topic: Impact Of Climate Change

topic: Impact Of Climate Change

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Amid ravaging wildfires in Venezuela, experts cite institutional collapse
- Since the start of the year, Venezuela has been experiencing record-breaking fires. Apart from the highest number of fires in any January and February for the last two decades, wildfires continued all the way to early May, devastating national parks and affecting the capital of Caracas.
- Some experts say that in 2024 so far, up to 2 million hectares (4.94 million acres) of land appear to have already burned.
- Higher temperatures, drought and the fact that Venezuela lacks fire-tolerating plants have been contributing to more intense fires, which have been made worse by the country’s institutional failures.
- Experts say that a lack of adequate institutions, a collapse of public services and an absence of planning and monitoring strategies have resulted in Venezuela being unable to handle the wildfires.

Bangladeshi farmers find zucchini’s high yields & low costs palatable
- Though long considered “foreign” to Bangladeshi farmers, zucchini squash is now cultivated among growers who value its high productivity, lower production cost and short growing time.
- Farmers living in dry regions and river islands prefer to cultivate this vegetable, where watering the plant is an issue.
- Bangladesh Agricultural Extensions expects more zucchini squash cultivation in the coming days based on farmers’ enthusiasm and growing local demand in the market.

From polling stations to weather stations, the heat is on in India (commentary)
- Parts of India are facing a heatwave, for which the heat in the state of Kerala is a curtain raiser. Kerala experienced its first recorded heatwave amid the ongoing election campaign.
- Heatwaves, droughts and floods do not distinguish along political lines. If the destruction is across board, the mitigating action also has to be across political lines, writes Mongabay-India’s Managing Editor, S. Gopikrishna Warrier, in this commentary.
- Climate change poses economic, social and political challenges, influencing election discourse and policy agendas.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Rocky rollout for Bangladesh’s ambitious solar-powered irrigation plans
- Nearly half of irrigation costs in Bangladesh are due to irrigation, and the diesel pumps that currently power irrigation networks are responsible for 1.6% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.
- To address both issues, the government is rolling out a nationwide program to gradually replace these diesel pumps with solar-powered ones, aiming to slash irrigation-related emissions by 0.8 million metric tons by 2030.
- It also says that given that irrigation use is concentrated in the non-monsoon months, the surplus energy generated by the pumps the rest of the time can be fed into the grid, providing up to 480 gigawatt-hours of clean energy a year.
- In pilot programs, however, farmers have expressed concern over the reliability of the solar pump systems, especially for water-intensive crops such as rice and corn, and have also noted that their irrigation costs remain the same.

Warming seas push India’s fishers into distant, and more dangerous, waters
- Many of India’s more than 4 million fishers are sailing beyond the country’s exclusive economic zone into the high seas in search of a better catch.
- Rising sea surface temperatures, overfishing near the shore, and the destruction of reefs have decimated nearshore fisheries, forcing India’s fishers farther out to sea where they face greater risk.
- A common danger they run is straying into the waters of another country, which can lead to their boats being seized and the crew being jailed or even killed.
- The Indian government has issued policies to protect and recover nearshore fish stocks, even as it encourages fishing in the high seas.

Uttarakhand limits agricultural land sales amid protests & tourism development
- Following widespread protests, Uttarakhand’s Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has issued orders to district magistrates to deny permission to sell agricultural lands to those outside the state.
- With just 14% of its land designated for agriculture and more than 65% of the population relying on agriculture, calls for legislation to safeguard residents’ land rights have intensified.
- With a lack of comprehensive, updated land records, monitoring the usage of farmlands for nonagricultural purposes has become challenging.
- Lack of employment opportunities and resources as well as shifting weather patterns and climate change have pushed numerous farmers to sell their land holdings.

Annual ocean conference raises $11.3b in pledges for marine conservation
- The 9th Our Ocean Conference (OOC) took place in Athens from April 15-17.
- Government, NGO and philanthropic delegates made 469 new commitments worth more than $11.3 billion to help protect the oceans, which was lower than in previous years.
- While some conference hosts and attendees celebrated the many successes of the OOC, there was also a shared concern that decision-makers aren’t moving fast enough to secure a sustainable future for the global ocean.

In largest ever study, Indigenous and local communities report the impacts of climate change
- Indigenous peoples and local communities are reporting a series of tangible and nuanced impacts of climate change, according to a new study.
- The study collected 1,661 firsthand reports of change in sites across all inhabited continents and aggregated the reports into 369 indicators of climate change impacts, including changes in precipitation, plant cultivation and marine ecosystems.
- Existing measures to track climate change impacts are barely able to relate to the diverse and complex ways in which local people experience and observe environmental changes, according to the authors. For instance, instrumental measurements might capture changes in rainfall patterns but miss crucial relationships between climate change awareness, sensitivity and vulnerability.
- This research constitutes the largest global effort by Indigenous peoples and local communities to compile and categorize local observations of climate change and its impacts.

Faced with an extreme future, one Colombian island struggles to rebuild
- In 2020, Hurricane Iota destroyed most of the housing and infrastructure on the Island of Providencia, in Colombia’s Caribbean archipelago of San Andres.
- Although the government sent aid and rebuilt homes, communities complained they were left out of the consultation process and that the reconstruction had been poorly done, without addressing the island’s increased vulnerability to climate change.
- Locals sued the government, obtaining a reopening of consultations, which the new left-wing government has agreed must reach a solution that accords with the islanders’ traditional customs.
- More than 700 islands in the Caribbean could be increasingly exposed to more extreme weather, as climate change threatens to make events such as hurricanes more destructive.

Rainwater reserves a tenuous lifeline for Sumatran community amid punishing dry season
- Kuala Selat village lies on the coast of Indragiri Hilir district on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
- In the first half of the year, residents of the village arrange buckets and drums to collect rainwater to meet their daily needs.
- They will then stockpile water to last through the dry months from June-September, but a longer dry spell has led to an acute shortage of water.
- Residents say they believe the water crisis in the village was linked to bouts of diarrhea, and that many fled the village during an outbreak.

Enviva bankruptcy fallout ripples through biomass industry, U.S. and EU
- In March, Enviva, the world’s largest woody biomass producer for industrial energy, declared bankruptcy. That cataclysmic collapse triggered a rush of political and economic maneuvering in the U.S. (a key wood pellet producing nation), and in Europe (a primary industrial biomass energy user in converted coal plants).
- While Enviva publicly claims it will survive the bankruptcy, a whistleblower in touch with sources inside the company says it will continue failing to meet its wood pellet contract obligations, and that its production facilities — plagued by chronic systemic manufacturing problems — will continue underperforming.
- Enviva and the forestry industry appear now to be lobbying the Biden administration, hoping to tap into millions in renewable energy credits under the Inflation Reduction Act — a move environmentalists are resisting. In March, federal officials made a fact-finding trip to an Enviva facility and local communities who say the firm is a major polluter.
- Meanwhile, some EU nations are scrambling to find new sources of wood pellets to meet their sustainable energy pledges under the Paris agreement. The UK’s Drax, an Enviva pellet user (and also a major pellet producer), is positioning itself to greatly increase its pellet production in the U.S. South and maybe benefit from IRA subsidies.

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.

