collateral.
- Agricultural loans for the year to May 2022 amounted to the equivalent of $3 billion, or a fifth of the value of all loans distributed in Bangladesh.
- Increasingly frequent and severe storms therefore pose as much of a threat to the country’s financial sector as to farming communities and the environment.
- The warming of the sea in the Bay of Bengal as a result of climate change is supercharging storms, giving them more energy, helping them to drive tidal surges farther inland and dump larger volumes of rain than before.

Hundreds of iconic Barbary macaques feared dead in Morocco forest fire
- A wildfire has burned through half of the Bouhachem Forest Reserve in northern Morocco, one of the few remaining refuges of the Barbary macaque.
- The fire forced the evacuation of more than 900 families from 15 villages in this region of the Rif mountains, destroying homes and crops and killing livestock.
- In recent months, exceptionally hot, dry conditions have prevailed in Morocco and around the Mediterranean and Western Europe, with observers saying climate change is exacerbating the conditions that produce forest fires in the region.
- The largest trees in the Bouhachem reserve have largely survived, but the burning of the forest understory will have a massive impact on the availability of grazing for villagers’ livestock, as well as food for macaques and other species.

‘The volume of water is beyond control’: Q&A with flood expert M. Monirul Qader Mirza
- An early start to the monsoon and unusually heavy rains have caused massive flooding in northeastern Bangladesh, leaving millions of people stranded in floodwaters.
- The Meghna River Basin is accustomed to these flash floods, but the scale of the disaster this year has been compounded by human encroachment and development in the watershed region, said M. Monirul Qader Mirza, a water management expert.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Mirza emphasized the need for infrastructure planning to consider river and rainfall dynamics to mitigate flood risk, and to have an early-warning system in place to minimize damage.
- Mirza also said that identifying the role of climate change in the problem is complex and requires extensive studies and modeling, but added it’s indisputable that rainfall patterns have become increasingly erratic.

Parrots of the Caribbean: Birding tourism offers hope for threatened species
- Four species of parrots endemic to Caribbean islands in the Lesser Antilles — St. Vincent, St. Lucia and Dominica — are clinging to existence amid a volley of hurricanes and volcanic eruptions that have decimated their populations and habitats.
- Efforts by state agencies, NGOs, volunteers and entrepreneurs are trying to ensure that none of them slips into extinction.
- Ecotourism is seen by most people directly involved as being the best route forward for the parrots’ protection and for sustainable community development.

High tech early warning system could curb next South African locust swarms
- The worst locust swarms in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province in 25 years (occurring in May 2022) is in the past. But the millions of eggs laid by the insects could hatch this September, the beginning of spring in the Southern Hemisphere.
- Grassy farmland in the vast region was only just beginning to recover from a devastating six year drought which struck between 2015 – 2021, when the locust swarms arrived earlier this year.
- Farmers are now pinning their hopes on new software that will track newborn locusts in real time, enabling them to target and exterminate the insect pests before they take to the skies and reproduce.
- The software has been used in seven countries in the Horn of Africa and East Africa and is seen as a vital part of minimizing the size of swarms, which can become an annual disaster if they aren’t targeted immediately after birth. South Africa favors chemical pesticides over non-toxic biopesticides for locust control.

Analysis: Myanmar’s gemstone riches bring poverty and environmental destruction
- Myanmar is endowed with rich reserves of jade, rubies and other gemstones, but endemic corruption and poor regulation mean little wealth has flowed to ordinary citizens.
- The jade-mining hotspot of Hpakant, in Kachin state, is emblematic of the problem: There are currently no licensed mines in the area, but jade extraction nonetheless continues at a massive scale.
- The speed and size of these poorly regulated operations results in both massive environmental damage and human casualties, as scavengers flock to unstable dumpsites to hunt for jade left behind by machines.

South Africa declares national emergency as flood toll crosses 440
- Flooding and landslides following record-breaking rainfall caused hundreds of deaths and displaced 40,000 people in KwaZulu-Natal province.
- The damage is centered around Durban, South Africa’s third most populous city, which is particularly vulnerable to flash floods.
- In the coming days, 10,0000 military troops will join search and rescue operations and provide aid to the thousands of people impacted by the tragedy.
- President Cyril Ramaphosa said the floods are a reminder of how a changing climate is fueling more extreme weather. However, scientists are still investigating the role of anthropogenic climate change in this disaster.

In landslide-prone Colombia, forests can serve as an inexpensive shield
- Scientists say that climate change and high deforestation rates will worsen the severity of landslides across Colombia.
- Regular landslides in the country already have a huge human and economic toll; a disaster in Dosquebradas municipality in February killed 14 people after a heavy rainstorm hit the coffee-growing region.
- Yet scientists say that targeted forest restoration and protection offers an inexpensive way to mitigate landslides, with one study in the Colombian Andes showing that it would be 16 times cheaper to invest in forests than to pay the high costs of repairing destroyed roads, power lines and pipelines after landslides.
- Scientists say that using forests to fight landslides would also have major biodiversity benefits in Earth’s second-most biodiverse nation.

As the Horn of Africa heats up, the risks of insecurity are rising (commentary)
- World leaders are increasingly concerned about the complex connections between climate and insecurity, including the risk that climate disruption is a “conflict multiplier.”
- The threat is particularly acute in the Greater Horn of Africa, where populations already grappling with food insecurity and armed conflict are experiencing some of the fastest-warming conditions in the world.
- Noting that “the fortunes and stability of this region of 365 million people now look to be at the mercy of weather-driven mayhem”, Robert Muggah, Peter Schmidt, and Giovanna Kuele of the Igarapé Institute draw attention to various efforts already underway in the region to build resilience and call for stepped-up support from global powers.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.

In Puerto Rico, a marathon effort builds to restore mangroves and dunes
- Hurricane Maria in 2017 devastated several mangrove ecosystems in Puerto Rico, leading ecologists to start restoration efforts.
- Mangroves provide myriad benefits: storm protection, carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation and pollution filtering, among others.
- In addition to mangroves, organizations are working to restore sand dunes to add an extra buffer against tropical storms and protect turtle nesting sites.
- And while they’ve benefited from recent injections of funding and collaboration with experts from around the world, the restoration groups note that they have more work ahead than they can currently take on.

Latest Nigeria oil spill highlights ‘wretched’ state of the industry
- An oil production vessel exploded just off the coast of Nigeria on Feb. 3, killing seven of 10 crew members on board.
- Nigeria’s monitoring of and response to oil industry incidents is poor: three weeks later, the size and impact of the spill is still unknown.
- This is the second major incident reported in the past three months, and highlights potential problems as oil majors sell aging infrastructure to locally owned companies that are ill-equipped to operate them safely.

Two storms in two weeks carve trail of death and destruction in Madagascar
- Batsirai, a category 4 cyclone, struck Madagascar’s eastern coast on Feb. 5, leaving 10 people dead.
- The island nation is still recovering from another tropical storm, Ana, which made landfall on Jan. 22 and left dozens dead and hundreds of thousands homeless.
- Data from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show that 12 storms of category 4 or 5, the highest level, made landfall on Madagascar between 1911; of these 12, eight occurred since 2000.

Typhoon exposes biodiversity haven Palawan’s vulnerability — and resilience
- On Dec. 17, 2021, Typhoon Rai hit the Philippines’ Palawan Island, causing severe damage to protected areas including Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park (PPSRNP), Cleoptra’s Needle Critical Habitat, Malampaya Sound Protected Landscape and Seascape, and El Nido-Taytay Managed Resource Protected Area.
- The full impact of the storm has not yet been assessed; at PPSRNP, where preliminary surveys have been conducted, more than 2,200 trees were damaged on the park’s fringes and sightings of birds were down by 90%.
- Experts say the storm-damaged forests can recover — if they aren’t disturbed by human incursions, fires, or additional storms.

Déjà vu for Indigenous villagers in Brazil as floods leave them homeless again
- A community of Indigenous Pataxó and Pataxó Hãhãhãe peoples has been made homeless for the second time in three years after the rain-swollen Paraopeba River flooded their houses and swept away their possessions.
- In 2019, the same village was left uninhabitable after the collapse of a tailings dam belonging to mining giant Vale polluted the river, causing health problems among the community and taking away their access to clean water.
- Authorities say the community can’t return to Naô Xohã village because their houses and land are now contaminated by heavy metals from the Paraopeba River’s toxic mud; the residents are currently sheltering in local schools and rely on donations.
- They are now fighting to be relocated to new land, but are still waiting for a final resolution from Vale after three years of negotiations.

Mongabay’s top Amazon stories from 2021
- The world’s largest rainforest continued to come under pressure in 2021, due largely to the policies of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
- Deforestation rates hit a 15-year-high, while fires flared up again, combining to turn Brazil’s portion of the Amazon into a net carbon source for the first time ever.
- The rainforest as a whole remains a net carbon sink, thanks to conservation areas and Indigenous territories, where deforestation rates remained low.
- Indigenous communities continued to be hit by a barrage of outside pressure, from COVID-19 to illegal miners and land grabbers, while community members living in Brazil’s cities dealt with persistent prejudice.

Wildlife death toll from 2020 Pantanal fires tops 17 million, study finds
- A new study has found that nearly 17 million animals died in the Pantanal fires in 2020.
- The researchers came to this estimate by conducting distance sampling surveys, walking tracts of the Pantanal shortly after the fires and counting the number of dead vertebrates they encountered.
- However, the researchers say this is likely to be an underestimate since animals may have died underground or may have died later from burn injuries.
- The 2020 fires burned 4.5 million hectares (11 million acres) of the Pantanal, which is about 30% of the entire biome.

As Ethiopia’s war rages, a 400-year-old conservation site is scarred by battle
- A major fire has burned more than 1,000 hectares (nearly 2,500 acres) of grassland in the Guassa Community Conservation Area in Ethiopia’s central highlands.
- The area is among the oldest examples of community-managed conservation in Africa, centered on preserving the Festuca grass that is used for thatching roofs.
- The grasslands are also home to endangered Ethiopian wolves and gelada baboons, and more recently have become a favored ecotourism site.
- It’s still unclear what triggered the blaze, but the area was the site of a battle in Ethiopia’s ongoing civil war in late November.

Niger Delta communities in ‘great danger’ as month-old oil spill continues
- Oil has been spilling from a wellhead in Nigeria’s Bayelsa state for a month now, with the local company responsible unable to contain it.
- Experts say the scale and duration of the spill is so severe that it’s imperative that local communities be relocated for their safety.
- Oil spills and other forms of pollution caused by the industry are common in Bayelsa, the heart of the oil-rich Niger Delta.
- Companies, including foreign oil majors, are largely left to self-declare the spills that frequently occur, but face only token fines for failing to respond quickly.

With loss of forests, Bali villages find themselves vulnerable to disaster
- Bali’s Penyaringan village was hit by flash floods in September, which some have linked to the ongoing loss of its forest.
- While the village’s forest has been designated as a protected area, it’s still subject to encroachment by villagers for the planting of short-lived crops, a practice known locally as ngawen.
- To regulate the practice and regenerate the forest, the village formed a management body that restricts the extent and types of crops that villagers can grow and requires them to also plant trees.

Children born in 2020 will see spike in climate disasters, study says
- The study used climate modeling to determine specialized impacts by region, finding that at the current level of carbon reduction pledges, people born in 2020 will experience many more extreme climate events in comparison to those born in 1960.
- On the world’s current course, those children will experience twice as many wildfires overall, three times as many crop failures, and seven times as many heat waves.
- At a geographical scale, children born in low-income countries that are least responsible for the climate crisis will confront significantly higher spikes in extreme events than in wealthier countries.
- If the world takes a more aggressive approach to limiting warming to 1.5°C (2.7°F) by 2100, the number of climate disasters experienced by younger generations would drop substantially, with the model predicting 45% fewer heat waves, 39% fewer droughts, and 28% fewer crop failures.

Fires bear down on Brazil park that’s home to jaguars, maned wolves
- Thousands of fires caused by humans in Brazil’s Cerrado savanna region continue to spread, with several fires around and inside Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- The park is home to dozens of rare and threatened species as well as the source of many important rivers and waterways; experts warn the intensity of the fires could permanently damage the natural vegetation.
- The fires don’t come as a surprise to many scientists who had predicted earlier this year that ongoing drought, rising rates of deforestation, and lack of enforcement would build up to a severe fire season.
- Every single month this year has seen above-average levels of fire in the Cerrado, with more than 36% of all fires in Brazil this year concentrated in this biome, even though it only covers just over 20% of Brazil’s land mass.

