topic: Human Migration

topic: Human Migration

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Why language is central to the survival of cultures and communities
- More than half the world’s languages could go extinct by 2100, The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues says.
- Roughly 4,000 of the world’s 6,700 languages are spoken by Indigenous communities and contain knowledge key for conservation and human health, but multiple factors threaten their existence along with their speakers’ cultures.
- Joining the podcast is Jay Griffiths, author of ‘Wild’ and other seminal books about how language and relationship are central to cultural survival, and why connection to the land is a universal human right.
- The guest also draws parallels between humans, nature and culture: “There’s great research that suggests that we learned ethics from wolves [of taking] an attitude to the world of both me the individual, and of me the pack member,” she says.

Texas ocelot breeding and reintroduction may offer new route to recovery
- A public-private partnership aims to establish a new ocelot population in Texas to ensure survival and recovery of the species in the U.S. Current ocelot populations at the East Foundation’s El Sauz Ranch and Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge are small, isolated and inbred. The nearest Mexican ocelots are 100 miles to the south.
- The new Texas population can offer insurance against accidental extirpation due to a hurricane or disease and give access to now inaccessible habitat and dispersal corridors. Captive-bred ocelots, with a mix of genes from Texas and elsewhere, will be released on East Foundation’s San Antonio Viejo Ranch, west of the current range.
- The effort represents the world’s second-ever attempt to release small wildcats via a captive breeding program. Without a suitable federal or state wildlife refuge for release, the Texas program will rely on a Safe Harbor Agreement to ensure buy-in from nearby landowners. Ranches in the region have a deep culture of wildlife management.
- Distance, development and the border wall all make connectivity between U.S. and Mexican ocelots difficult — especially in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. The new release site represents the best possibility for connectivity, but continued border wall development could threaten movement of ocelots and other recolonizing species.

Can land titles save Madagascar’s embattled biodiversity and people?
- Through its Titre Vert or Green Title initiative, the Malagasy government is opening up a path to land ownership for its most vulnerable citizens in the hopes it will help tackle hunger, internal migration, and forest loss.
- The state is using the initiative to lean on potential migrants to remain in the country’s deep south, where five years of failed rains have left 2 million people hungry, instead of migrating north, where they are often blamed for social tensions and for destroying forests.
- This March, the Malagasy government started work on a Titre Vert enclave in the Menabe region, a popular destination for migrants from the drought-hit south, to dissuade them from clearing unique dry forests to grow crops.
- Critics say the government is holding people back in a rain-starved region without providing enough support; in Menabe, backers of the project hope to provide ample assistance to get migrants out of the forests and onto their feet.

After Sri Lanka, Nepal debates exporting its ‘problematic’ monkeys
- Some officials in Nepal are calling for mimicking a plan by Sri Lanka — now suspended — to export large numbers of rhesus macaques.
- The monkeys are seen as pests by farmers whose crops they eat, and exporting them would address this problem while also generating foreign revenue, proponents say.
- However, a previous attempt to export a small number of macaques was scrapped on the grounds that it violated Nepali laws and international wildlife trade regulations.
- Conservationists also say that exporting the monkeys won’t address the root causes of human-macaque conflicts, including a government forestry program that’s seen the animals’ preferred fruit trees replaced with non-native species.

Monarch butterflies become a powerful symbol for justice at the U.S./Mexico border (commentary)
- Monarch butterflies have become a strong symbol for advocates of biological diversity and human rights at the U.S./Mexico border.
- Though its population appears to be at the brink of a U.S. endangered species listing, their conservation along the southern border has been controversial since the former presidential administration’s wall building effort bulldozed habitat at the National Butterfly Center without properly notifying the center about the construction.
- Drawing parallels between the plight of the species and that of human migrants trapped at the U.S./Mexico border, immigration rights protests have begun featuring images of monarchs and people making butterfly shapes with their hands.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Human migration to Nepal’s tiger capital adds to conservation challenges
- Chitwan district in central Nepal is home to the eponymous national park that’s come to symbolize the country’s success in growing its tiger population.
- But the district’s human population is also growing, at a rate far higher than the national average, driven by migrants seeking better health services and other urban amenities.
- Conservationists have raised concerns that the growing human presence in the area will pose additional challenges to conservation efforts and put a strain on natural resources such as forests, rivers and land.
- Some warn of an increase in human-tiger conflict, especially involving migrants who don’t share the same traditional knowledge that Indigenous residents have of coexisting alongside the big cats.