UN probes controversial forest carbon agreement in Malaysian Borneo
- The government of Sabah state in Malaysian Borneo will continue to move forward with an opaque nature conservation agreement despite concerns raised by the United Nations.
- In a letter, the U.N. calls in question the transparency of the agreement and the state’s approach to the human rights law principle of free, prior and informed consent.
- The agreement was signed by state officials and a representative of a Singaporean company in 2021. Shortly after news of the deal became public, some Indigenous groups in the state said they hadn’t been consulted or informed about the deal covering 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) of the state’s forests.
- The U.N. letter was written by a group of “special procedures experts” with mandates established by the U.N. Human Rights Council, including the special rapporteurs on the rights of Indigenous peoples, on human rights and the environment, and on the right to development.

Rising temperatures threaten the tiny animals responsible for groundwater quality
- A new study compared temperatures inside 12 caves around the world with their respective surfaces, showing that average annual temperatures in underground systems tend to mirror those of the surface, but with far less variation.
- The researchers also found that while some caves follow outdoor temperatures with little or no delay, others have temperatures that are very asynchronous with the surface, being at their warmest when the world outside is at its coldest, and vice versa.
- Scientists also detected the existence of daily thermal cycles in the deepest sections of some caves, suggesting that such cycles might mark the circadian rhythms of cave-adapted organisms.
- The results indicate that underground fauna — with many species ill-adapted to handle large temperature variations — might be at threat due to climate change, and that their extinction might risk the water quality of aquifers worldwide.

Brazilian youngsters discuss how they are tackling the climate emergency
- Affected by drought, pollution, high waters and floods, young people from different Brazilian states describe how climate change is impacting their routines and causing illness, malnutrition, displacement and school disruption.
- According to a UNICEF report, 2 billion children and adolescents in the world are exposed to risks arising from the climate emergency; in Brazil, there are 40 million affected children and adolescents — 60% of Brazilians under 18.
- According to experts, the climate crisis is a crisis of the rights of children and adolescents, as it affects everything from the right to decent housing and health care to education and food, leading to problems in child development and learning abilities.

Climate change brews trouble for tea industry, but circular solutions await
- In its many varieties, tea is renowned as one of the world’s most consumed beverages, second only to water.
- Like many other agricultural crops, tea production impacts the environment: Production in tropical countries is implicated in deforestation, pollution and impacts on fragile biodiversity.
- Climate change imperils the tea industry, threatening to reduce yields and hammer millions of smallholder farmers who derive their livelihood from the crop.
- Experts say circular solutions can help build resilience in tea production against climate change, while at the same time lessening its environmental impact.

Big problems for little animals when floodwaters rise, study finds
- Increasingly frequent and severe weather events are testing the resilience of both human and animal communities across Africa; Cyclone Idai, which made landfall in Mozambique in 2019, caused massive flooding that killed more than 1,600 people.
- Researchers studying the aftermath of Idai in Gorongosa National Park found many smaller-bodied animals in low-lying areas drowned or starved before forage recovered from the severe flooding that followed the cyclone.
- Larger animals were able to both reach higher ground ahead of rising waters and adapt to reduced availability of food in the long months it took for the floodplain to dry out and recover.
- The study is a rare example of close monitoring of animals before, during and after an extreme weather event, and provides conservationists with important insights into planning and managing protected areas in a changing climate.

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.

Studies still uncovering true extent of 2019-20 Australia wildfire catastrophe
- Australia’s 2019-20 bushfires burned with unprecedented intensity through a total of 24 million hectares (59 million acres), an area the size of the U.K.
- New research shows total costs incurred to the tourism industry from that single bushfire season may be 61% higher than previously calculated.
- Up to 1.5 billion wild animals may have perished in the fires, and new research is uncovering the cost to individual species as a result of the fires.
- One study published shows 15% of all known roost locations of the gray-headed flying fox, Australia’s largest bat species, may have been directly impacted by the fires.

Study on Brazilian heat wave deaths shows gender & racial disparities
- A new study estimates that the deaths of nearly 50,000 people in Brazil in recent decades could be attributed to the occurrence of heat waves, and it points out that these extreme events have become increasingly frequent.
- The paper reveals that Blacks, Browns, females, older adults and those with lower educational levels are the most affected population subgroups, suggesting that the impacts of heat waves are felt unevenly, thus exposing socioeconomic inequalities.
- The researchers analyzed data from 14 metropolitan regions with a population of 74 million people, representing nearly one-third of Brazil’s population.
- This research is important because it joins others in analyzing racial and gender dimensions of the populations most vulnerable to extreme events, the scientific coordinator at Iyaleta Research Association says.

Sumatra firefighters on alert as burning heralds start of Riau dry season
- On the northeast coast of Indonesia’s Sumatra Island, the first of two annual dry seasons led to a spike in wildfires in some peatland areas in February.
- In the week ending March 2, Indonesian peatland NGO Pantau Gambut said 34 hotspots, possibly fires, were identified by satellite on peatlands in Riau province.
- Emergency services in the province have been concentrated to the east of the port city of Dumai, where a fire started in the concession of a palm oil company, according to local authorities.

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.

As lightning strike fatalities increase, Bangladesh still has no reliable preventive measures
- Between 2011 and 2020, lightning strikes claimed the lives of 2,164 people, or nearly four people every week, in Bangladesh, according to the country’s disaster management department. However, a Bangladeshi NGO reports at least a thousand more lightning related fatalities between 2010 and 2021.
- Researchers linked the increased frequency of lightning with climate change; as for the increased death toll, they blamed the government’s inefficient protection measures, including the lack of tall trees.
- To reduce the number of fatalities, the government has started working on long-term solutions, such as installing lightning arresters and growing palm trees. Nevertheless, a significant sum of money is being squandered and nothing functions as expected, say experts.

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.

U.S. natural gas expansion would surrender world to fatal warming, experts say
- The United States is planning a major expansion of its export infrastructure for liquified natural gas (LNG), a fossil fuel mostly containing methane. Public outcry in the U.S. over the risk to the global climate forced U.S. President Joe Biden to pause the LNG permitting process for reconsideration in January.
- However, the U.S. continues investing billions in new LNG infrastructure abroad. Scientists and climate activists around the globe are warning that LNG expansion renders U.S. climate commitments unreachable, locks in fossil fuel emissions for decades and could trigger catastrophic warming.
- LNG emits more than coal when exported due to massive leaks of methane into the atmosphere during oceanic transport, a preprint study has found. Another report estimates that emissions from planned U.S. LNG exports, if all 12 facilities are approved, would total 10% of the world’s current greenhouse gas emissions.
- Climate impacts around the world would be severe, scientists say. Drought in Europe, for example, is already leading to higher food and energy prices, creating conditions for poverty even in developed nations, while a tipping point in the Amazon Rainforest could lead to mass deaths due to extreme heat and humidity.

Harsh dry season sours harvest prospects for Java coffee farmers
- Indonesia is the world’s fourth-largest producer of coffee, after Brazil, Vietnam and Colombia, but the archipelago’s farmers are less productive than their competitors.
- In East Java province, farmers have seen yields plummet as a protracted water deficit shrinks fruit and introduces pests.
- Total output is expected to drop by more than 20% this season, while increasingly frequent extreme weather may pose challenges to the viability of some smallholders in lowland areas of Indonesia.

Freeze on Russian collaboration disrupts urgently needed permafrost data flow
- Accelerating Arctic warming threatens to thaw more and more carbon-rich permafrost and release vast amounts of greenhouse gases into the Earth’s atmosphere, but scientists don’t know when such a tipping point event might occur.
- The potential for large and abrupt permafrost emissions adds urgency to better understanding the factors that could turn permafrost from a carbon sink into a carbon source.
- However, more than half of all Arctic permafrost lies under Russian soil, and a two-year freeze on collaborations between Russian scientists and the international scientific community — prompted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022 — is disrupting data flows and hamstringing the polar research community.
- Despite an uncertain geopolitical landscape, scientists are determined to close the data gap with work-arounds such as pivoting to “proxy” field sites, ramping up remote sensing with AI, and mining archived data for new insights. But reintegrating Russian research with other Arctic research is a priority of the scientific community.