Novel chemical entities: Are we sleepwalking through a planetary boundary?
- The “novel entities” planetary boundary encapsulates all toxic and long-lived substances that humans release into the environment — from heavy metals and radioactive waste, to industrial chemicals and pesticides, even novel living organisms — which can threaten the stability of the Earth system.
- Humans have invented more than 140,000 synthetic chemicals and we produce them in vast quantities: around 2.3 billion tons annually. Yet, only a few thousand have been tested for their toxicity to humans or other organisms. That leaves humanity essentially flying blind to potential chemical interactions and impacts.
- Global treaties such as the Stockholm Convention, Minamata Convention, and Basel Convention, limit production and/or trade of some environmentally persistent toxic and hazardous chemicals. But progress is slow: Decades after DDT’s impacts were reported, it is still regularly used in developing nations.
- NGOs call for an international tax on basic chemicals production, with the funds supporting countries devising and implementing regulations to protect human health and the environment. A 0.5% international fee could raise $11.5 billion yearly, vastly surpassing current global funding for chemicals management.

Vale told Brazil communities they were in danger. They say Vale wants their land
- Residents moved from their homes in Brazil’s Minas Gerais state over fears of impending collapses of dams operated by miner Vale are accusing the company of trying to take over their land.
- The first such evacuation was ordered in February 2019 in the municipality of Barão de Cocais, two weeks after the Brumadinho dam disaster killed 458 people.
- In the two and a half years since then, more communities have been moved, with affected residents saying Vale is stonewalling them on compensation.
- A document drawn up by state prosecutors in March confirms that there’s been interest in prospecting for minerals on the vacated land, although Vale has not responded to the accusation.

In Brazil’s Acre, smoke from fires threatens health, could worsen COVID-19
- Fires are gaining momentum in Acre, a state in southwesten Brazil 80% covered in old-growth Amazon rainforest, where a historic drought and high levels of deforestation have experts worried that this will be a bad year for fires
- Wildfires generate small particulate matter which, when inhaled, can travel into the lungs, bloodstream, and vital organs, causing serious damage, akin to cigarette smoke.
- Data from Acre’s air-quality monitoring network, the largest in the Amazon, show that during the peak burning seasons in 2019 and 2020, the rates of particulate matter hovered well above the level recognized by the World Health Organization as clean and safe for breathing
- Wildfire smoke has been linked to higher COVID-19 mortality rates, threatening to compound what is already one of the worst burdens of coronavirus infections and deaths in the world. At particular risk are Indigenous populations, who suffer mortality rates 1.5 times the average in Brazil.

A bad fire year predicted in Brazil’s Acre state. What’s to be done?
- As of Aug. 15, 29 major fires have been set this year in the southwestern Brazilian state of Acre, burning more than 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres), compared to just one major fire reported by the same date last year, which burned 20 hectares (50 acres).
- A recent study found that unprecedented levels of fires burned in standing rainforest in 2019, which was neither a drought nor an El Niño year, meaning the risk of forest fires is rising, even when rainfall is normal.
- The authors say this adds to mounting evidence that the discourse and policies of President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration, which began in January 2019, have relaxed regulations and emboldened land grabbers and those who set illegal fires.
- Researchers say they hope that new platforms to monitor and predict fires, as well as educational programs about fires and fire alternatives in schools, communities and on the radio will lead to behavioral changes and less fire, but say government support and investment is needed.

Coastal Indonesian village adapts to life amid rising tidal floodwaters
- Cars once drove along the road in front of residents’ homes in coastal Timbulsloko village on the northern coast of Indonesia’s Java Island. Now, only canoes can pass; when the tide recedes, the water is knee-deep.
- Timbulsloko experiences severe tidal flooding caused by land subsidence, abrasion, nearby major construction, and climate change.
- Residents are starting to respond: A network of interlocking boardwalks now connects the submerged hamlets to dry land, and the village has designated a protected coastal area and prohibited the clearing of mangroves.
- The goal is to prevent further coastal damage and ensure the safety of residents’ settlements. The community is also beginning to discuss sustainable aquaculture.

A world of hurt: 2021 climate disasters raise alarm over food security
- Human-driven climate change is fueling weather extremes — from record drought to massive floods — that are hammering key agricultural regions around the world.
- From the grain heartland of Argentina to the tomato belt of California to the pork hub of China, extreme weather events have driven down output and driven up global commodity prices.
- Shortages of water and food have, in turn, prompted political and social strife in 2021, including food protests in Iran and hunger in Madagascar, and threaten to bring escalating misery, civil unrest and war in coming years.
- Experts warn the problem will only intensify, even in regions currently unaffected by, or thriving from the high prices caused by scarcity. Global transformational change is urgently needed in agricultural production and consumption patterns, say experts.

After two collapses, a third Vale dam at ‘imminent risk of rupture’
- Vale, the Brazilian mining company responsible for two deadly dam collapses since 2015, has another dam that’s at “imminent risk of rupture,” a government audit warns.
- The Xingu dam at Vale’s Alegria mine in Mariana municipality, Minas Gerais state, has been retired since 1998, but excess water in the mining waste that it’s holding back threatens to liquefy the embankment and spark a potentially disastrous collapse.
- Liquefaction also caused the collapse of a Vale tailings dam in 2019 in Brumadinho municipality, also in Minas Gerais, that killed nearly 300 people; the 2015 collapse of another Vale dam, in Mariana in 2015, caused extensive pollution and is considered Brazil’s worst environmental disaster to date.
- Vale has denied the risk of a collapse at the Xingu dam and says it continues to monitor the structure ahead of its decommissioning; regulators, however, say the company still hasn’t carried out requested measures to improve the structure’s safety, and have ordered an evacuation of the immediate vicinity.

Study shows it took the Amazon as we know it over 6 million years to form
- An asteroid impact near Mexico 66 million years ago triggered an ecological catastrophe that claimed nearly half of all plant species and took Amazon forests more than 6 million years to recover from.
- Colombian researchers analyzed fossilized pollen and leaves and found plant diversity declined by 45% after the impact; when plant diversity finally recovered, open forests of ferns and conifers had been replaced by dense, closed-canopy forests dominated by flowering plants.
- The researchers suggested three interlinked explanations for the sudden transition: the extinction of large-bodied dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous reduced forest disturbance; dust from the impact acted as a fertilizer; conifers were more likely to go extinct.
- In the time periods studied, Earth’s climate was warmer and CO2 levels were higher, showing that climate alone is not enough to trigger a forest-to-savanna transition, with the pace of warming and deforestation the crucial puzzle pieces that determine whether today’s forests can survive.

Talks break down over crumbling Yemeni tanker threatening massive oil spill
- The FSO Safer, an oil supertanker anchored for decades off Yemen, risks a catastrophic humanitarian and environmental disaster in the Red Sea.
- The civil war in Yemen has suspended essential maintenance on the increasingly fragile vessel with more than 1 million barrels of oil in its hold and hindered disaster preparedness.
- On June 1, talks appeared to break down between the U.N. and the Houthi administration, which controls the vessel. The two sides had spent months negotiating access for a U.N. team to investigate and stabilize the vessel.
- A spill would jeopardize corals with the best-known chance of surviving predicted global climate change.

Mining linked yet again to another severe flood in Indonesian Borneo
- Recent floods that hit the eastern part of Indonesia Borneo may have been exacerbated by massive deforestation for coal mines.
- There are as many as 94 coal-mining concessions in Berau district, which was hit by floodwaters as high as 2 meters (6.5 feet).
- Twenty of the concessions are located along the two rivers that overflowed during the floods.
- Illegal mining is also rampant in the area, and the police have launched an investigation to identify whether mining was a factor in exacerbating the scale of the flooding.

Death toll rises to 10 after landslide at dam site in orangutan habitat
- The death toll from a landslide at a hydropower construction site in northern Sumatra has risen to 10, with three people still missing and feared dead.
- The disaster was the second landslide to hit the site in the Batang Toru forest in the space of five months.
- Experts and activists have again questioned the project developer’s disaster mitigation plan, warning that the area could also be hit by an earthquake, with even more devastating consequences.
- Conservationists also say the project threatens the only known habitat of the critically endangered Tapanuli orangutan, which numbers fewer than 800 individuals.

Deadly landslide hits Indonesian dam project in orangutan habitat, again
- A landslide at the site of a hydropower plant located in the only known habitat of the critically endangered Tapanuli orangutan has claimed the lives of three people, with nine others still missing.
- It’s the second deadly landslide here in the past five months, with the project sitting in an area that’s prone to natural disasters, including earthquakes.
- Activists say the back-to-back landslides are reason enough for the area to be protected, instead of being licensed for large-scale projects, such as mining and infrastructure.

Mining sites in Indonesia’s disaster-prone areas a ticking time bomb: Report
- Nearly 800 mining concessions in Indonesia are located in areas prone to earthquakes, landslides and floods, a new report shows.
- Environmental activists say the proliferation of these concessions shows a lax attitude by companies and the government toward environmental risk assessment.
- They warn that mining activity in these areas could lead to disaster for local communities and the environment, including spills of toxic tailings and pollution of water sources.
- Communities living near many mining concessions have voiced their concerns over such risks.

Philippines looks to improve disaster preparedness with geospatial tech
- The Philippines is among the topmost vulnerable countries in the world to natural disasters and climate impacts.
- Last year, the country experienced a volcanic eruption, a series of major earthquakes, and successive typhoons that inundated more than 60 towns and cities.
- Knowing the country’s vulnerability level to disasters, various government agencies rolled out a series of apps to aid local government officials in crafting local solutions to these disasters.
- These solutions are based on the National Exposure Database (NED), a platform that collates data to aid in policymaking.

On a Philippine volcano, an eruption-proof mouse rules the roost
- In 1991, a massive eruption at Mount Pinatubo decimated natural old-growth forests, likely resulting in the natural local extinction of several species, a study notes.
- But surveys carried out 20 years after the eruption show that the landscape is regenerating and is dominated by a possibly endemic rodent species, Apomys sacobianus.
- Biologists know Ap. sacobianus from a single specimen collected in 1956; previous studies conducted by the team show it may be specific only to Mount Pinatubo.
- The rodent species is a “disturbance specialist,” meaning that unlike other Apomys species that thrive on mountaintops, Ap. sacobianus has adapted to living in the lowlands due to eruptions in the past.

Philippine quarries under scrutiny after deadly mudflow buries homes
- When Typhoon Goni, the world’s strongest last year, hit the Philippines in November, it triggered an avalanche of volcanic mud that buried 300 homes, killed 13 people and left three missing in the province of Albay.
- While such mudflows, known as lahar, are common in regions with high volcanic activity, experts and activists say the impact in Albay was exacerbated by the loose material left by quarrying operations.
- Quarrying of volcanic ash and debris from the slopes of Albay’s Mount Mayon feeds construction projects across the Philippines and is a key economic driver in the province.
- But watchdogs say the proliferation of mismanaged quarries is a result of a rarely scrutinized industry that is often under the watch of the local government.

Indonesian police may probe coal miners over deforestation-linked floods
- The Indonesian police say they might investigate coal companies for their alleged role in recent deadly floods that struck southern Borneo.
- Critics accuse the companies of degrading the water catchment in South Kalimantan province through deforestation and sedimentation, which they allege amplified the impact of the rain-fueled floods.
- The government, meanwhile, is under fire for issuing more permits than the previous three administrations.
- Activists warn the environmental degradation in the province will only get worse under a slate of controversial deregulation measures passed by the government last year, which they say caters to coal companies at the expense of the environment.

Indonesia to push for mine rehab, reforestation after deadly floods
- The Indonesian government plans to reforest watershed areas in the Bornean province of South Kalimantan and compel coal-mining companies to rehabilitate their concessions there in response to recent deadly floods.
- Pit mines have degraded large swaths of the region’s watershed, undermining the ability of the land and rivers to absorb heavy rainwater runoff, which activists say exacerbated the scale of the floods.
- While the environment minister initially denied this, her office has now indicated it was aware of the problem at least five years earlier and will do more to get companies to rehabilitate their abandoned mining sites.
- Even if it succeeds, however, experts agree that, given the current state of technology, restoring forests from abandoned mining sites is unrealistic in any tangible time frame.

Plantations, mines didn’t worsen flood, Indonesia says. The data begs to differ
- Indonesia’s environment minister claims deforestation for oil palm plantations and coal mines had nothing to do with a recent deadly flood in southern Borneo.
- But the ministry’s own data, and statements by a senior minister, attribute the intensity of the flooding on the massive loss of forest cover across the Barito River’s watershed.
- Environmental activists say the deforestation has compromised the natural function of the watershed to absorb the heavy rains that caused the Barito and its tributaries to overflow following heavy rains.
- The coordinating minister for human development has called for a more sustainable management of natural resources in the region, warning against unbridled exploitation.

Palm oil plantations, coal mines linked to deadly Indonesia flood
- Environmentalists have attributed recent heavy floods in southern Indonesian Borneo to widespread deforestation for oil palm plantations and coal mines.
- An analysis by Indonesia’s space agency shows an area of forest twice the size of London was cleared in the past decade in the watershed area of the Barito River in South Kalimantan province.
- During the same period, plantations spanning twice the size of Los Angeles have been established in the watershed area.
- Activists have called for a sweeping review of licenses as well as rehabilitation of degraded areas in the region.