Healthy mangroves build a resilient community in the Philippines’ Palawan
- According to historical accounts, the fisheries of Malampaya Sound in the Philippines’ Palawan province were once so rich it was difficult to wade to shore without stepping on crabs.
- This bounty fueled migration to the area from across the Philippines, and by the turn of the 20th century, much of the areas’ mangroves had been cleared or degraded, leading to a decline in fish catches.
- From 2011-2013, mangrove restoration efforts were initiated as part of the Philippines’ National Greening Program, but, as elsewhere in the country, the initiative performed far below target.
- Today, however, thanks to ongoing outreach initiatives, community partnerships and Indigenous belief systems, the importance of preserving mangroves is widely recognized and the area’s coastal forests and fisheries are seeing a recovery.

Wage-related abuses in fishing industry exacerbated by pandemic response
- The COVID-19 pandemic left migrant fishers in Asia, already a highly vulnerable section of the workforce, with less income and at higher risk of labor abuses, a new report says.
- The brief, commissioned by the International Labour Organization and authored by Cornell University researchers, looked at workers’ experiences in the fishing and seafood-processing industries of Japan, South Korea, Thailand and Taiwan from March 2020 to March 2021.
- Common issues they uncovered included employers paying wages below the legal minimum, making illegal wage deductions, deferring wage payments, and not paying wages upon termination of employment.
- Labor shortages caused by border closures due to the pandemic should have given workers more leverage in wage negotiations, but this wasn’t the case, the researchers found.

Boom and bust on Lake Victoria: Q&A with author Mark Weston
- In a new book, British author Mark Weston examines an environmental crisis on East Africa’s Lake Victoria that’s been a century in the making and stems from the introduction of the non-native Nile perch to the lake in the 1950s.
- Weston lived on Ukerewe, the lake’s largest island, for two years, and relates the knock-on legacy of the fish’s introduction through the experiences of the people he met there.
- The boom and bust of the fishery brought about a surging population, deforestation, declining land fertility, and increased pollution in the lake.
- With Nile perch catches down precipitously and little else to sustain the economy of Ukerewe, residents struggle through poverty, lack of opportunity and a trickling exodus from the once-prosperous community, in search of a better life for themselves and their families.

Humanity’s ‘ecological Ponzi scheme’ sets up bleak future, scientists warn
- In a recently published perspective piece, 17 leading scientists say the world is facing a “ghastly future” due to ongoing environmental degradation, including biodiversity loss, climate change, and human overpopulation and overconsumption.
- The authors say their message is meant to give a “cold shower” to leaders who can help make positive changes for the planet.
- While other scientists agree with some of the report’s messages, they point out several issues with the argument’s framework, including its possible misidentification of migration and population growth in places like sub-Saharan Africa as driving environmental problems.

In Guatemala, refugees find new calling as park rangers
- In recent years, the number of migrants and refugees entering Guatemala after fleeing violence at home has grown.
- FUNDAECO, a local conservation NGO, has partnered with UNHCR and other groups to find jobs for some refugees working as park guards in Guatemalan biodiversity hotspots.
- Fifty-five refugees have been employed in the “Green Jobs” program so far, with FUNDAECO hoping that number will reach at least 100.

Amazonia’s people domesticated crops on ‘forest islands’ 10,000 years ago: Study
- Early Amazon human inhabitants domesticated and grew crops more than 10,000 years ago, making the region one of the world’s earliest centers of plant domestication for food, a study has found.
- These early people left behind thousands of artificial raised forest islands in what is now the Llanos de Moxos savanna in northern Bolivia.
- Researchers tracked glass-like microfossils to reveal evidence that these early farmers grew squash, corn and cassava.
- The new research helps dispel a persistent myth that the Amazon long existed as a sort of wilderness paradise, largely untouched by human influences. Instead, it is now thought that humans have been profoundly altering the landscape of Amazonia for thousands of years, with lasting consequences for species conservation and habitats.

In Colombia’s La Guajira, the native Wayuu are forgotten in the dust
- Synonymous in Colombia with extreme poverty and abandonment, the peninsula of La Guajira faces drought and coal dust pollution from one the world’s biggest coal mines.
- One of the main gateways for Venezuelan migrants, La Guajira’s desert is a chaotic border where smugglers operate in the open, international aid is weak, and there is little to offer to either the indigenous population or those arriving from Venezuela.
- The workers at the Cerrejón coal mine have demanded better working conditions, but measures to prevent COVID-19 have put a planned strike on hold and threaten La Guajira’s inhabitants and the Wayuu, the biggest indigenous nation in Colombia.