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.

The new Arctic: Amid record heat, ecosystems morph and wildlife struggle
- Every species of animal and plant that lives or breeds in the Arctic is experiencing dramatic change. As the polar region warms, species endure extreme weather, shrinking and altered habitat, decreased food availability, and competition from invading southern species.
- A wide array of Arctic organisms that rely on sea ice to feed or breed during some or all of their life cycles are threatened by melt: Over the past 40 years, the Arctic Ocean has lost about 75% of its sea ice volume, as measured at the end of the summer melt season. This translates into a loss of sea ice extent and thickness by half on average.
- Researchers note that the rate of change is accelerating at sea and on land. While species can adapt over time, Arctic ecosystem alterations are too rapid for many animals to adapt, making it difficult to guess which species will prevail, which will perish, and where.
- The only thing that could limit future extinctions, researchers say, is to quickly stop burning fossil fuels, the main driver of climate change.

In Bangladesh, sunflower grows where other crops don’t amid increasing salinity
- The changing climate, rising sea levels and other anthropogenic factors are forcing a vast area of Bangladesh’s coastal zone to remain barren due to the presence of salinity in arable land.
- Overcoming these hurdles, coastal farmers, with the support of the government and various nongovernmental organizations, are now farming sunflowers and benefiting from the alternative crop.
- Bangladesh currently produces only 10% of the oilseeds it uses; imports from different countries meet the rest of the demand.
- The government estimates that the country could produce sunflower to meet the local demand for cooking oil by up to 26% by cultivating the oilseed in saline-prone zones.

Ocean heating breaks record, again, with disastrous outcomes for the planet
- New research shows that ocean temperatures are hotter than ever in the modern era due to human-driven global warming.
- High ocean temperatures are placing a strain on marine life and biological processes while also increasing extreme weather events on land.
- The world is also seeing an escalation in the frequency and intensity of marine heat waves, events in which sea temperatures exceed a certain threshold for five days or more.

Maluku farmers sweat El Niño drought as Indonesia rice prices surge
- Rice prices surged across Indonesia during the second half of 2023 as the effects of El Niño led to widespread crop failures.
- In December, President Joko Widodo ordered military personnel to help farmers plant rice in a bid to boost domestic production, and curb food price inflation.
- On Buru Island, Mongabay Indonesia spoke with farmers who described risks of conflict as water scarcity forced farmers to queue for access to water.

Java’s crumbling coastline and rising tide swamp jasmine flower trade
- Growers of jasmine flowers in lowland areas of Indonesia’s Central Java province are vulnerable to coastal erosion and rising sea levels.
- Research published in 2022 showed Central Java’s Semarang was among the fastest-sinking major cities in the world.
- Jasmine grower Sobirin has altered his home on three occasions since 2010, raising the floor to adapt to increasing tidal surges.

In Mexico, Xalapa’s chronic water scarcity reflects a deepening national crisis
- Residents of Xalapa, the capital of Veracruz, Mexico, have been struggling with a worsening water shortage that often leaves people without daily access to household water for washing.
- The problem is nationwide, in 30 of 32 states, forcing residents to purchase and recycle water and postpone bathing.
- Experts have blamed climate change and extreme heat for the country’s water shortages; others also blame corruption that allows companies to pay for unlimited water use.
- Deforestation for development, an increase in construction and building and population increases are also factors.

Bangladeshi farmers eye moringa as a climate and economic solution
- Farmers in Bangladesh are increasingly turning to the fast-growing, drought-resistant moringa (Moringa oleifera) tree, which is indigenous to South Asian nations such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
- Researchers say moringa is beneficial for human health, as both the leaves and the fruits are rich in nutrients and minerals.
- Researchers also suggest that moringa cultivation could be a part of smart agriculture as climatic patterns change, as the plant can tolerate extreme heat and cold.
- A Bangladeshi entrepreneur has been working to create a social movement and entrepreneurship in moringa cultivation and marketing since 2017; so far, he has engaged some 5,000 farmers in 20 districts of Bangladesh.

Indigenous effort in Bangladesh helps reverse endangered fish’s slide to extinction
- Unchecked logging and quarrying of rocks from streambeds in Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tracts led to springs drying up and populations of putitor mahseer fish, an endangered species, disappearing.
- The situation was worsened by climate change impacts, characterized here by a more intense dry season during which even streams that once ran year-round now dry up.
- A project launched in 2016 and backed by USAID and the UNDP is working with Indigenous communities to reverse this decline, starting with efforts to cut down on logging and quarrying.
- As a result of these efforts, areas where forests have been conserved have seen the flow of springs stabilize and populations of putitor mahseer and other fish revive.

Markets and forests: 7 takeaways from our series on the forest carbon trade

This is the wrap-up article for our five-part series on forest carbon credits and the voluntary market. Read Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four and Part Five. Mongabay recently published a five-part series on the carbon trade and its use as a tool to address climate change. The exchange of carbon credits, typically […]
The future of forest carbon credits and voluntary markets
- Observers predicted that 2023 would be a “make-or-break” year for voluntary carbon markets and “an inflection point” for their role in addressing climate change and global deforestation.
- Amid criticisms around carbon accounting, carbon neutrality claims, and issues with forest communities, governance bodies say they’ve worked to increase consistency and “integrity” for the voluntary carbon market and specifically the forest conservation strategy known as REDD+.
- Concerns remain from a variety of observers, including those who say the focus of credit-buying companies should be on eliminating their carbon emissions from across their entire suite of operations.
- But proponents of markets say that while decarbonizing is absolutely necessary to minimize the rise in global temperatures, the carbon trade allows for the mitigation of pesky residual emissions that it’s either impossible or too expensive to get rid of at this point.

2023’s top ocean news stories (commentary)
- Marine scientists from six international research and conservation institutions share their list of the top ocean news stories from 2023.
- Hopeful developments this past year include a monumental global treaty to protect biodiversity on the high seas and the regulation of international trade in 97 species of sharks and rays under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
- At the same time, 2023 was the hottest year on record, with widespread bleaching of corals in the Caribbean and Great Barrier Reef, and many more hot years forecast as humanity’s emissions of greenhouse gases that cause global warming continue.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

Leveraging the hypothetical: The uncertain world of carbon credit calculations
- Criticisms of the voluntary carbon trade and forest conservation strategies like REDD+ have centered largely on the carbon accounting methods used to calculate credits.
- Each credit traded on voluntary markets is supposed to represent the reduction, avoidance or removal of 1 metric ton of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
- But recent science has raised questions about how REDD+ and other types of project figure out the number of tons of emissions saved.
- The process relies on establishing a baseline rate of deforestation against which a project’s emissions-reducing or -removing success is measured. But critics say the process can be faulty and that the conflicts of interest of the parties involved in setting the baseline have not been addressed until recently.