Worker feared dead as landslide hits quake-prone dam in orangutan habitat
- A North Sumatra resident has gone missing and is feared dead after a landslide struck the site of a hydropower plant located in the only known habitat of the critically endangered Tapanuli orangutan.
- Afuan Ritonga, 38, was swept into the Batang Toru River by a torrent of mud on Dec. 4, during an operation to clear away debris from a landslide that struck the previous day following heavy rains.
- The excavator that Afuan was operating was later reportedly discovered downstream, but he remains missing.
- The government has identified the area as having a medium to high risk of landslides, while environmental activists and scientists say the region is also prone to earthquakes because it sits near a tectonic fault line.

Deadly anniversary: Rio Doce, Brazil’s worst environmental disaster, 5 years on
- On November 5, 2015, the Fundão iron mine tailings dam failed, pouring 50 million tons of mud and toxic waste into Brazil’s Rio Doce, killing 19 people, polluting the river, contaminating croplands, devastating fish and wildlife, and polluting drinking water with toxic sludge along 650 kilometers (400 miles) of the waterway.
- Five years on, the industry cleanup has failed to restore the river and watershed, according to residents, with fisheries and fields still poisoned and less productive. Access to clean water also remains difficult, while unexplained health problems have arisen, though some cleanup and livelihood projects are yielding hope.
- Rio Doce valley inhabitants remain frustrated by what they see as a slow response to the environmental disaster by the dam’s owner, Samarco, a joint venture of Vale and BHP Billiton, two of the world’s biggest mining companies, and also by the Brazilian government. Roughly 1.6 million people were originally impacted by the disaster.
- The count of those still affected is unknown, with alleged heavy metal-related health risks cited: Maria de Jesus Arcanjo Peixoto tells of her young grandson, sickened by a mysterious illness: ”We’re left in doubt… But he was three months old when the dam burst. And all the food, the milk, the feed for the cows — it all came from the mud.”

Missing mangroves are root of contention over Philippine airport project
- Work on a new international airport project in Bulacan, just north of Manila, has already resulted in the decimation of more than 600 mangrove trees in the Manila Bay area, residents say.
- Bulacan’s coast is a key mangrove forest and important bird and biodiversity area, and one of several sites along the bay that’s facing threats due to land reclamation projects.
- The Bulacan “aerotropolis,” a 2,500-hectare (6,200-acre) airport complex, is part of President Rodrigo Duterte’s revised “Build, Build, Build” infrastructure program and has been awarded to San Miguel Corporation, the Philippines’ biggest company by revenue.
- The cutting of mangroves is prohibited under Philippine law, but no one has been held accountable for the hundreds of trees cut in Bulacan — a problem that residents and environmental groups say will intensify as construction of the airport returns to full force by October.

Oil palm plantations in Sumatran watershed worsen flooding in communities
- The development of oil palm and rubber plantations in a watershed area of Indonesia’s Sumatra Island is exacerbating flooding for nearby communities, new research suggests.
- The multidisciplinary study finds that soil compaction on land cleared for planting reduces the ground’s capacity to absorb rainwater, leading to surface runoff that leads to flooding.
- The researchers also interviewed people living nearby, who blamed the drainage channels and dams built for the plantations for channeling runoff to their areas.
- The researchers call for soil protection and improved land-use planning to reduce the incidence and severity of flooding.

Mauritius grapples with worst environmental crisis in a generation
- A ship that ran aground on a coral reef has leaked about 900 tons of fuel oil into the waters off the southeastern coast of Mauritius.
- The incident occurred on July 25, and by Aug. 6 the Japanese-owned ship started to spill oil from its fuel tank, leading Mauritian authorities to declare an environmental emergency.
- The oil sludge threatens Pointe d’Esny, the largest remaining wetland in Mauritius, and other ecologically sensitive areas like the Ile aux Aigrettes Nature Reserve, Blue Bay Marine Area, and Mahebourg Fishing Reserves.
- Water currents appear to be carrying the oil slick north along the eastern shoreline, putting mangrove forests in harm’s way.

Siberian heat drives Arctic ice extent to record low for early July
- On June 17, 2020, a Siberian town registered a temperature of 100 degrees Fahrenheit, the highest ever recorded above the Arctic Circle. High temps across the region are driving impacts of great concern to scientists, firefighters, and those who maintain vulnerable Arctic infrastructure, including pipelines, roads, and buildings.
- The Siberian heat flowed over the adjacent Arctic Ocean where it triggered record early sea ice melt in the Laptev Sea, and record low Arctic sea ice extent for this time of year. While 2020 is well positioned to set a new low extent record over 2012, variations in summer weather could change that.
- The heat has also triggered wildfires in Siberia, releasing 59 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in June and drying out the region’s tundra. Some blazes are known as “zombie fires” possibly having smoldered underground all winter between 2019 and 2020.
- Also at risk from the rapid rise in warmth is civil and militaryinfrastructure, built atop thawing permafrost. As Siberia heated up this year, a fuel tank at a Russian power plant collapsed, leaking 21,000 tons of diesel into the Ambarnaya and Dadylkan rivers, a major Arctic disaster. Worse could come as the world continues warming.

Oil slick threatens Philippine mangrove forest recovering from earlier spill
- An explosion aboard a power barge off the Philippine island of Guimaras has spilled up to a quarter million liters of fuel oil, threatening local communities and mangrove and seagrass habitats.
- The barge operator, AC Energy Inc., says the cleanup could take two weeks; local disaster mitigation officials say more than 300 families are affected and have ordered an evacuation.
- The mangroves off Guimaras were affected by the Philippines’ biggest ever oil spill in 2006, when an oil tanker sank, spilling half a million liters of fuel and affecting 648 hectares (1,600 acres) of mangrove forests and seagrass areas, which are only now recovering.
- Officials are conducting cleanup efforts to keep the latest oil spill away from the recovering mangrove swamps.

Traditional villages dread living in shadow of Amazon tailings dams
- Mineração Rio do Norte (MRN), the world’s fourth largest bauxite producer, encroached on riverine communities beside the Trombetas River in the Brazilian Amazon in the 1970s. Over the years, MRN became notorious for its contamination of local waters with bauxite mining waste, residents say.
- To resolve that problem, the company built 26 tailings dams. The largest of these waste-holding impoundments covers 110 hectares (270 acres). The entire system for managing mining waste encompasses 1,700 hectares (4,200 acres) and is located within a national protected area.
- Brazil has suffered two catastrophic mining tailings dam collapses since 2015, leaving Trombetas riverine community residents concerned about the 26 MRN dams.
- Brazil’s National Agency of Mining has rated one of MRN’s dams as “high risk.” Fourteen more, should they fail, possess “social, environmental, economic and mortality risk.” MRN says its dams are safe. Locals are also worried over possible water contamination and loss of traditional livelihoods

Decade after BP Deepwater Horizon spill, oil drilling is as dangerous as ever
- Ten years ago, the BP Deepwater Horizon exploratory rig exploded, killing 11 people and initiating the largest oil spill in the history of the United States.
- Nearly 5 million barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico, causing catastrophic damage to the ecosystem and economy of the region.
- A newly published report by the nonprofit Oceana looks back at how this spill happened, the resulting ecological and economic impacts, and if this catastrophe has changed government or oil industry approaches to offshore drilling.
- Poor government oversight and inadequate safety culture paved the way for the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion. Now, a decade later, it appears these conditions, the prerequisites for disaster, have not improved.

Uphill fight to shut disaster-amplifying gold mines in Indonesian park
- The Indonesian government has begun cracking down on illegal gold mines in a national park outside Jakarta blamed for exacerbating floods and landslides last month.
- But local authorities say it won’t be an easy task, with only 26 of out nearly 400 of the mines shut down so far.
- A day’s worth of mining can yield nearly the same pay as the monthly minimum wage, which officials say will continue to make it an attractive livelihood for many people.
- The environment ministry plans to reforest the degraded areas of the national park by planting 1.2 million trees by March.

Database offers new details on the dams that hold mining waste
- A new database called the Global Tailings Portal pulls together information on 1,700 dams that store waste, or tailings, from mines around the world.
- Around 100 publicly traded companies have shared information about their dams with GRID-Arendal, the Norwegian foundation that developed the database.
- The portal’s creators say that much of the information, including the size, location, and risk factors associated with the included dams, hasn’t been publicly available before, even as catastrophic dam failures continue to occur.

Mining leads to flooding in Indonesia’s coal capital Samarinda
- Upstream coal-mining operations have contributed to severe flooding in the Indonesian Bornean city of Samarinda, officials and activists say.
- Deforestation caused by the mining has reduced the upstream area’s ability to absorb rainwater, resulting in greater volumes of runoff flowing into the Mahakam River and flooding the city.
- Tailings from the mines are also washing into the area’s rivers, silting them up and restricting their flow.
- Activists say much of the mining is illegal but has been ignored for years by city authorities.

After a mine killed their river, a Brazil tribe fights for a new home
- A group of indigenous Pataxó and Pataxó Ha-ha-hãe are fighting to be relocated to a new home as the banks of the Paraopeba River where they live remains contaminated with heavy metals a year after the collapse of a tailings dam belonging to miner Vale.
- To date, Paraopeba’s waters still run dark with the mining waste, and there are no fish in it. Residents also complain of skin diseases and other health problems as a result of the contamination.
- In August 2019, the Nahô Xohã community filed a formal request with the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Minas Gerais state for a temporary new home.
- The plan is to find a farm nearby of similar size to their current territory, where they can grow their own food and live with access to drinking water until the final reparation process is concluded by Vale.

Ten actions for Brazilian scientists to engage in environmental politics (commentary)
- Brazil has faced several environmental and political issues in recent years. For instance, three mining disasters caused the death of more than 250 people and major damage to biodiversity. Also, the unrestricted expansion of agribusiness has led to high rates of deforestation, a pattern that is only expected to increase in the near future.
- In this commentary, the authors look at the political aspects of the environmental crises in Brazil and argue that scientists have an important role to play in transforming the country.
- The authors propose ten actions that can help Brazilian scientists participate more effectively in political matters.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Jakarta floods spark renewed calls for stronger environmental protection
- Environmental activists in Indonesia have renewed calls for the government to strengthen regulations to protect the environment following the recent massive flooding that hit the country’s capital and surrounding areas.
- Record rainfall and years of accumulated environmental degradation combined to create one of the deadliest floods in recent years in Jakarta.
- A group of lawyers and residents affected by the flooding say they plan to file a class-action lawsuit against the Jakarta administration for its negligence and inability to prevent and deal with the disaster.
- More heavy rains and strong winds are forecast to continue into mid-February, while authorities carry out cloud-seeding attempts to minimize rainfall hitting urban areas.

Environmental damage exacerbates Jakarta flooding amid record rainfall
- Record-breaking rainfall hit Jakarta and its satellite cities on New Year’s Eve, causing widespread flooding and leading to at least 19 deaths, authorities reported.
- Officials have attributed the severity of the disaster to years of environmental damage and waste dumping in the city’s rivers.
- The disaster has displaced more than 30,000 people, shut down an airport, and cut off some roads. More heavy rain is forecast through to next week.

Typhoon-prone Philippines gets climate funding for early warning system
- The Philippines has secured $10 million in funding from the U.N.’s Green Climate Fund, its first under a scheme to provide financial assistance for adaptation and mitigation in countries vulnerable to climate change impacts.
- The funding will go toward establishing a multi-hazard and impact-based forecasting and early warning system in four pilot areas in the country to assist local government units in implementing appropriate early responses to hazard alerts.
- The Philippines is one of the countries most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, which include increasingly more intense storms slamming into the country from the warming Pacific.

Lawsuit against Indonesian coal plant reveals permit irregularities
- Residents opposed to a newly built coal-fired power plant in Sumatra have alleged a list of irregularities that they say should have disqualified the developer from obtaining an environmental permit.
- A key point is that the project violates provincial and municipal zoning regulations; the latter allows for a plant to be built, but at a different location, while the former makes no accommodation for a coal plant.
- The project site, on Sepang Bay along the southwest coast of Sumatra, has also been identified as an area prone to earthquakes and tsunamis, while the developer hasn’t formalized plans for such contingencies.
- The National Ombudsman has weighed in with findings of maladministration by the provincial government in issuing the environmental permit, but adds that the zoning regulations should be adapted to accommodate for the plant now that it’s been built and is undergoing a trial run.

15 years after tsunami, Aceh reckons with an inconsistent fisheries recovery
- When a tsunami killed tens of thousands of people in Indonesia’s Aceh province, international donors contributed billions of dollars to disaster recovery efforts
- Today, gaps in post-disaster recovery are still visible. A breakdown of community dynamics post-disaster limited the effectiveness of some initiatives.
- The example of Aceh provides lessons to be learned for future disaster recoveries under the “build back better” approach, including the importance of long-term thinking when it comes to such initiatives.