Young farmers apply ancient agroforestry practices in the heart of Sardinia
- The forested mountains of interior Sardinia have seen high rates of migration to cities in recent years, particularly among young people.
- But some young people are finding a new way to stay here and succeed while fighting climate change, by using an ancient agricultural method to create better-quality products like goat cheese, by grazing their flocks under trees.
- Called silvopasture, it’s a form of agroforestry that has a long history here, and the variety of forage and abundant shade create cheeses with unique flavors. Another side benefit in this arid landscape is reduced forest fire danger due to the goats’ grazing activities.
- Like its close cousin agroforestry, silvopasture is a climate solution because it effectively sequesters large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere while keeping forested landscapes intact and providing habitat for a variety of creatures.

Africa’s largest reserve may lose half its area to oil development
- The Termit and Tin Touma National Nature Reserve in Niger was Africa’s largest when it was established in 2012.
- Just seven years on, however, the government is considering redrawing its boundaries and slashing its size by nearly half.
- The move comes in response to a push by the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), which has exploration rights in a small section of the reserve, to expand its operations significantly.
- Conservation groups, including the NGO that manages the reserve, say the move would impact areas of high biodiversity, threatening species such as the critically endangered addax and dama gazelle.

Dam in Ethiopia has wiped out indigenous livelihoods, report finds
- A dam in southern Ethiopia built to supply electricity to cities and control the flow of water for irrigating industrial agriculture has led to the displacement and loss of livelihoods of indigenous groups, the Oakland Institute has found.
- On June 10, the policy think tank published a report of its research, demonstrating that the effects of the Gibe III dam on the Lower Omo River continue to ripple through communities, forcing them onto sedentary farms and leading to hunger, conflict and human rights abuses.
- The Oakland Institute applauds the stated desire of the new government, which came to power in April 2018, to look out for indigenous rights.
- But the report’s authors caution that continued development aimed at increasing economic productivity and attracting international investors could further marginalize indigenous communities in Ethiopia.

Altered forests threaten sustainability of subsistence hunting
- In a commentary, two conservation scientists say that changes to the forests of Central and South America may mean that subsistence hunting there is no longer sustainable.
- Habitat loss and commercial hunting have put increasing pressure on species, leading to the loss of both biodiversity and a critical source of protein for these communities.
- The authors suggest that allowing the hunting of only certain species, strengthening parks and reserves, and helping communities find alternative livelihoods and sources of food could help address the problem, though they acknowledge the difficult nature of these solutions.

New species of ancient human found in a Philippine cave
- From a cave on the island of Luzon in the Philippines, researchers have unearthed fossils dating back more than 50,000 years ago, which they say belong to a new species of early human, now dubbed Homo luzonensis.
- H. luzonensis has a mix of ancient and modern traits: Most of its teeth are small and simple in shape, resembling those of modern humans, while its finger and toe bones have features similar to Australopithecus, ancestors of humans who are known to have last walked in Africa around 2 million years ago.
- The researchers involved in the current study are confident that H. luzonensis will hold up as a new species because its skeletal and dental elements “have no equivalents anywhere amongst the known Homo lineage.”

Human population boom led to Madagascar’s megafauna extinction: Study
- Large animals, called megafauna, went extinct in Madagascar about 1,000 years ago.
- Humans are believed to have played a major role in their disappearance.
- A human population boom, supported by the shift from a hunter-gatherer to a pastoralist-herder lifestyle, was a key driver, a new study says.
- Large populations meant more hunting pressure and habitat degradation, ultimately leading to extinction.

Dust and blood: Climate-induced conflict fuels migration, study finds
- The Arab Spring, was largely political in nature, and fueled an exodus of migrants from across the swath of affected countries into Europe. Now, a study published in Global Environmental Change finds evidence that a changing climate was also a factor.
- The researchers hypothesized that abnormal and extreme climate events worsen conflicts, which in turn lead to migration.
- They say their results add evidence to the intensely debated narrative that links drought, at least in part, to the political unrest of the Arab Spring and subsequent Syrian civil war.

Proximity to towns stretches giraffe home ranges
- A recent study found that female giraffes that live close to towns have larger home ranges than those living further afield.
- The study’s authors believe that large human settlements reduce giraffes’ access to food and water.
- The team cites the importance of understanding the size of the area that giraffe populations need to survive to address the precipitous decline in the animal’s numbers across Africa in the past 30 years.

Indigenous hunters vital to robust food webs in Australia
- A new study has found that the removal of indigenous hunters from a food web in the Australian desert contributed to the local extinction of mammal species.
- The Martu people had subsisted in the deserts of western Australia for millennia before the government resettled them to make space for a missile test range in the 1950s.
- A team of researchers modeled the effects of this loss, revealing that the hunting fires used by the Martu helped maintain a diverse landscape that supported a variety of mammals and kept invasive species in check.