A Mekong island too tiny for industrial farming now points to Vietnam’s future
- In the decades following the U.S. war in Vietnam, the Vietnamese government championed intensive farming methods that boosted rice harvests and turned the country into an export powerhouse.
- While much of the Mekong Delta was reshaped to support intensive farming, the coastal island of Con Chim was deemed too small to be worth installing the necessary dikes and sluice gates, leaving farmers there to continue traditional patterns of wet and dry season agriculture and fishing.
- Now, in an era dominated by climate concerns, Vietnam plans to scale back rice farming and shift to more nature-based agricultural practices. Once a forgotten backwater, Con Chim now stands as a rare guidepost to a more sustainable agricultural future.
- This story was produced in partnership with the Global Reporting Program at the University of British Columbia’s School of Journalism, Writing, and Media.

‘Cowboys’ and intermediaries thrive in Wild West of the carbon market
- A host of different players have crowded into the voluntary carbon trade as its value has grown.
- Motivated by the potential for profit, a concern for climate change or some combination of the two, these companies and organizations link the credits generated by projects, such as those that fit in the forest conservation scheme known as REDD+, with buyers, often companies and individuals in the Global North looking to compensate for their climate impacts.
- Some groups say they help shoulder the burden of tasks like marketing so that the communities and project staff on the ground can focus on the “change-making work.”
- But others, sometimes called “carbon cowboys,” seem interested in the money to be made from trading carbon. Some have faced allegations that they don’t bring the necessary expertise to their work, or that they don’t adequately inform local communities about the intended projects and the potential pitfalls.

Chile again rejects Constitution rewrite; experts say no big loss for environment
- On Dec. 17, 55% of Chilean voters rejected a proposal to reform the country’s Constitution, which dates back to the Augusto Pinochet regime; it was the second attempt, after a different proposal failed to get approval in September 2022.
- The latest proposed text, drafted mainly by conservatives, did not make significant progress on environmental and climate change topics, experts say.
- The 2022 draft included an entire chapter on the environment and made provisions on nature’s rights, while expanding protections against extractive industries. But concerns regarding the nationalization of water resources contributed to the “no” vote.

Do carbon credits really help communities that keep forests standing?
- Communities play a critical role in REDD+, a forest conservation strategy that aims to reduce emissions that can be sold as credits to raise money for forest protection.
- REDD+ projects often include components for the benefit of the communities, such as a focus on alternative livelihoods and provision of health care and education.
- But reports that REDD+ communities have faced abuses and rights violations have emerged recently in connection with high-profile REDD+ projects.
- Several Indigenous-led organizations have voiced their support for REDD+ because, they say, it provides an avenue to fund their climate-related conservation work, while other groups say it’s not the answer.

As Sri Lanka floods swell with climate change, so does human-crocodile conflict
- Sri Lanka is among the countries most vulnerable to climate change, with long drought spells, receiving intense rain during a shorter period with a marked increase in flood events.
- During flooding, crocodiles inhabiting rivers tend to reach land and move closer to human settlements, increasing the risk of encounters with people.
- The Nilwala River flows through southern Sri Lanka and recent flood events have increased croc encounters with humans in the Matara district and escalated threats to human safety, resulting in disaster management responses.
- During recent flooding events, no serious incidents linked to crocodiles were reported, but wildlife officials had to chase crocs away from riverbanks, highlighting the need for an immediate and durable solution for the human-crocodile conflict around the Nilwala River area.

Forest carbon credits and the voluntary market: A solution or a distraction?
- Voluntary carbon markets and forest carbon credits have faced widespread criticism that reached a zenith in 2023.
- Media reports detailed concerns about their dubious climate benefits, respect for communities and land rights, and their use by Global North companies to avoid the difficult task of decarbonizing their operations.
- Supporters of forest conservation strategies like REDD+ say that they can and should play a role, as healthy forests can absorb a significant amount of atmospheric carbon. They also say REDD+ brings much-needed funding to protect and restore forests, not only for their carbon, but because of the biodiversity and communities they support.
- As 2023 draws to a close, and with it the U.N. climate conference in Dubai (COP28), proponents of the voluntary carbon trade are working to increase the “integrity” of markets in ways they hope make them a viable tool to deal with climate change.

Indigenous Gurung farmers revive climate-resilient millet in Nepal
- Indigenous Gurung farmers in central Nepal are trying to revive the cultivation of an almost-forgotten, drought-resilient crop: foxtail millet.
- This hardy grain was traditionally farmed as a famine crop because it grows at a time of the year when farmers are finished harvesting other crops like rice, maize and wheat.
- With Nepal experiencing increasingly unpredictable changes in weather and droughts that affect their harvests, proponents say local crops like foxtail millet have the potential to help farmers adapt to the changing climate.
- Over the past seven years, organic farming of the crop has seen consistent growth, thanks to the help of a community seed bank.

Indigenous-led coalition calls for moratorium on terrestrial carbon trade
- The Pathways Alliance for Change and Transformation (PACT), a coalition of Indigenous, community and nonprofit organizations, published a paper in September 2023 calling for a moratorium on the forest carbon trade out of concern for the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities.
- PACT says a pause in selling carbon credits is needed until protections for the land rights of these communities are laid out “explicitly, proactively, and comprehensively.”
- In December at the U.N. climate conference in Dubai, carbon markets experienced a setback after negotiators failed to agree on texts to articles in the 2015 Paris climate agreement meant to guide the carbon trade.

In 2023, Mongabay’s reporting fellows covered Earth amid crisis — and hope
- 2023 marked the first full year of Mongabay’s Conservation Reporting Fellowships, which are offered in both Spanish and English; journalists in the English-language program represented six countries in Africa, Asia and the Americas.
- The fellowships aim to fill gaps in global conservation reporting, as our planet faces the unprecedented crises of climate change, biodiversity loss and the prospects of surpassing the planetary boundaries within which human life on Earth may thrive.
- Look ahead to 2024 for much more to come, as Mongabay expands and our fellowships grow and evolve with us.

Detailed NASA analysis finds Earth and Amazon in deep climate trouble
- A NASA study analyzed the future action of six climate variables in all the world’s regions — air temperature, precipitation, relative humidity, short- and long wave solar radiation and wind speed — if Earth’s average temperature reaches 2° Celsius (3.6° Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, which could occur by 2040 if emissions keep rising at current rates.
- The authors used advanced statistical techniques to downscale climate models at a resolution eight times greater than most previous models. This allows for identification of climate variations on a daily basis across the world, something essential since climate impacts unfold gradually, rather than as upheavals.
- The study found that the Amazon will be the area with the greatest reduction in relative humidity. An analysis by the Brazilian space agency INPE showed that some parts of this rainforest biome have already reached maximum temperatures of more than 3°C (5.4°F) over 1960 levels.
- Regardless of warnings from science and Indigenous peoples of the existential threat posed by climate change, the world’s largest fossil fuel producers, largely with government consent, plan to further expand fossil fuel exploration, says a U.N. report. That’s despite a COP28 climate summit deal “transitioning away from fossil fuels.”

Science panel presents COP28 with blueprint for saving the Amazon
- Five policy briefs launched at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai highlight the critical challenges facing the Amazon Basin, as well as the immediate actions and solutions needed to ensure a sustainable future for the region’s ecosystems and the 47 million people living there.
- The reports, published by the Science Panel for the Amazon (SPA), a high-level science body, cover cross-cutting topics, from root causes of deforestation and rethinking Amazon infrastructure to restoration and finance solutions.
- Stressing the urgency of preventing the rainforest from crossing a tipping point into a dry scrubland, the panel calls for leveraging nature-based solutions and Indigenous knowledge to consolidate new social bioeconomies that can “leave forests standing and rivers flowing.”
- Based on a previous SPA brief, Brazil launched Arcs of Reforestation, a $205 million program to restore 6 million hectares (15 million acres) of deforested and degraded forest land in some of most affected parts of the Brazilian Amazon.