As climate change disrupts the annual monsoon, India must prepare (Commentary)
- Over the past few decades, India’s total annual rainfall averages haven’t changed but the intensity of precipitation has increased as extreme weather events (EWEs) become more frequent and widespread. Today, the country witnesses more episodes of extremely heavy rainfall, as compared to the past’s consistent, well spread out seasonal rains.
- The nation’s meteorological department already admits that this is a clear impact of climate change. These intense storms pose a huge danger to India’s agriculture-based economy and to millions of farmers whose livelihoods still largely rely upon a consistent rainfall season. There are also periods of droughts interspersed with floods.
- The good news is that Indian authorities are aware of the change and are trying to tackle the impacts of shifting rainfall patterns and adapt to them.
- These extreme weather events are of global significance since more than 1.8 billion people live on the Indian subcontinent, and the impact in the South Asian region has economic fallout in other parts of the world. This post is a commentary. Views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Indonesian flooding disaster bears the hallmarks of agriculture and mining impacts
- Last June, North Konawe, a land of hills and valleys on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, was struck by devastating floods, displacing thousands of people.
- In the wake of the disaster, a public debate has ensued over the cause. Some government agencies have concluded that deforestation by plantation and mining companies exacerbated the floods.
- Some villages, including the riverside community of Tapuwatu, were almost completely washed away.

‘Nothing was left’: Flash floods, landslides hit Indonesia’s Papua region
- Flash floods and landslides triggered by torrential rain hit Indonesia’s Cyclops Mountains in Papua province on March 17, killing nearly 90 people and displacing thousands.
- The country’s disaster mitigation agency has cited human-caused deforestation as contributing to the scale of the damage.
- Indonesia’s environment ministry has called for a review of zoning plans for the housing settlements around the Cyclops Mountains, but denies that massive logging has occurred in the area.

Dam déjà vu: 2 Brazil mining waste disasters in 3 years raise alarms
- Even as Brazil’s newly seated Bolsonaro administration calls for the gutting of environmental licensing rules and for other environmental deregulation, a January collapse of a Vale Mining tailings storage dam in Brumadinho, killing more than 150 people with more than 180 missing and feared dead, has outraged Brazilians.
- The disaster is the second such accident in barely three years. In November 2015, another Vale-affiliated dam collapsed, also in Minas Gerais state, killing 19 and polluting the Doce River for 500 miles all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. The two accidents now vie for designation as Brazil’s worst environmental disaster.
- Mongabay’s investigation of the 2015 accident response and the national and state inspection system, while not all encompassing, shows a high degree of long-term failure by government, by mining companies, and inspection consultants to adequately assess tailings dam risk, and to repair structurally deficient dams.
- Three years after the Fundão dam failure, government and mining companies have received poor marks from critics for victim compensation and fixes for socio-environmental harm. On February 7th, Brazil said it aims to ban upstream tailings dams (UTDs), the type that failed both times. No details were released as to how Brazil’s 88 existing UTDs would be dismantled.

Environmental degradation exacerbates Indonesia flooding, landslides
- Days of torrential rains in Indonesia’s South Sulawesi province killed scores of people and forced thousands to flee their homes.
- Local authorities and activists have blamed the degraded condition of the region’s rivers and watershed for amplifying the scale of the disaster.
- Upstream mining and forest clearing for farms are believed to have severely silted up the region’s rivers, rendering them prone to spilling over during heavy rains.

Dam holding mining waste collapses in Brazil
- The collapse of a dam in the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil on Jan. 25 left at least 58 people dead and hundreds missing.
- The dam held the waste by-product of iron ore mining from a nearby mine run by a company called Vale.
- Vale was involved in another dam collapse in 2015 — called Brazil’s worst environmental disaster — that resulted in criminal charges for several of the company’s leaders and nearly $100 million in fines.
- Critics of mining practices say that the recent failure of the dam shows that authorities should step up the enforcement of regulations in Brazil.

Devastating Laos dam collapse leads to deforestation of protected forests
- The collapse of a dam in southern Laos released five billion cubic meters of water, killing dozens, devastating communities, and forcing thousands to flee.
- The collapse also flooded areas of protected forest. In early September, the Global Land Analysis and Discovery Lab at the University of Maryland began detecting tree cover loss along a 22-mile length of the river. By December 7, more than 7,500 deforestation alerts had been recorded.
- An investigation by Mongabay revealed collateral damage is also taking place as residents harvest wood from both downed trees and living forests in an effort to make ends meet.
- One of the companies involved with the dam reportedly blamed heavy rain and flooding for the collapse, but many have questioned their liability and believe the companies should be providing compensation.

Deadly tsunami leaves Javan rhinos untouched, but peril persists
- A tsunami that killed more than 400 people in Indonesia has left the last remaining population of Javan rhinos unscathed.
- The species’ last habitat, Ujung Kulon National Park, was hit by the Dec. 22 tsunami caused by an eruption of the Anak Krakatau volcano, but the rhinos were not in harm’s way, officials have confirmed.
- The disaster has once again highlighted the constant peril that the species lives under, and strengthened calls to establish a new habitat elsewhere to ensure the survival of the rhino.

Extreme floods on the rise in the Amazon: study
- Scientists and the media have documented deepening drought in the Amazon basin. But a new study finds that flood events are significantly intensifying too, becoming five times more common over the last century.
- The effect is caused by a combination of factors, including an increase in strength of the Walker circulation – an ocean-driven pattern of air circulation that carries warm moist air from the tropical Atlantic across South America towards the Pacific, resulting in Amazon precipitation.
- Human-driven climate change is a major contributing factor to this increased Amazon basin flooding. Intensifying flood events result in lives and property lost, and significant harm to croplands, pastures and livestock.
- A better understanding of flood and drought dynamics, and better predictability due partly to this study, could help reduce this damage. How escalating changes in precipitation occurrence and intensity might be altering Amazon flora and fauna is uncertain, though new research shows that tree species composition is altering.

Latam Eco Review: Salmon escape, jungle drones, and a new biosphere reserve

The most popular stories last week from our Spanish-language service, Mongabay-Latam, followed farmed salmon escapes in Chile, a new biosphere reserve in Ecuador, and high-tech forest monitoring in Peru. Patagonia’s fragile marine ecosystem reels from influx of escaped farmed salmon A storm battered salmon cages in southern Chile, setting 690,000 of the fish loose into […]
Fires tear through East Java park, threatening leopard habitat
- Authorities in East Java, Indonesia, are trying to stop a wildfire from spreading into core zone of the Coban Wisula forest, home to Javan leopards.
- The fire is burning within Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park, a major tourist attraction. An iconic landscape in the park, known as Teletubbies Hill, has already gone up in flames.
- A local NGO is monitoring the situation to make sure none of the leopards are flushed out of their habitat and into contact with humans, which could turn violent.

Indigenous architecture saves lives in Lombok quakes
- Huge earthquakes have devastated the Indonesian island of Lombok in recent weeks, killing hundreds of people.
- Many more people lost their homes in the disaster. But where houses made of concrete and brick collapsed or were severely damaged in the quakes, traditional houses made of wood and bamboo remained standing.
- The Indonesian government has often dismissed indigenous architecture as mark of poverty and “backwardness,” and Lombok is no exception. But now some are calling for a greater emphasis on traditional designs.

Latam Eco Review: Land trafficking in Lima’s hill ecosystems, oil spills in Venezuela, floods in Colombia

The most popular stories from our Spanish-language service, Mongabay-Latam, this past week investigated how land trafficking is destroying Lima’s fragile hill ecosystems; government inaction and oil spills in Venezuela; open borders for wildlife trafficking in Belize and Guatemala; massive floods in Colombia; and community reforestation in Bolivia. Land trafficking erodes Lima’s fragile hill ecosystems Land […]
Lao government says it will suspend new hydro projects after dam collapse kills 31
- After a dam failure in southern Laos left at least 31 dead, the government announced it will suspend all new dam projects and carry out safety inspections of all existing dams.
- A commission of inquiry will investigate the cause of the dam failure, while a separate committee will look into official responsibility.
- The prior consultation process for the proposed Pak Lay hydropower project appears not to have been postponed.

Heavy rains preceded the Laos dam collapse. Was climate change a factor?
- Some observers have blamed the collapse of a dam in southern Laos last month, which killed dozens of people and displaced many more, on faulty construction.
- The companies building the dam say it is too early to tell why the accident happened, and have emphasized the monsoon rains that inundated the structure in the days leading up to its collapse.
- The question remains: To what extent was the heavier-than-usual rainfall that pushed the dam past its breaking point a result of climate change?

In Malaysia, an island drowns in its own development
- Malaysia’s Penang Island has undergone massive development since the 1960s, a process that continues today with plans for transit and land-reclamation megaprojects.
- The island is increasingly facing floods and landslides, problems environmentalists link to paving land and building on steep slopes.
- This is the second in a six-part series of articles on infrastructure projects in Peninsular Malaysia.

New flash-flood warning system in India could be life-saving
- To improve preparedness for flash floods, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) is working on a guidance system that will predict the possibility of flash floods up to six hours in advance and alert disaster relief forces as well as residents.
- The Flash Flood Guidance System (FFGS) will use existing satellites and on-ground equipment to track real-time rainfall in any part of the country.
- Since the soil’s ability to absorb rainwater influences the probability of flash floods, the early-warning system will use data like soil moisture, temperature, saturation, and the topography of the land, to assess the likelihood of flash floods ahead of time.

After devastating floods in 2013, an Indian state ignores the lessons
- In 2013, the state of Uttarakhand in northern India witnessed one of the biggest natural disasters in independent India’s history when heavy rains and flash floods resulted in the destruction of thousands of lives and property.
- According to experts, the disaster’s impacts were exacerbated by unabated illegal construction on river floodplains and the government’s relentless pursuit of hydropower projects.
- Five years since the floods, the state is continuing to push for hydropower projects, which has residents and experts worried.
- Mongabay-India staff writer Mayank Aggarwal and video editor Kartik Chandramouli traveled to Uttarakhand to see how the state has dealt with the disaster’s aftermath.

Study reveals China’s new forests aren’t really forests
- In the late 1990s, China instituted ambitious reforestation policies to mitigate flooding disasters.
- By 2013, these policies had convinced famers to plant more than 69.2 million acres of trees on what once was cropland and scrubland. By 2015, China’s tree cover had increased by 32 percent.
- But a recently published study reveals most reforestation efforts simply planted one tree species, making a plot of reforested land ecologically akin to a monoculture plantation.

Indonesia to punish state firm over litany of failures behind Borneo oil spill
- An official investigation into an oil spill last month in Indonesian Borneo found a lack of warning systems that would have alerted state oil company Pertamina to the leak hours earlier.
- The government has also found omissions in the company’s environmental impact assessment, and is preparing to impose a series of administrative sanctions as well as fines.
- Police are carrying out a criminal investigation in parallel to determine who was responsible for the spill, amid reports that a foreign-flagged coal ship may have cause the pipeline damage leading to the leak.

Anglo American iron ore pipeline suffers second rupture in Brazil
- A rupture of an Anglo American Brasil pipeline in Minas Gerais state spilled 318 tons of iron ore on 12 March. That has been followed by a second spill of 647 tons of mining material on 29 March into the Santo Antônio do Grama River and nearby pastureland.
- The pipeline is currently waiting for licensing approval in order to begin expansion of the Sapo iron mine, part of the Minas-Rio Project.
- The 529 kilometer (328 mile) mineral duct links the Sapo mine, located near the town of Conceição Mato Dentro, to the Atlantic Ocean export terminal Port of Açu, in São João da Barra, Rio de Janeiro.
- IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency, has charged the company with several environmental violations and slapped it with a fine of R$ 72.6 million (US$ 21.1 million). The duct is currently shut down pending a report from Anglo American certifying the operation’s safety.

Norsk Hydro accused of Amazon toxic spill, admits ‘clandestine pipeline’
- Norsk Hydro’s Alunorte aluminum refining facility in Barcarena municipality, Pará state, has been accused by Brazilian authorities of contaminating the local waters of several communities with toxic waste that overflowed earlier this month from a holding basin.
- The firm denied the allegation, but has agreed to provide water to local residents, and is investigating.
- The government also accused the company of having a “clandestine pipeline to discharge untreated effluent,” an allegation that the Norwegian state firm has since admitted to being true.
- Officials have yet to determine the full cause, scope or consequence of the spill, while locals complain that this isn’t the first time. According to IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency, Norsk Hydro has not paid fines set at R $17 million to date (US $5.27 million), after a toxic overflow in 2009 put the local Barcarena population at risk.

Drought-driven wildfires on rise in Amazon basin, upping CO2 release
- Despite a 76 percent decline in deforestation rates between 2003 and 2015, the incidence of forest fires is increasing in Brazil, with new research linking the rise in fires not only to deforestation, but also to severe droughts.
- El Niño, combined with other oceanic and atmospheric cycles, produced an unusually severe drought in 2015, a year that saw a 36 percent increase in Amazon basin forest fires, which also raised carbon emissions.
- Severe droughts are expected to become more common in the Brazilian Amazon as natural oceanic cycles are made more extreme by human-induced climate change.
- In this new climate paradigm, limiting deforestation alone will not be sufficient to reduce fires and curb carbon emissions, scientists say. The maintenance of healthy, intact, unfragmented forests is vital to providing resilience against further increases in Amazon fires.