Two Indian tribes help reconstruct a forest’s history, in war and in peace
- A researcher-illustrator team has traced the emotional and personal links of two of India’s indigenous tribes to what is now a protected area via their memories.
- By interviewing more than 200 community members, most of them from the Bugun and Shertukpen tribes living near Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary in Arunachal Pradesh state, the duo have created an 86-page book and a web repository called “The Eaglenest Memory Project” containing illustrations and notes based on the tribes’ recollections.
- The team pieced together the tribes’ memories into five main themes, including how they remember Eaglenest during and after the 1962 India-China war, the annual migration of the Shertukpen tribes through Eaglenest to Assam state, and how the Dalai Lama’s visit changed hunting practices among the Buguns.

Humans reached Madagascar 6,000 years earlier than previously thought
- New research suggests humans reached Madagascar far earlier than previously thought.
- The study, published today in the journal Science Advances, is based on analysis of giant elephant bird bones discovered in 2009.
- Those bones showed “chop marks, cut marks, and depression fractures consistent with immobilization and dismemberment” by prehistoric humans.
- Until now, the earliest documented evidence of humans in Madagascar dated to 2,400-4,000 years ago.

Mexico’s ejidos are finding greater sustainability by involving youth and women
- Ejidos now control more than two-thirds of Mexico’s 64 million hectares (158 million acres) of forest. They have generally proven to be an effective means of preserving those forests while creating economic opportunities for local communities through sustainable farming, ranching, and forestry operations.
- But ejidos themselves face challenges that must be overcome in order to ensure their sustainability. Chief among them has been the lack of inclusion of youth and women, an issue many ejidos have begun to seriously address over the course of the past decade.
- The traditional hierarchies built into ejido communities once posed what many observers saw as a serious threat to the future viability of the ejido system. But young people now represent a hopeful future not just for the ejidos they come from and plan to return to in order to ply their newly acquired skills, but also, perhaps, for the future of conservation in Mexico.

Wildlife decimated by the surge in conflicts in the Sahara and the Sahel
- An escalation in the number of conflicts across the Sahara and the Sahel in Africa is driving down numbers of the region’s wildlife, a new study finds.
- The authors found that the number of conflicts in the region has risen by 565 percent since 2011.
- At the same time, 12 species of vertebrate have either gone extinct or are much closer to extinction as a result of conflicts in the region.

Judge OKs waiving environmental laws to build U.S.-Mexico border wall
- On Tuesday, a federal judge in California ruled that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not abuse its authority in waiving dozens of environmental laws to build sections of wall along the border between the U.S. and Mexico.
- The ruling frees the department to waive laws for future border wall construction projects.
- President Trump has pushed to erect walls along the entire 2,000-mile border, saying it is necessary to prevent the flow of drugs and undocumented immigrants over the border.
- The proposal is intensely controversial, with opponents raising practical, humanitarian, and environmental concerns. Conservationists say that existing border infrastructure has disrupted connectivity for wildlife and that coast-to-coast fencing would be devastating.

Rewriting biological history: Trump border wall puts wildlife at risk
- Mexican conservationists are alarmed over Trump’s wall, with the loss of connectivity threatening already stressed bison, pronghorn, bighorn sheep, bears and other animals.
- About one-third of the border, roughly 700 miles, already has fencing; President Trump has been pushing a controversial plan to fence the remainder.
- A wall running the entire nearly 2,000-mile frontier from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, conservationists warn, would be catastrophic for borderland ecosystems and many wildlife species, undoing years of environmental cooperation between the two countries to protect animals that must move freely or die.
- The wall is currently a key bargaining chip, and a sticking point, in ongoing immigration legislation negotiations taking place this week in Congress. Also expected this week: a federal court ruling on whether the administration can legally waive environmental laws to expedite border wall construction.

Bangladeshi forests stripped bare as Rohingya refugees battle to survive
- Their panicked dash from burning villages involved stumbling through forests or battling monsoon-charged waters in search of safety.
- Along the way and in makeshift shelters and now camps, refugees have needed a massive supply of firewood and shelter for survival.
- The rapid decimation of the forest is also possibly contaminating groundwater supplies.

Protecting a forest in the land of the Indonesian deer-pig
- In a village in the northern part of Indonesia’s giant Sulawesi island, hunters pursue rare animals that are protected by the law.
- A local affiliate of NGO BirdLife International is working with locals to preserve the Popayato-Paguat forest block — and the dozens of endemic species within.
- The NGO is facilitating an ecosystem restoration project in the forest block.