Earth on ‘devastating trajectory’ to global tipping points. But there’s hope.
- A new report on global tipping points warns of imminent serious disruptions in major Earth systems if global temperatures continue rising due to human-induced climate change.
- It suggests that current levels of warming will likely push five major Earth systems past their tipping points, and another three will follow if global temperatures exceed 1.5° Celsius (2.7° Fahrenheit) of warming above preindustrial levels.
- However, along with these dire warnings, the report also notes the launch of positive tipping points within society, such as the rollout of renewable energy technologies.
- Other reports also describe the urgency to enact positive change as humanity continues pumping carbon into the atmosphere, wreaking havoc on the environment.

NGOs at COP28 demand Vietnam free climate advocates before it gets energy funding
- Vietnam has unveiled the resource mobilization plan for its just energy transition partnership (JETP) at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai.
- The $15.5 billion plan, a partnership between Vietnam and G7 countries, outlines the policies and financing Vietnam will need to achieve 47% renewable energy and peak emissions in 2030.
- Environmentalists are calling for Vietnam to release imprisoned climate activists and guarantee protections for civil society before the JETP can move forward.
- In the past two years, Vietnam has imprisoned six leading environmental advocates, including individuals working on alternatives to fossil fuel expansion.

Thailand tries nature-based water management to adapt to climate change
- With an economy largely underpinned by irrigated crops like rice, water is a crucial resource in Thailand. But as climate change exacerbates floods and droughts in the country, sustainable water management is an increasing challenge.
- Nature-based solutions that incorporate the natural processes of the country’s abundant rivers, floodplains and watershed forests are beginning to be trialed via various projects at large and small scales.
- A new report assesses the efficacy of two nature-based approaches to water management in Thailand, which represent a step away from the country’s typically top-down, hard-engineering approach and present several benefits to the environment and communities.
- However, environmental and societal tradeoffs, complex policy frameworks, and the need for greater understanding and expertise around the concept, design and implementation of nature-based approaches are barriers to their widespread implementation.

Climate loss & damage fund ‘the furthest thing imaginable from a success’
- The fifth and final meeting of the U.N. Transitional Committee to design a loss and damage fund ahead of COP28 climate summit concluded in Abu Dhabi last month without a mandate that wealthy, industrialized nations pay into it, sources say.
- Frequent Mongabay contributor and journalist Rachel Donald joins the Mongabay Newscast as co-host to speak with Brandon Wu, director of policy and campaigns at ActionAid USA, to unpack this most recent negotiation.
- In addition to leaving out a provision for contributions from wealthy nations, the fund will be housed in the World Bank, a global lending institution that continues to fund coal projects and has been linked to human rights abuses.
- The text of the fund will move to the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai next month, where it will be considered by member countries.

Can impermanent carbon credits really offset forever emissions?
- A team of researchers has put forth a method that they say makes it possible to compare credits for carbon from forests projects against more permanent storage solutions.
- The carbon emissions that these credits are meant to offset can last for hundreds, if not thousands, of years in the atmosphere. Forests, by comparison, are subject to fires, disease and deforestation, meaning that their climate benefits can be more temporary than longer-term solutions, such as direct air carbon capture.
- By “discounting” the credits from forest carbon projects based on conservative upfront estimates of how long a forest will safeguard or sequester carbon, the authors say that “like-for-like” comparisons would be possible.
- The team published their work Oct. 30 in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Salty wells and lost land: Climate and erosion take their toll in Sulawesi
- Coastal erosion on the west coast of Indonesia’s Sulawesi Island is so advanced that seawater has penetrated the groundwater supply that tens of thousands use for drinking water.
- The communities have yet to be served by utility water provision, so families are resorting to costly supplies of water from private distributors.
- Research shows that rising seas and more frequent and powerful storms will accelerate coastal abrasion, raising burdens shouldered by the world’s coastal communities.

Carbon counting without the guesswork: Q&A with FCL proponent Jerry Toth
- REDD+ projects aim to incentivize efforts that maintain standing forests, rather than cutting them down, by providing payments based on the carbon emissions kept out of the atmosphere.
- But REDD+, which is short for “reducing deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries,” has been widely criticized lately, in part because skeptics say that the accounting methods are open to manipulation by developers aiming to sell more credits — credits that many not represent a verifiable climate benefit.
- One alternative is the forest carbon ledger (FCL). FCL seeks to value the total amount of carbon in a forest and would provide payments based on how well that storage is maintained over time.
- Mongabay spoke with Jerry Toth, co-founder of a conservation group working to protect and restore the last remaining remnants of the Pacific Forest of Ecuador called the Third Millennium Alliance (TMA). Toth said FCL may provide a more robust alternative to REDD+ carbon accounting.

Is ocean iron fertilization back from the dead as a CO₂ removal tool?
- After a hiatus of more than 10 years, a new round of research into ocean iron fertilization is set to begin, with scientists saying the controversial geoengineering approach has the potential to remove “gigatons per year” of carbon dioxide from Earth’s atmosphere.
- The idea behind ocean iron fertilization is that dumping iron into parts of the ocean where it’s scarce could spark massive blooms of phytoplankton, which, when they die, can sink to the bottom of the sea, carrying the CO₂ absorbed during photosynthesis to be sequestered in the seabed for decades to millennia.
- So far, proof that this could work as a climate-change solution has remained elusive, while questions abound over its potential ecological impacts.
- Scientists with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, U.S., recently received $2 million in funding from the U.S. government that will enable computer modeling research that could pave the way for eventual in-ocean testing, effectively reviving research into ocean iron fertilization.

Forests hold massive carbon storage potential — if we cut emissions
- A new study finds forests could potentially store 226 billion metric tons of carbon if protected and restored, or about one-third of excess emissions since industrialization.
- Nearly two-thirds of this potential lies in conserving and letting existing forests mature.
- The authors say that restoring deforested areas through community-driven approaches such as agroforestry and payments for ecosystem services is essential.
- Planting trees can’t replace cutting fossil fuel emissions, as climate change threatens forests’ carbon uptake.

In Borneo, the ‘Power of Mama’ fight Indonesia’s wildfires with all-woman crew
- Wildfire poses significant health risks to Indonesians, particularly children under 5, who especially suffered the effects of the 2019 haze.
- Farmers have long used fire in cultivation, and the risks to health and environment have grown significantly as deforestation and drainage have made peatlands particularly susceptible to fire.
- In 2022, women from the Indonesian part of Borneo formed “the Power of Mama,” a unit to fight hazardous wildfires and their causes.

Critical questions remain as carbon credit deal in Sabah presses forward
- Details around a secretive “nature conservation agreement” signed in 2021 between a Singaporean company and the government of Sabah, a Malaysian state on the island of Borneo, remain elusive.
- Several internationally known companies that work in climate mitigation have said they’re not affiliated with the agreement, despite implications by Jeffrey Kitingan, a deputy chief minister and the deal’s primary backer, that they are involved.
- Kitingan also revealed that Hoch Standard, the Singaporean company, is controlled by a single director through another company registered in the British Virgin Islands.
- Kitingan said the project is moving forward, leading to renewed calls from civil society, Indigenous and research organizations for the release of more details about the agreement.