Record Amazon fires, intensified by forest degradation, burn indigenous lands
- As of September 2017, Brazil’s Pará state in the Amazon had seen a 229 percent increase in fires over 2016; in a single week in December the state saw 26,000 fire alerts. By year’s end, the Brazilian Amazon was on track for an all-time record fire season.
- But 2017 was not a record drought year, so experts have sought other causes. Analysts say most of the wildfires were human-caused, set by people seeking to convert forests to crop or grazing lands. Forest degradation by mining companies, logging and agribusiness added to the problem.
- Huge cuts made by the Temer administration in the budgets of Brazilian regulatory and enforcement agencies, such as FUNAI, the nation’s indigenous protection agency, and IBAMA, its environmental agency, which fights fires, added to the problem in 2017.
- The dramatic rise in wildfires has put indigenous communities and their territories at risk. For example, an area covering 24,000 hectares (59,305 acres), lost tree cover within the Kayapó Indigenous Territory from October to December, while the nearby Xikrin Indigenous Territory lost roughly 10,000 hectares (24,710 acres) over the same period.

Fundão dam criminal case moves ahead against 21 mining executives
- The Fundão dam rupture — the largest environmental disaster in Brazil’s history — unleashed 50 million tons of waste from the world´s largest iron mine, killing nineteen people in a flood of toxic mud and contaminating 500 miles of the Doce River.
- A Brazilian judge has decided that the criminal case against 21 executives from the Samarco, Vale and BHP Biliton mining companies can again moving forward in the courts. The case had been put on hold in July.
- Prosecutors have also announced an agreement with Samarco requiring that the corporation provide technical support to those affected by the disaster, along with an assessment of the socio-economic damage.
- A just released study on the Doce River´s water quality revealed that nearly 90 percent of 18 test sites demonstrated bad or terrible water quality. The “terrible” designation, found at 7 test sites, indicates that the water is currently unfit for human consumption.

Jane Goodall interview: ‘The most important thing is sharing good news’
- Celebrated conservationist and Mongabay advisor Jane Goodall spoke with Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett A. Butler for the podcast just before departing for her latest speaking tour (she travels 300 days a year raising conservation awareness). Here we supply the full transcript.
- This wide-ranging conversation begins with reaction to the science community’s recent acceptance of her six decade contention that animals are individuals with personalities, and moves on to discuss trends in conservation, and she then provides an update on the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI)’s global projects.
- She also challenges trophy hunting as an effective tool for funding conservation (“It’s rubbish,” she says), shares her positive view of China’s quickly growing environmental movement, talks about the key role of technology in conservation, and discusses a range of good news, which she states is always so important to share.
- Amazingly, Dr. Goodall reports that JGI’s youth program Roots & Shoots now has perhaps as many as 150,000 chapters worldwide, making it probably the largest conservation movement in the world, with many millions having been part of the program. An effort is now underway to document them all.

Catastrophic fires sweep through iconic Brazilian national park
- Wildfires have consumed more than a quarter of Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park, a much visited and beloved Brazilian preserve known for its biodiversity, spectacular waterfalls and ancient bedrock.
- Though 2017 has been a very dry year, authorities suspect arson, with the park’s enlargement from 65,000 to 240,000 hectares earlier this year a possible motive.
- Firefighters have now contained the blaze and the park has reopened.
- The fire destroyed at least 65,000 hectares of habitat. It will be years before the preserve’s flora and fauna recover, say experts.

Mining activity causing nearly 10 percent of Amazon deforestation
- Scientists have learned that nearly 10 percent of the deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon between 2005 and 2015 was due to mining activities. Previously, it was thought to cause just 1-2 percent, but that is because past assessments primarily looked at deforestation caused by the mines themselves, and didn’t account for all the ancillary infrastructure that accompanies the mines.
- With mining causing such high levels of deforestation — up to 70 kilometers away from mines — and with the Brazilian government under Michel Temer eager to open vast areas of the Amazon to mining, the researchers say that companies and government need to aggressively address the deforestation issue.
- While the new research documented Amazon deforestation due to many ancillary activities, including roads, staff housing and airports, it did not look into the major deforestation brought by the new hydroelectric dams that often provide energy for mining operations
- To address the high level of deforestation caused by mining in the Amazon, Brazil needs to significantly revise its environmental impact assessment process to include ancillary infrastructure up to 70 kilometers away from mines along with related hydroelectric dam construction.

Brazil: a world champion in political and environmental devastation (commentary)
- Brazil, the fifth largest country in the world is heir to a fabulously rich heritage in its natural wealth and natural wonders.
- It is also heir to a corrupt colonial tradition that today still rewards the nation’s wealthiest most privileged elites, as they overexploit forests, rivers, soils and local communities in the name of exorbitant profits.
- These vast profits are made via intense deforestation, cattle ranching, mining, agribusiness, dam and road building and other development, with little or no regard for the wellbeing of the environment or the people.
- Brazil’s landed elites, known today as ruralists, are well protected by state and federal governments, and remain largely exempt from prosecution for crimes against the environment and public good. This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

A foreseen environmental disaster in Colombia?
- On the morning of April 1, more than 60,000 people were hit by a massive landslide that dragged large amounts of water, dirt and mud downhill and buried 17 neighborhoods of Mocoa in the process.
- For risk management expert Gustavo Wilches-Chaux, the lack of land use planning is one of the factors that determined the impact of this natural disaster.
- Wilches-Chaux notes that some Colombian populations have settled along the tributaries of the main rivers of the country — areas highly vulnerable to floods, landslides and avalanches.

Forced evictions along Jakarta waterway a liability for Ahok as governor’s race nears finish line
- Flooding is massive problem in Jakarta. And most of its waterways are heavily polluted.
- The capital region’s Governor Ahok has tried to address the problem — including by demolishing riverside slums.
- Residents of Bukit Duri, which stood on the banks of the Ciliwung River until the government tore it down last year, are suing the city in a class-action suit.

India floods kill more than 200 animals, including rare rhinos
- Severe floods have ravaged the state of Assam in northeastern India.
- The flood that began during the last week of July submerged around 80 percent of Kaziranga National Park (KNP), a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- Rescue teams have managed to save more than 100 animals from the flooded forests.

Samarco chief faces criminal investigation over collapsed Brazil dam
- On November 5, 2015, an iron mining tailings dam, owned by the Samarco company, a joint venture of Vale and Austro-British BHP Billiton, collapsed, killing 19 people and sending a toxic sludge flood into Brazil’s Rio Doce, polluting its 530-mile length to the Atlantic Ocean.
- Brazilian prosecutors have now announced a criminal investigation of Samarco CEO Roberto Carvalho in connection with the disaster, its aftermath, and the company’s response. IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency, has issued a technical report stating that Samarco has, so far, fulfilled none of the 11 emergency recovery measures the agency had ordered.
- The mining accident — the largest environmental disaster in Brazil’s history — affected a watershed inhabited by 1.6 million people, disrupting its economy, polluting drinking water supplies, contaminating crops and irrigation water, ruining the livelihoods of commercial fishermen, and destroying outdoor recreation opportunities for families and children.

64 dead in Indonesia landslides as La Nina brings heavy rains
- Central Java was hit the hardest, with 59 people confirmed dead in the province.
- At least five people were killed in the Sangihe Islands in Sulawesi.
- An environment ministry adviser is calling for natural resource extraction in Java, the world’s most crowded island, to be reigned in.

Rio Doce grassroots response arises out of Fundão mining disaster
- On November 5, 2015, an iron mining tailings dam, owned by the Samarco company, a joint venture of Vale and Austro-British BHP Billiton, collapsed in Brazil killing 19 people and sending a toxic sludge flood into the Rio Doce, polluting its length to the Atlantic Ocean.
- The disaster contaminated the drinking water of thousands of people living in river communities, wrecked the livelihoods of fishermen and small scale gold miners, ruined recreational activities for the region’s children, and disrupted lives across the region.
- Critics say the government and corporate responses have been slow and very uneven in their effectiveness, with aid coming for some who have been impacted, while the needs of others have largely been ignored.
- A strong grassroots movement has arisen, with many existing and newly arising groups taking a wide variety of actions, including the founding of a radio station and newspaper to report on the crisis, acts of civil disobedience, informational workshops and protests, and even a group looking at long-term sustainable solutions.

1.6 million Brazilians struggle to recover from Fundão toxic waste spill
- On November 5, 2015, the Fundão iron mine tailings dam failed, pouring 50 million tons of ore and toxic waste into Brazil’s Rio Doce, polluting the river and croplands, killing fish and wildlife, and contaminating drinking water with toxic sludge for its 853 kilometer (530 mile) length.
- Access to water has remained critically difficult in Rio Doce communities since the industrial mining accident, and a regional drought is worsening the crisis.
- Rio Doce valley inhabitants are frustrated by what they see as a slow response to the environmental disaster by the dam’s owner, Samarco, a joint venture of Vale and BHP Billiton, two of the world’s largest mining companies, and also by the Brazilian government.
- Roughly 1.6 million people continue struggling not only with the health risks associated with heavy metals in their water, but also with a growing lack of faith in the public institutions that are supposed to keep them safe, and in the large industrial corporations that share their communities.

Emergency declared as fires reappear in Sumatra
- A state of emergency has been declared in six areas of Riau province where fires are flaring.
- The fires are nowhere near as bad as they were last year, but the emergency status will activate additional resources for fighting them.
- Smoke from the fires has not drifted into Singapore or Malaysia because the winds are blowing in the other direction.

Aceh citizens ask governor to keep bulldozers out of a crucial rainforest
- Communities in North Aceh have been resisting plantation firm PT Mandum Payah Tamita for years.
- Locals are afraid the company’s actions will spur flooding downstream of two important rivers.
- The firm’s concession lies within the Leuser Ecosystem, one of Sumatra’s last intact rainforests.

The week in environmental news – Jan 08, 2016
- Since it was first reported in October 2015, a well owned by Southern California Gas Co., has been gushing up to 1,200 tons of methane a day.
- In 2010, Ecuador agreed to protect Manta rays, now a new regulation out of Peru will strengthen protection for the manta ray populations in the South East Pacific.
- Researchers have found that places where farming practices are the most technically advanced could experience the greatest impact from climate change.

Indonesia hesitates on emergency status for haze; Islamic council sees ‘warning from God’
- Local police arrested five men in semi-remote parts of Central Kalimantan on suspicion of using gasoline to start fires.
- The spokesman of Indonesia’s disaster agency said he thought fires in Papua were started deliberately to clear land.
- The highest clerical body in Muslim-majority Indonesia called on adherents of the faith to pray and said the fires could be a warning from God.

Indonesia readies shelter ships as haze last resort after #EvacuateUs hits Twitter
- #EvakuasiKami, or EvacuateUs, is the latest haze-related to topic to trend on Indonesian Twitter amid the country’s haze crisis.
- Pekanbaru has reopened shelters in the city in a desperate bid to provide some respite from the smoke.
- Local officials are specifically calling on parents to bring infants and young children to three 24-hour centers in Riau province..

Indonesian tycoon bears responsibility for devastating mud volcano, contends new research

A mud volcano responsible for displacing more than 40,000 people in Indonesia’s East Java province was caused by an oil and gas company owned by one of the country’s richest tycoons, and not by an earthquake as company officials and some scientists have claimed, according to new research out of Australia’s Adelaide University that aspires […]
River flooding to affect 40M people annually by 2030

WRI flood map for Indonesia 20.7 million people are affected by river flooding each year, and the number is expected to more than double by 2030 as population growth, urban expansion, and climate change will increasingly put people at risk. This according to the World Resources Institute (WRI), who recently released the Aqueduct Global Flood […]
U.S. Central Plains and Southwest will likely face apocalyptic drought

Researchers find 80 percent chance of megadrought in American West due to climate change this century Dust storm in Texas during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. New research finds that the American West is set to face a megadrought, worst than the Dust Bowl, in the next century due to climate change. Photo by: […]
Pollution from fossil fuels decreased rainfall in Central America

Jungle in Belize. New research finds Belize has been drying out for over a century, likely due to pollution from burning fossil fuels in the northern hemisphere which has left to a shift in the a vital precipitation belt along the equator. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Fossil fuel pollution may have caused a southern […]
Sundarbans still reeling from effects of December oil spill

Emergency research finds devastating impacts of oil spill in the world’s largest mangrove forest A crocodile wades into oil-tainted waters in the Sundarbans. Photo by: Arati Kumar-Rao. Last month, an estimated 350,000 liters of fuel oil spilled into the Sundarbans delta on the Bay of Bengal. An oil tanker that had collided with a cargo […]
High deforestation rates in Malaysian states hit by flooding

Forest loss in five Malaysian states affected by flooding in Dec 2015. Five states hard hit by flooding last month in Malaysia had high rates of forest loss in recent years, bolstering assertions that environmental degradation may have worsened the disaster. According to satellite data from researchers led by the University of Maryland’s Matt Hansen […]
Top 10 Environmental Stories of 2014