Kiribati confronts climate upheaval by preparing for ‘migration with dignity’
- Climate change impacts and overpopulation are pushing Kiribati citizens to plan for a potential future migration en-masse.
- Still, many I-Kiribati fear losing cultural identity in the projected exodus of their people to higher land.
- To make the transition easier, some Kiribati citizens are receiving vocational training to qualify them for employment abroad.

Cattle ranching devours Nicaragua’s Bosawás Biosphere Reserve
- The Bosawás Biosphere Reserve is the third largest forest reserve in the world and is home to indigenous people and 21 ecosystem types, which host high levels of biodiversity.
- Nicaragua’s booming livestock industry is causing a migration of ranchers to the reserve where they often pay land traffickers to illegally secure title to land.
- From 1987 to 2010, more than 564,000 hectares of the reserve were cleared and replaced with ranch lands and farms. 92,000 hectares have been cleared in the last 5 years.

Nations come together to save Kenya’s disappearing coastal forests
- Kenya’s coastal forests are part of the Eastern Africa Coastal Forests ecoregion, with high levels of biodiversity and several species of plants and animals found nowhere else in the world.
- An influx of migrants into the region has meant more human pressure on forests, with the region losing upwards of 10 percent of its tree cover in 15 years.
- Major infrastructure and industry developments are also planned for the area, leaving conservationists worried about their environmental impacts.
- A program by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development is aiming to help communities and governments better manage their forests – and keep the wildlife that lives within them from going extinct.

What’s being done to secure justice for SE Asia’s seafood slaves?
- Hundreds of Southeast Asian mainlanders who were trafficked onto Thai-run fishing boats in Indonesia have been rescued and repatriated in recent months.
- Al Jazeera tracked down four ex-slaves to their homes in Myanmar. None had received the compensation they were promised when they agreed to return to the country.
- “If we don’t get our money, I will have to accept it,” one of the men said. “I can’t do anything.”

Indonesia’s war on maritime slavery continues
- More than 1,300 trafficking victims have been repatriated from slave ships in eastern Indonesia since March 2015.
- Only 24 are still waiting in Ambon Port, a focal point of the effort, to go home, though other slaves are probably still out there.
- Going forward, the fisheries ministry is planning new measures to combat illegal fishing, including a new human rights certification scheme.

A small European island teaches conservation through its herbs and spices
- A series of workshops called Stejjer Imfewħa (“Scented Stories” in Maltese) lets participants exchange knowledge about Malta’s native plants and their significance in the local culture and cuisine.
- The workshops come at a time when immigrants are altering Malta’s social structure. The idea is to approach conservation through the lens of ethnobotany as a way to bring people together and foster an awareness of conservation.
- Ultimately, the workshops aim to change attitudes and behavior related to conservation as well as the integration of different communities in Malta, something the organizers acknowledge will take time.

Photos: Can helping local people save an embattled Nigerian park?
- Gashaka-Gumti national park is home to diverse habitats and wildlife, but illegal poaching, logging, and herding, all driven by grinding poverty, are straining the park’s ecosystems.
- The Gashaka Biodiversity Project is a nascent effort to improve the wellbeing of people living in and near the park, in hopes of reducing pressure on its wildlife and natural resources.
- Some experts believe that tending to human problems will make conservation more viable, and they are now calling for a greater debate about how parks across Africa can better coexist with their human residents.

Not all escaped fishing slaves want to go home
- The Indonesian government is repatriating hundreds of Burmese fishing slaves now being housed at a care center in the eastern Indonesian port city of Ambon.
- Many of the trafficked men are eager to go home, and government-sanctioned negotiations over back pay with the companies are ongoing.
- Dozens of others, though, have already put down roots in Indonesia, and they aren’t so eager to leave.

From slave to student: Myanmar migrants find abuse, opportunity in Thailand
- Thailand’s growing economy and low unemployment rates have caused most Thais to turn away from low-paid, labor-intensive work, leaving a gap to be filled by migrants — especially in the country’s $7 billion seafood industry, which has been rocked by revelations of widespread slavery.
- Aside from living under constant threat of deportation, those lacking papers have no access to formal legal protection and are easily exploited by employers, landlords, authorities and traffickers.
- One migrant from Myanmar tells of being tricked aboard a slave boat and forced to work for years before finally escaping and trying to rebuild his life in Bangkok.

Did fish poisoning drive Polynesian colonization of the Pacific?

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