Battling desertification: Bringing soil back to life in semiarid Spain
- Southeastern Spain is experiencing the northward advance of the Sahara Desert, leading to declining rainfall, soil degradation, and climate change-induced droughts, threatening agricultural lands that have been farmed for many centuries.
- Local farmers recently began adopting regenerative agriculture practices to better withstand long, persistent droughts punctuated by torrential rains and subsequent runoff.
- Many farmers in the region have formed a collaborative group called Alvelal to address encroaching desertification, depopulation, and the lack of opportunities for youth.
- Alvelal members manage more than 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres) of farmland using regenerative agriculture techniques and aim to expand further, conserving more farmland against the onslaught of climate change, while restoring natural corridors and promoting biodiversity.

Record North Atlantic heat sees phytoplankton decline, fish shift to Arctic
- Scientists warn that record-high sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic Ocean this year are having consequences for sea life.
- As marine heat waves there have worsened over the years, populations of phytoplankton, the base of the oceanic food chain, have declined in the Eastern North Atlantic.
- With experts predicting more heat anomalies to come, North Atlantic fish species are moving northward into the Arctic Ocean in search of cooler waters, creating competition risks with Arctic endemic species and possibly destabilizing the entire marine food web in the region.
- Lengthening and intensifying marine heat waves around the globe are becoming a major concern for scientists, who warn that the world will see even greater disruptions to ocean food chains and vital fisheries, unless fossil fuel burning is curtailed.

Kenya’s Lake Victoria floods leave orphaned children to run their households
- Beginning in 2019, devastating floods on the shores of Kenya’s Lake Victoria have inundated homes, displaced families and left some orphaned children in charge of caring for their siblings and running the household.
- Many families continue to live in makeshift camps, hoping to rebuild and renew their lives; the effects of the flooding have been particularly harsh on children who have had to drop out of school or work to ensure the family’s survival.
- Experts attribute the floods to a combination of factors, including climate change, increased rainfall and lack of vegetation to control runoff; in 2015, an international research team predicted swiftly rising waters that could harm the region.
- UNICEF reports a concerning increase in the number of children affected by flooding in recent years, as climate change leads to more crises that can disrupt education, destabilize families and leave long-term effects on child development and psychosocial well-being.

As oceans warm, marine heat waves push deep beneath the surface, study shows
- A new study found that the ocean experiences the most intense marine heat waves at a depth of between 50 and 250 meters (160 and 820 feet), where a large portion of the ocean’s biodiversity can be found.
- It also found that parts of the ocean between 250 and 2,000 m (6,600 ft) had less intense but longer marine heat waves, with a duration twice as long as at the surface.
- The intensity and duration of marine heat waves could have widespread effects on marine biodiversity, increasing the likelihood of species displacement and mortality, the study suggests.

Calls for crackdown intensify as fire crisis heats up across Indonesia
- A senior member of Indonesia’s parliament has called for tougher law enforcement as firefighters continued to battle wildfires across the archipelago.
- Indonesia’s environment ministry says it had sealed off 35 land concession, including several oil palm concessions, in the year to date.
- The fires are also fueling a diplomatic spat with neighboring Malaysia, which blames poor air quality there on the haze blowing from fires in Sumatra and Borneo.

Seaweed: The untapped economic potential for Bangladesh
- Bangladesh currently produces some 400 tons of seaweed, valued at 55 million taka (about $500,000), while a study suggested the country could produce 50 million tons of seaweed annually by 2050.
- Despite the potential to grow and earn more foreign currency through export, the sector is dealing with a number of difficulties, including inadequate investment as well as proper guidelines and regulations.
- According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), seaweed farming is one of the fastest-growing aquaculture sectors globally, with an annual production of about 33 billion tons, valued at $11.8 billion.

Microplastics pose risk to ocean plankton, climate, other key Earth systems
- Trillions of microplastic particles in the ocean threaten marine life, from huge filter-feeders to tiny plankton. Although not lethal in the short term, the long-term impacts of microplastics on plankton and marine microbes could disrupt key Earth systems such as ocean carbon storage and nitrogen cycling.
- Oceans represent Earth’s largest natural carbon store and are crucial to mitigate atmospheric CO2 increase. Carbon taken up by plankton and stored in the deep ocean — known as the biological carbon pump — is a major process in ocean carbon storage. Microplastics may “clog” this pump and slow ocean carbon uptake.
- Microplastics in marine sediments alter microbial communities and disrupt nitrogen cycling, potentially magnifying human-caused problems like toxic algal blooms. Changes in plankton communities at the ocean surface could exacerbate deoxygenation driven by climate change, starving marine organisms of oxygen.
- Small plastic particles are impossible to remove from the oceans with current technology, so stopping pollution is a priority. Plastic production continues to soar year-on-year, but a U.N. treaty to address plastic pollution could offer a glimmer of hope that the international community is ready to take action.

Return of the wolf to Nepal’s Himalayas may threaten snow leopards
- The return of wolves to Nepal’s Himalayan region is putting greater pressure on populations of naur, or blue sheep — and by extension on snow leopards, whose main prey is naur.
- New research shows that naur tend to exhibit greater vigilance in areas where both wolves and snow leopards are present, while lowering their guard somewhat when no wolves are around.
- Conservationists say the growing wolf presence threatens snow leopards through direct competition for food and through stressing out, and weakening, naur populations.
- Snow leopards already face pressure from common leopards and tigers, which are moving further uphill in response to both human threats and a changing climate.

Salinity hinders Bangladesh agriculture; groups respond with seeds & information
- Bangladesh is the fourth-highest rice-producing country in the world, but much of that production is threatened by salinity.
- More than 30% of the cultivable land in Bangladesh is in the coastal area; a comparative study of the salt-affected area showed that of 2.86 million hectares (7.1 million acres) of coastal and off-shore lands, about 1.056 million hectares (2.6 million acres) — an area roughly the size of Lebanon — of arable lands are affected by varying salinity, hampering agricultural production.
- In the coastal zones, farmers mainly cultivate low-yielding, traditional rice varieties during the wet season, while in the dry season (January- May), most of the land remains fallow because of soil salinity.
- To cope with the situation, government and nongovernmental organizations are introducing different types of saline and extreme weather-tolerant crop varieties to use the farmland yearly.

On Jakarta’s vanishing shoreline, climate change seen abetting child marriages
- Marriage before the age of 18 is classified as a form of gender-based violence by the United Nations, but is commonly practiced in low-income communities to mitigate household economic pressures.
- On Jakarta’s northern coastline, child marriage is common in fishing communities responding to inflationary pressures and declining stocks of fish in near-shore waters.
- Janah, now 23, fears she lacks the agency to break a cycle that saw her married at the age of 16.

Climate change detectable in daily rainfall patterns, deep-learning model finds
- Researchers have developed a deep-learning AI model that predicts how global warming is affecting daily precipitation patterns around the world.
- Using the model, scientists found that every year since 2015 daily rainfall deviated from natural variability at least 50% of the time as a result of rising temperatures.
- Research has long focused on climate change’s long-term impacts such as annual temperature increase or precipitation rates.
- However, studies in recent years have observed how rising temperatures are altering daily weather patterns as well.

DRC food sovereignty summit yields support for agroecology, local land rights
- The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (ASFA) recently held a meeting in Kinshasa to argue for the reorienting of food production around agroecology in the Congo Basin.
- Civil society groups, donors, government representatives and small-scale farmers gathered to exchange views on challenges and solutions to food security.
- Across Africa, agricultural policy is geared toward greater reliance on large-scale farms and mechanization, commercial seeds, pesticides and synthetic fertilizer.
- A declaration issued at the close of the summit instead called for investment in agroecological methods, as well as recognition of and protection for Indigenous and local peoples’ land rights.