The most important environmental and wildlife stories from the last year Also see our Top 10 HAPPY Environmental Stories of 2014 1. The Year of Zero Deforestation Pledges: In 2014, the unimaginable happened: companies representing the majority of palm oil production and trade agreed to stop cutting down rainforests and draining peatlands for new oil […]
Children ‘clean’ oil spill with kitchen utensils in the Sundarbans

Bangladesh struggles to deal with devastating oil spill in world’s largest mangrove forest, home to dolphins and tigers Government inaction has pushed local children and families to attempt to clean up the oil spill with little more than household items and no protective gear. Photo by: Kallol Mustafa. On December 9th, a tanker slammed into […]
Don’t eat or touch bat bushmeat amid worsening Ebola outbreak, UN warns

The world’s worst Ebola outbreak was likely begun by a hunter shooting a fruit bat for their dinner or the market, according to the UN. The outbreak has killed over 660 people in six months to date, and recently spread via plane to Nigeria. The disease is particularly deadly with a mortality rate of around […]
Climate change’s ominous secret

Climate change is happening and humans are causing it, primarily from the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide caused by burning fossil fuels. This much we know. The “secret” comes from changes happening in the fast-warming Arctic: we may be surprisingly close to an Earth that supports far fewer humans than it does today. Permafrost and […]
Apocalypse now? Climate change already damaging agriculture, acidifying seas, and worsening extreme weather

It’s not just melting glaciers and bizarrely-early Springs anymore; climate change is impacting every facet of human civilization from our ability to grow enough crops to our ability to get along with each other, according to a new 2,300-page report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The massive report, from the Nobel Prize-winning […]
Predator appreciation: how saving lions, tigers, and polar bears could rescue ourselves

Lioness feeding. Photo by: Cyril Christo and Marie Wilkinson. In the new book, In Predatory Light: Lions and Tigers and Polar Bears, authors Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, Sy Montgomery, and John Houston, and photographers Cyril Christo and Marie Wilkinson share with us an impassioned and detailed appeal to appreciate three of the world’s biggest predators: lions, […]
A series of oil spills sully Caribbean paradise, coating mangroves and wildlife (photos)

On December 17th, officials first discovered a massive oil spill in the Caribbean-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. Since then, a series of oil spills have been discovered, coating beaches, sullying mangrove forests, and very likely decimating wildlife in Trinidad’s Gulf of Paria. The oil spills have been linked to the state-owned oil company, Petrotrin, […]
Court orders logging company to clean up pollution disaster in Chile wetlands

Chile is probably best known for its volcanoes, earthquakes and the formidable peaks of the Andes, but as a country that spans 4,300 km (2,670 miles) from top to bottom, it also boasts a huge variety of bird life. And, until recently, it was home to what was thought to be the largest population of […]
Philippines’ delegate calls out climate change deniers after Haiyan

Yesterday, the Filipino delegate to the ongoing climate summit, Naderev ‘Yeb’ Saño, dared climate change deniers to take a hard look at what’s happening not just in the Philippines, but the whole world. Over the weekend, the Philippines was hit by what may have been the largest typhoon to ever make landfall—Typhoon Haiyan. Reports are […]
Delegate for the Philippines vows to stop eating at climate summit

Following the devastation wrought by Typhoon Haiyan—which is arguably the strongest typhoon to ever make landfall—Filipino delegate, Naderev ‘Yeb’ Saño, has vowed to go on a fast at the UN Climate Summit that opened today in Warsaw, Poland. Saño made the vow during a powerful speech in which he said he would fast, “until we […]
Bangladesh plans massive coal plant in world’s biggest mangrove forest

This is an expanded version of an article that ran on Yale e360 on October 29th, 2013: A Key Mangrove Forest Faces Major Threat from a Coal Plant. Bengal tiger in the Sundarbans mangrove forest. Photo by: Steve Winter/National Geographic and Panthera. On October 22nd Bangladeshi and Indian officials were supposed to hold a ceremony […]
Will Haiyan’s impact in the Philippines be worsened by deforestation?

While it’s too early to assess the impact of Super Typhoon Haiyan — reportedly the strongest tropical storm ever recorded to make landfall — in the Philippines, the damage could be exacerbated by the large-scale loss of the country’s forests. According to the national Forest Management Bureau, forest cover in the Philippines declined from 21 […]
Worst drought in 30 years threatens millions in southern Africa with food insecurity

Around 2 million people face food insecurity in northern Namibia and southern Angola as the worst regional drought in decades takes its toll, according to the UN. Two years of failed rains have pushed families into desperate conditions in a region already known for its desert-like conditions. In Namibia alone, experts estimate that over 100,000 […]
Drastic cuts to greenhouse gases could save hundreds of U.S. cities from watery grave

More than 1,700 American cities and towns – including Boston, New York, and Miami – are at greater risk from rising sea levels than previously feared, a new study has found. By 2100, the future of at least part of these 1,700 locations will be “locked in” by greenhouse gas emissions built up in the […]
Arctic melt to cost trillions

Rapid thawing of the Arctic could trigger a catastrophic “economic timebomb” which would cost trillions of dollars and undermine the global financial system, say a group of economists and polar scientists. Governments and industry have expected the widespread warming of the Arctic region in the past 20 years to be an economic boon, allowing the […]
U.S. bombs Great Barrier Reef, promises ‘rapid recovery’ of armaments

Four unarmed bombs dropped by the US military into the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park pose a low risk to wildlife and a joint mission will aim for their “rapid recovery”, according to the government agency in charge of the reef. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority said two of the bombs are inert, […]
11,000 barrels of oil spill into the Coca River in the Amazon

On May 31st, a landslide ruptured an oil pipeline in Ecuadorean Amazon, sending around 11,000 barrels of oil ( 420,000 gallons) into the Coca River. The oil pollution has since moved into the larger Napo River, which borders Yasuni National Park, and is currently heading downstream into Peru and Brazil. The spill has occurred in […]
Citizen group finds 30 toxic chemicals in air following tar sands oil spill in Arkansas

Independent air samples by locals have yielded “a soup of toxic chemicals” in Mayflower, Arkansas where an Exxon Mobil pipeline burst on March 29th spilling some 5,000 barrels of tar sands oil, known as bitumen. Chemicals detected included several linked to cancer, reproductive problems, and neurological impacts such as benzene and ethylbenzene. Air samples were […]
Typhoon Bopha decimated coral reefs

Three weeks after Typhoon Bopha: all the Acropora coral species are dead and covered in algae and sediment. Photo courtesy of ESI. When Typhoon Bopha, also known as Pablo, ran ashore on Mindanao, it was the largest tropical storm it ever hit the Philippine island. In its wake the massive superstorm left over 1,000 people […]
2012 was America’s warmest year on record

2012 was the warmest year on record for the contiguous U.S. according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In a report posted on its web site, NOAA said the average temperature for 2012 was 55.3°F, or 3.2°F above the 20th century average and 1.0°F above 1998, the previous warmest year on record. The […]
Lessons From Sandy: extreme weather will be the new normal

In a recent forum held at the Harvard School of Public Health four expert panelists discussed the most important lessons learned from Hurricane Sandy. Daniel Schrag, climate scientist and Director of the Harvard Center for the Environment said that “hurricane Sandy has been connected by the public to climate change in a way that other […]
Climate Summit in Doha characterized by lack of ambition

Coal-powered Castle Gate Power Plant in Ohio. Photo by: David Jolley. Ahead of the 18th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Doha, Qatar a variety of reports warned that the world was running out of time to avoid dangerous climate change, and that there was a widening gap between what nations have […]
Illegal logging, mining worsened impact of Philippines’ killer typhoon

Typhoon Bopha as seen by satellite on December 1st. Photo by: NASA MODIS Rapid Response System. According to Filipino officials, rampant illegal logging and mining were likely a part of the cause for the high casualty count from Category 5 Typhoon Bopha (Pablo), especially in the Compostela Valley where government officials had warned people to […]
World Bank: 4 degrees Celsius warming would be miserable

Hurricane Sandy on October 25th in the Caribbean. Scientists say that climate change may have intensified Hurricane Sandy with its impact worsened by rising sea levels and increased evaporation from hotter marine waters. Recent studies predict that worsening climate change will bring more intense hurricanes. Photo by: NASA. A new report by the World Bank […]
BP fined $4.5 billion for Gulf of Mexico oil spill, but company may spend more buying its own stocks

Ships battle the blaze after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded. Photo by: U.S. Coast Guard. Last week the U.S. federal government fined BP $4.5 billion for the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010, which killed 11 workers and leaked nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The oil giant also plead […]
Asian cities face high disaster risk with 650,000 killed in 2000s
Asia’s cities are increasing vulnerable to natural disasters due to climate change, urban expansion, and poor planning, warns a report published this week by the Asian Development Bank. Disasters risk undermining recent economic gains in the region. Cyclones, severe storms, earthquakes, and other disasters kill thousands and cost billions of dollars every year. Climate change […]
Remembering the Dust Bowl: it could happen again

“Kansas Kids,” in Lakin, Kansas, three children prepare to leave for school wearing goggles and homemade dust masks to protect them from the dust in 1935. Courtesy of Joyce Unruh; Green Family Collection. The Dust Bowl, a film by Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan, and The Dust Bowl: An Illustrated History, a book authored by […]
Hurricane Sandy pushes Haiti toward full-blown food crisis

Hurricane Sandy on October 25th in the Caribbean. Photo by: NASA. Although Haiti avoided a direct hit by Hurricane Sandy, the tropical storm caused severe flooding across the southern part of the country decimating agricultural fields. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs now warns that 1.5 million Haitians are at risk of […]
It’s not just Sandy: U.S. hit by record droughts, fires, and heatwaves in 2012

Hurricane Sandy storm surge on the New Jersey shore. Photo by: Master Sgt. Mark C. Olsen/U.S. Air Force/New Jersey National Guard. As the devastation wrought by Hurricane Sandy—killing over 100 people and producing upwards of $50 billion in damage along the U.S. East Coast—has reignited a long-dormant conversation on climate change in the media, it’s […]
Photos of flooded New York Aquarium released

Jon Forrest Dohlin, director of the WCS New York Aquarium, surveying a sea lion exhibit while walking through flood waters. Photo by Julie Larsen Maher of WCS The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) today released pictures showing damage caused earlier this week at the New York Aquarium by Hurricane Sandy. The photos show extensive flooding in […]
Facing ‘critical’ situation, New York Aquarium closed indefinitely

Google Earth image of the New York Aquarium location on Coney Island The New York Aquarium on Coney Island suffered “serious flood damage” during Hurricane Sandy and will be closed “indefinitely”, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), which runs the aquarium and other zoos in New York City. WCS says its staff is working […]
New York Aquarium entirely ‘underwater’

Update: New York Aquarium closed indefinitely The WCS New York Aquarium sits on the boardwalk of Coney Island. Photo by: David Shankbone. Hurricane Sandy, which brought storm surges that reportedly reached 14 feet to New York City, has put the Wildlife Conservation Society’s New York Aquarium “under water,” according to a statement from the organization. […]
Hours before Hurricane Sandy hit, activists protested climate inaction in Times Square

Activists protest climate silence in New York City ahead of Hurricane Sandy. Photo courtesy of 350.org. On Sunday, as Hurricane Sandy roared towards the coast of the Eastern U.S., activists took to the streets in New York City to highlight the issue of climate change. Activists organized by 350.org unfurled a huge parachute in Times […]
How climate change may be worsening Hurricane Sandy

Hurricane Sandy near Jamaica. Sixty-nine people were killed in the Caribbean from the storm to date. Photo by: NOAA. While scientists are still debating some fundamental questions regarding hurricanes and climate change (such as: will climate change cause more or less hurricanes?), there’s no debating that a monster hurricane is now imperiling the U.S. East […]
Extreme heatwaves 50 to 100 times more likely due to climate change

Hitting France especially hard, the Europe 2003 heatwave left tens of thousands of people dead. A new statistical analysis argues that climate change was the cause of this and other extreme summer heat events. Image by: NASA. A recent rise in deadly, debilitating, and expensive heatwaves was caused by climate change, argues a new statistical […]
Featured video: climate change bringing on the extremes
Focusing on extreme weather events in the U.S. this summer, a new compilation video highlights the connection between climate change and increasing and worsening extremes, such as heatwaves, droughts, and floods. Includes interviews with several climatologists and other experts. While scientists say it is difficult to directly link a single weather event to climate change, […]
Deepwater Horizon oil spill may have played role in dolphin deaths

Researcher with dead dolphin calf. Photo courtesy of the University of Central Florida. In the first four months of 2011, 186 bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) were found dead in the Gulf of Mexico, nearly half of them dolphin calves many of whom were perinatal, or near birth. Researchers now believe a number of factors may […]
The Human Quest: Prospering Within Planetary Boundaries – Book Review

Sprawl outside Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S. Photo by: Jeremy Hance. Icarus, according to ancient Greek myth, attempted to escape Crete by flying using wings that his father constructed from feathers and wax. Icarus willfully flew too close to the sun causing his wings to melt resulting in him falling into the sea and drowning. Icarus […]
Deja vu: U.S. undergoes hottest 12 months on record…again and again

Fire scar from Waldo Canyon Fire in Colorado. Photo by: NASA. According to new data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s National Climatic Data Center, the last twelve months have been the warmest on record for the contiguous United States. This record, set between July 2011 through June 2012, beat the last consecutive […]
As U.S. sees record heat, extreme weather pummels 4 continents

Over 30 fires burning in Eastern Russia yesterday. Photo by: NASA. It’s not only the U.S. that has experienced record-breaking extreme weather events recently, in the last couple months extreme weather has struck around the world with startling ferocity. In addition to the much-covered heatwaves, wildfires, and droughts in the U.S., killer floods struck India, […]
Scientist: ‘no doubt’ that climate change is playing a role in U.S. fires

The map depicts the relative concentration of aerosols from wildlife smoke in the skies above the continental U.S. on June 26, 2012. Image by: NASA. A noted climate scientist says there is “no doubt” that climate change is “playing a role” in this year’s series of record fires in the western U.S. A massive wildfire […]
U.S. undergoes warmest spring on record

New Mexico’s biggest fire ever as seen on May 29th from NASA’s Aqua satellite. Photo by: NASA. Spring in the U.S. was the warmest on record, beating the past record-year (1910), by a stunning two degrees Fahrenheit, according to new data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The data also shows that the […]
As Colorado and New Mexico burn, scientists say prepare for more

The High Park Fire in Colorado started on June 9th from a lightening strike and quickly expanded. This image is from June 10th, taken by Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. Image courtesy of NASA. A massive wildlife in Colorado still burns after it has killed one person and damaged or destroyed […]
The vanishing Niger River imperils tourism and livelihoods in the desert

Contrary to conception, the Sahara Desert’s most common feature is really the Hamada, or stone plateaus and gravel plains, which cover over three quarters of its surface, and harbors at great distance the barely visible silhouette of the once-majestic Niger River. Photo by: Linda Leila Diatta. Severely affected by recent turmoil across its northern frontiers, […]
BP Deepwater Horizon deformities: eyeless shrimp, clawless crabs

BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill as seen from space. Photo by: NASA’s Terra Satellite. Two years after the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven and causing an oil spill that lasted three months, scientists say the impacts on the Gulf ecosystem are only beginning to come to light […]
Researchers recreate bee collapse with pesticide-laced corn syrup

Honeybees in an apiary in Germany. Photo by: Björn Appel. Scientists with the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) have re-created the mysterious Colony Collapse Disorder in several honeybee hives simply by giving them small doses of a popular pesticide, imidacloprid. Bee populations have been dying mysteriously throughout North America and Europe since 2006, but […]
Smoking gun for bee collapse? popular pesticides

A honeybee tagged with an RFID microchip for tracking its movements. Photo © Science/AAAS. Commonly used pesticides may be a primary driver of the collapsing bee populations, finds two new studies in Science. The studies, one focused on honeybees and the other on bumblebees, found that even small doses of these pesticides, which target insect’s […]
“Strong evidence” linking extreme heatwaves, floods, and droughts to climate change

NASA map shows temperature anomalies from March 13-19, 2012 as compared to the same eight day period during the past 12 years based on data captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite. Click to enlarge. As North America recovers from what noted meteorologist Jeff Masters has called “the most […]
Appeal for help as death toll in Madagascar tops 110 from tropical storm

Madagascar Emergency Relief Fund More than 110 are dead and 330,000 homeless after two tropical storms battered Madagascar over the past month, says the island nation’s disaster management agency. This rainfall analysis was made at the Goddard Space Flight Center using data from a near-real time Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA). TRMM-based near-real time Multi-satellite Precipitation […]
Tornado season likely to expand due to climate change

Thai king: punish corrupt officials who allowed logging

Rainforest in Thailand Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej urged the Thai government to punish officials who allowed illegal logging which he blamed for worsening floods last year that left more than 1,000 people dead. “Hardwood forests that are destroyed are difficult to recover,” he told Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and members of the Strategic Formulation […]
Black Swans and bottom-up environmental action

“History does not crawl, it jumps.”- Nassim Nicholas Taleb “This is an opportunity for greatness which has never been offered to any civilization… in human history before – to act as a generation to do the right thing – and if we fail to receive that opportunity to act on it then my feeling is […]
Delayed response to Somalia famine cost thousands of lives

A hesitant response by the international community likely led to thousands of unnecessary deaths in last year’s famine in East Africa finds a new report released by Oxfam and Save the Children. The report, entitled A Dangerous Delay, says that early warning systems worked in informing the international community about the likelihood of a dire […]
Climate change media coverage drops 20 percent in 2011

Wind turbine in Morris, Minnesota. Photo by: Jeremy Hance. Global media reporting on climate change issues was down again last year, according to a new analysis from The Daily Climate. The news organization counted around 19,000 stories on climate issues during the year written by 7,140 journalists, falling 20 percent from 2010 levels. Coverage fell […]
Top 10 Environmental Stories of 2011

Victories won by activists around the world tops our list of the big environmental stories of the year. In this photo: a young woman is placed in handcuffs and arrested for civil disobedience against the Keystone XL Pipeline in the U.S. In all, 1,252 people were arrested in the two week long action. Photo by: […]
Earth systems disruption: Does 2011 indicate the “new normal” of climate chaos and conflict?

Before and after satellite images of flooding in Ayutthaya Province, Thailand. Photo by: NASA. The year 2011 has presented the world with a shocking increase in irregular weather and disasters linked to climate change. Just as the 2007 “big melt” of summer arctic sea ice sent scientists and environmentalists scrambling to re-evaluate the severity of […]
Philippines disaster may have been worsened by climate change, deforestation

As the Philippines begins to bury more than a 1,000 disaster victims in mass graves, Philippine President Benigno Aquino has ordered an investigation into last weekend’s flash flood and landslide, including looking at the role of illegal logging. Officials have pointed to both climate change and vast deforestation as likely exacerbating the disaster. “We have […]
Civilization shifting: a new leaderless era

Self-organizing networks and open-source ventures in the age of global disruption “The American Empire, and the global political economy it has spawned, is unraveling—not because of some far-flung external danger, but under the weight of its own internal contradictions. It is unsustainable—already in overshoot of the earth’s natural systems, exhausting its own resource base, alienating […]
IEA warns: five years to slash emissions or face dangerous climate change

Not known for alarmism and sometimes criticized for being too optimistic, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has warned that without bold action in the next five years the world will lock itself into high-emissions energy sources that will push climate change beyond the 2 degrees Celsius considered relatively ‘safe’ by many scientists and officials. “As […]
Unanimous agreement among scientists: Earth to suffer major loss in species

The thylacine, the dodo, the great auk, the passenger pigeon, the golden toad: these species have become symbols of extinction. But they are only the tip of the recent extinction crisis, and according to a survey of 583 conservation scientists, they are only the beginning. In a new survey in Conservation Biology, 99.5 percent of […]
Climate change already worsening weird, deadly, and expensive weather

Unprecedented flooding in Thailand, torrential rains pummeling El Salvador, long-term and beyond-extreme drought in Texas, killer snowstorm in the eastern US—and that’s just the last month or so. Extreme weather worldwide appears to be both increasing in frequency and intensity, and a new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) connects the dots […]
11 challenges facing 7 billion super-consumers

The Turkana tribe of northern Kenya are buffeted by constant drought and food insecurity, which recent research says may be worsening due to climate change. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Perhaps the most disconcerting thing about Halloween this year is not the ghouls and goblins taking to the streets, but a baby born somewhere in […]
Killer Russian heatwave product of climate change

Image of Russia and nearby areas from August 4th, 2010 by NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer. Especially intense fires are outlined in red. Smoke from peat and forest fires lead to dangerous levels of pollution throughout Moscow and surrounding areas. Photo by: NASA. Click to enlarge. Last year’s Russian heatwave and drought resulted in vast […]
Photos: New Zealand oil disaster kills over 1200 birds to date

White capped albatross killed by oil. This species is listed as Near Threatened by the IUCN Red List. Photo ©: Forest & Bird. According to the New Zealand government an oil spill from a grounded container ship in the Bay of Plenty has killed 1,250 seabirds with hundreds of others in rescue centers. However, conservationists […]
Bird-killing oil spill New Zealand’s ‘worst environmental disaster’

View Larger Map A marks the location of Papamoa Beach in the Bay of Plenty. An oil spill from a grounded container ship in New Zealand’s Bay of Plenty is threatening to worsen as authorities fear the ship is breaking up. Already, 350 tons of oil from the ship, the MV Rena, has leaked out […]
World’s newest nation faces prospect of famine

As East Africa reels from a devastating famine, which is hitting Somalia the hardest, there are new fears that another African nation could soon slip into a similar situation. On July 9th of this year, South Sudan became the world’s newest nation; however a few months later drought, conflict, refugees, and rising food prices could […]
Deepwater oil spill likely to hurt fish populations over decades
Oil pollution doesn’t have to kill fish to have a long-term impact, according to a recent study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Researchers found that Gulf killifish (Fundulus grandis) that had been exposed to very low to non-detectable levels of oil contamination from the Deepwater oil spill last year, still […]
World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse
World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse clearly describes in terms of national and social security how the looming current threat to our collective global future is not from catastrophic war as many describe in hindsight the 20th Century, rather from cataclysmic climate change, biodiversity loss, and water degradation. A world […]
Photos: World Food Program works to save lives in East Africa famine

Famine victims in Kenya. Children are the most vulnerable during a famine. At the beginning of August the US estimated that 29,000 children under five had perished from the famine over the past 90 days. Photo by: © Rebecca Richards/WFP. Over 12 million people across East Africa are imperiled by a hunger crisis brought on […]
Climate change may fuel increase in warfare, finds study

Nature study finds Wars twice as likely during hot, dry years Armed men on the island of New Guinea, which has seen its fair share of civil conflict. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Civil war is twice as likely in tropical countries during particularly hot and dry years, according to a new study in Nature. […]
Reducing Disaster Risks: Progress and Challenges in the Caribbean Region
Disaster management is a global policy problem with a critical land-use change component related to settlement patterns, deforestation, and agriculture development. This is further exacerbated by climate change. For example, since 1970, the quantity of major category 3, 4, and 5 hurricanes have almost doubled in the Caribbean region, from 15 major hurricanes between 1970-1979 […]
Lessons from the world’s longest study of rainforest fragments

Forest fragments under research in the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project. Photo by: Richard Bierregaard. For over 30 years, hundreds of scientists have scoured eleven forest fragments in the Amazon seeking answers to big questions: how do forest fragments’ species and microclimate differ from their intact relatives? Will rainforest fragments provide a safe haven […]
Arctic open for exploitation: Obama administration grants Shell approval to drill

Approximate site of preliminarily approved drilling by Shell. Pink outline is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Image made with Google Earth. Less than a year and a half after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the Obama administration has bucked warnings from environmentalists to grant preliminary approval to oil giant, Royal Dutch […]
Oil horror in Nigeria: 30 years, one billion dollars to clean-up

Fifty years of oil spills in Nigeria’s now infamous Ogoniland region will take up to three decades and over a billion dollars ($1 billion for just the first five years) to restore environments to healthy conditions, according to a new independent report by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). The most thorough study to date […]
Famine spreads: 29,000 young children perish

As the UN announces that famine has spread in Somalia to three additional regions (making five in total now), the US has put the first number to the amount of children under 5 who have so far perished from starvation in the last 90 days: 29,000. Nearly half of the total population of Somalia is […]
Tens of thousands starving to death in East Africa

As the US media is focused like a laser on theatric debt talks and the UK media is agog at the heinous Rupert Murdoch scandal, millions of people are undergoing a starvation crisis in East Africa. The UN has upgraded the disaster—driven by high food prices, conflict, and prolonged drought linked by some to climate […]
Shareholders to Chevron: company showing ‘poor judgment’ in Ecuador oil spill case

After being found guilty in February of environmental harm and ordered to pay $8.6 billion in an Ecuador court of law, Chevron this week faced another trial: this time by shareholders in its Annual General Meeting in California. While Chevron has appealed the Ecuador case and a US court has put an injunction barring the […]
Green groups to Japan: don’t buy illegally logged wood from Indonesia to aid reconstruction

Illegally felled rainforest tree in Gunung Palang National Park in Indonesian Borneo. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Following Japan’s devastating earthquake and tsunami, it needs to rebuild and do so the battered nation has already turned to a neighbor, Indonesia, for timber. However, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Indonesian NGO, Telapak, warn that much […]
Has the green energy revolution finally arrived?

When historians look back at the fight to combat climate change—not to mention the struggle to overcome our global addiction to fossil fuels—will 2011 be considered a watershed moment? Maybe. In the last couple months, three countries—each in the top ten in terms of GDP—have suddenly made major renewable energy promises. Germany, Japan, and, just […]
Reforestation program in China preventing future disasters
China’s response to large-scale erosion with reforestation is paying off according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS). The 10-year program, known as Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP), is working to turn some 37 million acres back into forest or grasslands after farming on steep slopes in the Yangtze […]
Burning up: warmer world means the rise of megafires

Megafires are likely both worsened by and contributing to global climate change, according to a new United Nations report. In the tropics, deforestation is playing a major role in creating giant, unprecedented fires. “These extraordinary conflagrations [or ‘megafires’] are unprecedented in the modern era for their deep and long-lasting social, economic, and environmental impacts,” reads […]
Are US floods, fires linked to climate change?