Agroecology alliance calls for more food at less cost to nature in Congo Basin
- The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) will make the case for reorienting food production systems and agricultural policy at a meeting in Kinshasa from Aug. 29-31.
- Food security across the Congo Basin is threatened by impoverished soils, climate change, and displacement due to armed conflict, forum attendees say.
- Governments in the region back improved seeds and synthetic fertilizer for small-scale farmers as well as large-scale agriculture projects to boost yields and revenue.
- AFSA argues these strategies cause more harm than good to both farmers and forests, and calls for a turn to agroecological methods instead.

REDD+ projects falling far short of claimed carbon cuts, study finds
- New research reveals that forest carbon credits are not offsetting the vast majority of emissions that providers claim.
- A team of scientists looked at 26 REDD+ deforestation-prevention project sites on three continents, leading to questions about how the developers calculate the impact of their projects.
- The researchers found that about 94% of the credits from these projects don’t represent real reductions in carbon emissions.
- Verra, the world’s largest carbon credit certifier, said the methods the team used to arrive at that conclusion were flawed, but also added it was in the process of overhauling its own REDD+ standards.

A tale of two biomes as deforestation surges in Cerrado but wanes in Amazon
- Brazil has managed to bring down spiraling rates of deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest in the first half of this year, but the neighboring Cerrado savanna has seen a wave of environmental destruction during the same period.
- The country’s second largest biome, the Cerrado is seeing its highest deforestation figure since 2018; satellite data show 3,281 hectares (8,107 acres) per day have been cleared since the start of the year through Aug. 4.
- The leading causes of the rising deforestation rates in the Cerrado are a disparity in conservation efforts across Brazil’s biomes, an unsustainable economic model that prioritizes monocultures, and escalating levels of illegal native vegetation clearing.
- Given the importance of the Cerrado to replenish watersheds across the continent, its destruction would affect not just Brazil but South America too, experts warn, adding that the region’s water, food and energy security are at stake.

Beach heat: Study shows increasing temperature extremes on Brazil’s coast
- By analyzing temperature patterns at five points along the Brazilian coast over the last 40 years, scientists confirmed the impacts of global warming on the country: hotter summers, more heat waves and greater thermal amplitude throughout the day.
- On the coast of Espírito Santo state, the frequency of daily occurrences of extreme temperatures and heat waves increased by 188% during the period studied; Rio Grande do Sul saw an increase of 100% and São Paulo, 84%.
- Such climate extremes impact the health of people, plants and animals directly and indirectly, including changes in viral cycles.

Bali rice experiment cuts greenhouse gas emissions and increases yields
- Rice paddies are responsible for 11% of the world’s methane emissions. There are more than 200 million rice farms in Asia.
- Working with local farmers, researchers in Bali, Indonesia, have discovered how to dramatically reduce the greenhouse gas emissions output of rice fields. Initial indications are showing a 70% reduction.
- The farming breakthrough also boosted the yield of crops and reduced the amount of pesticides flowing to coral reefs.

Study shows how to maximize mangroves as climate and community solution
- Mangroves’ high carbon storage capacity can help countries meet their carbon emission reduction targets under the Paris Agreement, while also producing benefits for local communities.
- Recent research using data from Belize has quantified mangrove carbon storage and sequestration potential and identified where the country should prioritize conservation and restoration to maximize ecosystem services that would benefit multiple sectors.
- The research has been used by Belizean authorities to update national climate targets, committing to protect an extra 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres) of mangroves and restore another 4,000 hectares (10,000 acres) by 2030, which could provide an example for other national blue carbon strategies.
- The study also took into account the point where mangrove protection and restoration begin to offer diminishing returns, which would allow authorities to adjust the ambition of climate mitigation and adaptation via mangroves.

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.

Massive carbon offset deal with Dubai-based firm draws fire in Liberia
- According to a draft contract seen by Mongabay, Liberia may sign away the rights to nearly 10% of its total land mass to a United Arab Emirates-based firm for carbon offset development.
- The firm is owned by Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum, the youngest member of Dubai’s royal family and an investor in energy projects across Africa and the Middle East.
- Environmental groups in Liberia say the deal could violate multiple laws, including those meant to protect community land rights.
- The deal comes as the UAE prepares to host the COP28 climate conference, where rulemaking around carbon markets will be a hot agenda item.

Progress is slow on Africa’s Great Green Wall, but some bright spots bloom
- Africa’s ambitious Great Green Wall, a mosaic of reforestation efforts to stop desertification, has been plagued by delays and challenges.
- Some reforestation efforts, however, have tasted success, becoming a model for many to follow.
- Experts suggest moving away from viewing the initiative as merely a tree-planting exercise and instead seeing it as a holistic, participatory approach that involves local communities and helps them build their livelihoods and incomes.
- Challenges still abound, however, including a volatile security situation, lack of water, coordination challenges, and scattered long-term monitoring of reforested patches.

Morocco rolls out a phosphorous-fueled plan to heal soils across Africa
- Farmers across Africa are faced with eroded, phosphorus-limited soils, leading to low crop yields, despite having some of the world’s richest phosphate deposits in Morocco.
- Soil scientists at Mohammed VI Polytechnic University in Morocco are building a countrywide network of farmers and soil experts to routinely test soil for its nutrients and other properties, giving farmers more tailored fertilizer recommendations.
- Morocco is the first country in Africa to create soil fertility maps, a way to map out the productivity of arable land, with the practice now catching on in other countries.
- Researchers and others in the agriculture sector see Morocco as a potential leader in boosting soil productivity and revolutionizing agriculture in Africa to expand production beyond subsistence farming.

Vietnamese rice farmers go high-tech to anticipate a low-water future
- Since the 1970s, Vietnam’s “rice-first” policy facilitated the construction of an elaborate series of dikes and dams that allowed farmers in the Mekong Delta to flood their fields to allow for multiple harvests per year.
- Now, in the face of climate change impacts, seawater intrusion, upstream dams and new government policies that mandate water conservation, farmers in the delta need to find ways to reduce their water consumption.
- In one pilot project, university researchers have teamed up with local farmers to implement a technique called alternate wetting and drying (AWD), supported by a smartphone application that allows farmers to save water and reduce emissions.

Green gains: Localized efforts leave a mark, notably in drier areas, study shows
- Spurts of green spread across the African continent taken together accounted for over 400,000 square kilometers (154,000 square miles) of greening, an area the size of Zimbabwe.
- According to researchers, it’s important to distinguish how much of this greening is due to human efforts and how results much from broader climatic shifts.
- The team compared greening trends in target plots with neighboring plots; the latter, they hypothesized, would reflect changes in vegetation driven by broader climatic trends.
- Despite these advances, satellite imagery-based monitoring of vegetation growth can be a blunt instrument, especially where the data don’t capture differences in the greening, like those arising from agricultural expansion or reforestation.

Drought cycles erode tropics’ ability to absorb CO₂, study finds
- A recent study finds that tropical carbon sinks have become increasingly vulnerable to water scarcity since 1960, and are consequently less able to absorb carbon dioxide.
- These findings suggest that tropical ecosystems are less resilient to climate change than previously thought.
- While the study doesn’t necessarily make projections for the future, the findings suggest that an acceleration of climate change, which is very likely to bring more drought, could further limit the ability of tropical ecosystems to absorb carbon dioxide, which, in turn, would worsen climate change.