The short answer to the question of whether or not on-going floods in the US Midwest and fires in Texas are linked to a warming Earth is: maybe. The long answer, however, is that while it is difficult—some argue impossible—for scientists to link a single extreme weather event to climate change, climate models have long […]
The great penguin rescue: far-flung community cooperates, sacrifices to save 4,000 penguins from oil spill

Nightingale Island as viewed from Google Earth. One of the world remotest communities, the UK’s Tristan da Cunha archipelago, has come together to save 4,000 endangered penguins following a devastating oil spill, reports the Guardian . Last month a freighter ran aground on Nightingale Island releasing 1,500 tons of oil, potentially devastating the local population […]
Japan disaster to put logging pressure on rainforests in Indonesia, Malaysia

The tragic earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan last month is likely to boost wood imports into the recovering nation, adding increased pressure on the already imperiled rainforests of Southeast Asia. Even before the disaster, Japan was the world’s number one importer of wood chips and plywood and the second largest importer of logs. Japan […]
Vanishing mangroves are carbon sequestration powerhouses

Mangroves may be the world’s most carbon rich forests, according to a new study in Nature Geoscience. Measuring the carbon stored in 25 mangrove forests in the Indo-Pacific region, researchers found that mangroves forests stored up to four times as much carbon as other tropical forests, including rainforests. “Mangroves have long been known as extremely […]
Bats worth billions

US agriculture stands to lose billions in free ecosystem services from the often-feared and rarely respected humble bat. According to a recent study in Science bats in North America provide the US agricultural industry at least $3.7 billion and up to a staggering $53 billion a year by eating mounds of potentially pesky insects. Yet […]
Pictures: Google Earth updates post-tsunami imagery

Google Earth has updated satellite imagery for areas most affected by the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The images reveal large-scale devastation of coastal areas in the Sendai region of Japan. “Today, we’ve published imagery of the Sendai region at even higher resolution, which we collected on Sunday and Monday,” wrote Keiichi Kawai, Senior […]
Last year’s drought hit Amazon hard: nearly a million square miles impacted

A new study on its way to being published shows that the Amazon rainforest suffered greatly from last year’s drought. Employing satellite data and supercomputing technology, researchers have found that the Amazon was likely hit harder by last year’s drought than a recent severe drought from 2005. The droughts have supported predictions by the Intergovernmental […]
New land snail invading Singapore requires swift action

An African land snail Limicolaria flammea has been discovered by researchers in six locations in Singapore, perhaps heralding a new invasion of alien land snails in Southeast Asia. Although snails may seem largely innocuous creatures, past invasions have resulted in agricultural and economic damage. The global invasion of the giant African land snail (Achatina fulica) […]
Photos: penguins devastated by oil spill

Northern rockhopper penguins covered in oil. Photo by: Tristan Conservation Team of Simon Glass, Wayne Swain and Matthew Green. Courtesy of: The Tristan da Cunha Website. Disturbing photos show northern rockhopper penguins (Eudyptes moseleyi) hit hard by an oil spill from a wrecked cargo ship on Nightingale Island in the Southern Atlantic. Already listed as […]
US approves first deepwater drilling in Gulf since BP disaster as oil tar balls reappear on coast

Yesterday the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement awarded Royal Dutch Shell PLC the first deep-water exploration permit since the BP disaster last year, which sent some 4.9 million barrels of oil and up to 500,000 tons of methane into the Gulf of Mexico over three months. “Shell’s submission has satisfied the […]
Hundreds of endangered penguins covered in oil after remote spill

Nightingale Island as viewed from Google Earth. Conservation workers have found hundreds of oiled northern rockhopper penguins (Eudyptes moseleyi) after a cargo vessel wrecked on Nightingale Island, apart of the UK’s Tristan da Cunha archipelago. Northern rockhopper penguins are listed as Endangered by the IUCN Red List. According to a press release by BirdLife International, […]
Earthquake shifted peninsula in Japan 17 feet

A Japanese home is seen adrift in the Pacific Ocean. Ships and aircraft from the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group are searching for survivors in the coastal waters near Sendai, Japan. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Dylan McCord/Released) The massive March 11 Tōhoku earthquake shifted Japan’s Oshika Peninsula 5.3 meters (17 […]
Pictures of tsunami devastation, including a house floating in the open ocean

The U.S. Navy released shocking pictures showing widespread devastation in Japan following last week’s 9.0-magnitude earthquake and accompanying tsunami. The photos include a house floating in the open ocean, scenes of destruction in Ofunato, and piles of vehicles and debris, among others. 2011 Tōhoku earthquake was the strongest on record in Japan. It was the […]
Before-and-after tsunami satellite pictures

Google released satellite images revealing the devastation caused by the March 11 tsunami in Japan. The satellite images, which are available on Google Earth and Google Maps, show dramatically changed landscapes, including flooded cities and agricultural areas, buildings swept away by the tsunami surge, and smoke rising from ruined homes. Google says it is providing […]
Is Japan’s tsunami linked to climate change?

Could the earthquake that triggered Japan’s devastating tsunami be linked to climate change? The short answer is probably not, but recent research suggests that changing climate has the potential to influence earthquakes in some parts of the world Scientists have shown that weight shifts caused by melting glaciers can trigger tectonic activity. As ice melts […]
Women are key to global conservation
Anne Hallum is founder of the Alliance for International Reforestation and for her work was recently named a “CNN Hero.” Her daughter, Rachel Hallum-Montes has been planting trees with her mother since the age of 12 and she is now a sociologist. In 1991, my nine-year-old daughter Rachel traveled with me to Guatemala where we […]
Dead baby dolphins washing ashore in Gulf of Mexico

Every year a few baby dolphins in the Gulf don’t make it and are found on the shores of the Gulf, but this year something is different. To date, 24 baby dolphins have been found dead in Alabama and Georgia, some are stillborn, others aborted fetuses. Researchers, who say death-toll is ten times the average, […]
Gulf of Mexico bottom still coated in oil, recovery long way off

Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia has seen the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico and the view wasn’t pretty. Speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Joye told the conference that she found places where oil lay on the Gulf floor nearly 4 inches (10 centimeters) thick. Joye’s findings contradict […]
Chevron found guilty, ordered to pay $8.2 billion in epic oil contamination fight

It was the environmental legal battle that some believed would never end (and they may still be right). But today in Lago Agrio, Ecuador, after 18 years of an often-dramatic court case, Chevron was found guilty of environmental harm and ordered to pay $8.2 billion in damages, however the oil giant says it will appeal […]
Food crisis 2011?: drought in China could push food prices even higher

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned that a drought in China could devastate the nation’s winter wheat crop and further inflate food prices worldwide. Already, food prices hit a record high in January according to the FAO. Rising 3.4 percent since December, prices reached the highest point since tracking began in 1990. […]
Numerous causes, including climate change, behind record food prices
Food prices hit a record high in January according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), threatening the world’s poor. Rising 3.4% since December, the FAO stated that prices reached the highest point since the agency began tracking food prices in 1990. Given the complexity of world markets and agriculture, experts have pointed to […]
Australia’s floods threaten Great Barrier Reef

The floods ransacking the Queensland coast have cost 31 lives and $30 billion worth of property damage. Now, huge volumes of water are pouring into the ocean, threatening the Great Barrier Reef, which extends for thousands of kilometers off the coast. Although it may take years to know the full consequences of the flooding, Australian […]
Did Haiti’s deforestation, hurricane trigger deadly earthquake?
Erosion caused by hurricanes and large-scale deforestation may have contributed to last year’s devastating earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people in Haiti, according to a geologist at the University of Miami. Analyzing stresses in Earth’s crust in the fault zone of last year’s January 12 quake, Shimon Wdowinski and colleagues suggest that redistribution of […]
Tsunami strikes Indonesia

A tsunami has killed more than 100 people in Indonesia following an earthquake on the same fault line that triggered the massive 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The 7.7-magnitude earthquake sent 10-foot (3-meter) waves some 2,000 feet inland along parts of Mentawai Islands, off the Indian Ocean side of Sumatra. At least 113 are confirmed dead […]
Amazon suffers worst drought in decades

The worst drought since 1963 has created a regional disaster in the Brazilian Amazon. Severely low water levels have isolated communities dependent on river transport. Given a worsening situation, Brazil announced on Friday an emergency package of $13.5 million for water purification, tents, and food airdrops. The drought has also hit local fishermen who are […]
Death toll rises in New Guinea flash floods linked to deforestation

The death toll from flash floods in Wasior, West Papua has now topped 120, reports the Jakarta Post. 110 people are confirmed dead and over 100 are still missing after floods and landslides hit the region around Wasior in the Indonesian part of New Guinea on Monday. Washed out bridges have left some communities isolated […]
Hungary suffers ‘ecological tragedy’ as aluminum mining sludge reaches Danube

Toxic red sludge, a waste product of aluminum production, has reached Europe’s Danube River after a spill at a Hungarian factory drowned four people and left over a hundred injured, many with chemical burns. The Hungarian Academy of Sciences says tests show that heavy metals in the Danube due to the spill are currently far […]
Obama science adviser wields evidence to undercut climate change denier

US President Barack Obama’s science adviser, John Holdren, took on climate change deniers in a comprehensive, data-heavy speech last month at the Kavli Science Forum in Oslo, Norway. Proclaiming that “the earth is getting hotter”, Holden went on to enumerate on the causes of climate change (human impacts) and its overall effect (not good), discussing […]
Rivers worldwide in peril: society treats symptoms, ignores causes

Dams, agricultural runoff, pesticides, sewage, mercury pollution from coal plants, invasive species, overconsumption, irrigation, erosion from deforestation, wetland destruction, overfishing, aquaculture: it’s clear that the world’s rivers are facing a barrage of unprecedented impacts from humans, but just how bad is the situation? A new global analysis of the world’s rivers is not comforting: the […]
Colossal coral bleaching kills up to 95 percent of corals in the Philippines

It is one of the most worrisome observations: fast massive death of coral reefs. A severe wide-scale bleaching occurred in the Philippines leaving 95 percent of the corals dead. The bleaching happened as the result of the 2009-2010 El Niño, with the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia waters experiencing significant thermal increase especially since the […]
Satellites show mangrove forest loss even worse than estimated

New satellite data shows that human actions are wiping out mangrove forests even faster than previous bleak estimates. Conducted by the US Geological Survey and NASA, the researchers found that mangroves comprise 12.3 percent less area than previously estimated. In total, satellites reveal that mangrove forests cover approximately 53,290 square miles (137,760 square kilometers). “Our […]
NASA image captures one of the warmest Julys on record

The NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) has found that the global average temperature of July 2010 was nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.55 degrees Celsius) higher than average temperatures from July 1951-1980. In fact, this July was tied for the warmest on record with July 2005 and 1998. Temperatures soared dramatically in Eastern Europe […]
New NASA images reveal devastating impact of Russian fires

A new series of images released by NASA show the extent of smoke hovering over Moscow and Central European Russia, while another image measures the amount of carbon monoxide in the area, a gas which can produce a number of health problems. Russia is in the midst of a full-scale disaster as hundreds of forest […]
Summer from hell: seventeen nations hit all-time heat records
Asian continent sees warmest temperature ever recorded. The summer isn’t over yet, but already seventeen nations have matched or beaten their all-time heat records. According to Jeff Masters’ WunderBlog, Belarus, the Ukraine, Cyprus, Russia, Finland, Qatar, the Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Niger, Chad, Kuwait, Iraq, Pakistan, Colombia, Myanmar, Ascension Island, and the Solomon Islands have all […]
Officials point to Russian drought and Asian deluge as consistent with climate change

Government officials are pointing to the drought and wildfires in Russia, and the floods across Central and East Asia as consistent with climate change predictions. While climatologists say that a single weather event cannot be linked directly to a warming planet, patterns of worsening storms, severer droughts, and disasters brought on by extreme weather are […]
Visiting the Gulf: how wildlife and people are faring in America’s worst environmental disaster, an interview with Jennifer Jacquet

“President Obama called it ‘the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced.’ So I thought I should face it and head to the Gulf”—these are the opening words on the popular blog Guilty Planet as the author, marine biologist Jennifer Jacquet, embarked on a ten day trip to Louisiana. As a scientist, Jacquet was, of […]
Oil devastates indigenous tribes from the Amazon to the Gulf

For the past few months, the mainstream media has focused on the environmental and technical dimensions of the Gulf mess. While that’s certainly important, reporters have ignored a crucial aspect of the BP spill: cultural extermination and the plight of indigenous peoples. Recently, the issue was highlighted when Louisiana Gulf residents in the town of […]

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