On burning-prone Borneo, planners work to fireproof Indonesia’s new capital
- The developers of Indonesia’s new capital city, Nusantara, have begun preparations to protect the site from the threat of wildfires and smoke pollution.
- City planners are to launch drones to monitor the estate for wildfires and hope to operate a dedicated fire brigade from next year.
- Nusantara faces lower wildfire risks owing to its east-coast location and distance from Borneo’s flammable peatlands, but officials nonetheless stress the need to build an early-warning system for wildfires around the site.

Can Spain keep the rising sea from washing away a critical delta?
- One of Europe’s most important deltas, a vital wildlife sanctuary and economic engine, is facing a myriad of threats stemming from climate change and water management.
- Rising sea levels and stronger storms are washing away the very sediment that constitutes the Ebro Delta and sending saltwater far inland.
- The government plan to bolster the delta relies heavily on trucking sediment to its exposed outer banks, but it’s a stop-gap measure until researchers can develop a more sustainable long-term solution.
- The question is: Can they find one in time?

Jokowi focuses on El Niño as Indonesia’s dry season heats up
- Indonesian President Joko Widodo warned officials to anticipate risks from the first El Niño since the 2015 Southeast Asia wildfires crisis.
- Dry season conditions had emerged in 52% of Indonesian territory by early July, according to the country’s weather forecaster.
- Officials hope reforms enacted since the 2015 disaster will lessen the severity of wildfires as El Niño conditions become more pronounced.

With El Niño likely, Indonesia’s volunteer firefighters gear up — with new gear
- More than 11,000 community firefighters across Indonesia are readying for a likely El Niño year, better prepared than ever before.
- One community outfit of five volunteers in Sumatra’s province is monitoring the local peatland with the help of a drone procured from the village budget.
- Officials hope that a legal crackdown on farmers burning combined with improved community capacity can limit wildfires this year.

Big potential and immense challenges for great ape conservation in the Congo Basin, experts say
- Great apes are on track to lose 94% of their range to climate change by 2050 if humans do nothing to address the problem, according to research.
- In the great apes stronghold of the Congo Basin, national interests in natural resource exploitation, a lack of security in areas like the Albertine Rift, hunting, and the illegal wildlife trade all greatly impact populations of bonobos and mountain gorillas.
- In this episode of Mongabay Explores, Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, Kirsty Graham, Terese Hart, and Sally Coxe speak with Mongabay about the threats to bonobos and mountain gorillas, the lessons learned from decades of conservation efforts, the importance of great apes for the protection of Congo Basin rainforest, and ways forward for conservation as well as livelihoods for Indigenous and local communities.

Extreme temperatures and erratic weather disrupt Bangladesh’s famous Rajshahi silk industry
- Since the 13th century, Rajshahi, named “Silk City,” has been known for its finest silk, which local growers have produced.
- Earlier, the product was named Bengal silk or Ganges silk. Considering the prospects and reputation of the trade, the then-Pakistan government started producing silk officially. Consequently, it established a silk factory in Rajshahi in 1961, which washanded over to Bangladesh Sericulture Development Board in 1978.
- The silk sector in Rajshahi grew as farmers of the neighboring districts used to produce high-quality silk yarns by the larvae of moths fed on fresh mulberry leaves, which were later used for luxurious clothing items. There are three types of silk produced in Rajshahi: mulberry, endi and tassar, with mulberry silk being the finest and most expensive.
- However, Bangladesh’s once-famous silk industry has faced difficulties in recent years, including the excessive dependency on imported low-cost yarn and different bacterial and viral diseases triggered by constantly variable temperatures and humidity.

Bangladesh’s new red list of plants shows country has already lost seven species
- Bangladesh’s first-ever red list of plant species shows the country has lost seven species in the last century and now risks losing at least another five.
- Researchers involved in the assessments of the conservation status of 1,000 species cited climate change, pollution, deforestation, and poor management of protected areas as major drivers behind the ecological damage.
- The Bangladesh Forest Department is working to protect native plant species through large-scale planting efforts across the country.

For Central America, climate bill could top hundreds of billions annually
- Climate change impacts on Central America’s forests could cost the region between $51 billion and $314 billion per year by 2100, according to a new study.
- For some of the countries in region, the loss of ecosystem services provided by forests could lead to losses equivalent to more than three times their GDP.
- This is the first time ecological and economic measurements have been assessed together for climate change impacts in Central America and could help to inform conservation activities like defining protected areas, establishing biological corridors and restoring degraded landscapes.
- While the impacts of climate change are being felt by communities in the region, breakthroughs in computing power as well as collaborations between European universities and Central American research institutions and companies is promoting increased innovation in ecosystem restoration.

Climate change, human pressures push Bangladesh’s ‘national fish’ into decline
- Bangladesh’s all-important hilsa fishery is declining amid pressures from human-driven factors and climate change, experts and authorities warn.
- The fish, Tenualosa ilisha, contributes around 12% of the total fish catch in Bangladesh, and the fishery employs at least 2.5 million people across the country.
- Several government conservation initiatives, including declaring six hilsa sanctuaries and two fishing bans during the year, have helped boost production in the past two decades.
- However, pressures persist, including rising salinity levels in the rivers where the fish spawn, discharge of pollution and agricultural runoff, and disruptions to water flow as dams are built upstream.

Penguins ‘enrich our lives’: Q&A with Pablo Borboroglu, protector of penguins
- Pablo Garcia Borboroglu, a marine biologist from Patagonia, Argentina, was recently awarded the 2023 Indianapolis Prize for his work in protecting penguins around the world.
- Penguins face many threats, including pollution, human disturbance, and the impacts of fisheries and climate change.
- Borboroglu has helped protect penguins through various actions, including establishing marine and terrestrial protected areas, conservation research programs, and educational programs.

Southern African caterpillar that feeds millions may be next climate casualty
- A new study projects a significant loss of habitat for an edible caterpillar, known as the mopane worm, in Southern Africa in the coming decades.
- Mopane worms are a key source of seasonal protein for millions of people throughout Southern Africa, but they also face pressures from overharvesting and deforestation.
- Species distribution models devised by a group of scientists project that even under a moderate climate change scenario, some regions will lose 99% of suitable habitat for the caterpillars.
- The scientists behind the study say their projections should be seen as a call to protect regional food security by preventing both climate change and biodiversity loss.

In Chile, a wildlife rehab center deals with the aftermath of worsening fires
- Wildfires at the beginning of this year in Chile were some of the deadliest on record, destroying nearly 500,000 hectares (1.2 million acres) of land and killing people and wildlife.
- At a wildlife rescue center in the city of Chillán, volunteer vets have been treating wildlife brought in with burns and other injuries, and releasing them back into their habitat wherever possible.
- But with much of the wildlife habitat severely damaged by the fires, the number of locations fit for wild rereleases is limited.
- Ecologists blame the intensifying fires on the combination of climate change, the spread of fire-prone eucalyptus and confer plantations, and deliberate burning.

Antarctic warming alters atmosphere, ice shelves, ocean & animals
- The world’s latest record-high temperatures are increasingly putting Antarctica’s role in regulating global climate and ocean currents at risk. But so far, most signs indicate that the continent has not yet reached a point of no return. A rapid reduction in fossil fuel extraction and carbon emissions could still prevent the worst outcomes.
- Increased persistence of the Antarctic ozone hole over the past three years could be an indication of climate change, as it cools the south polar stratosphere, though high variability in this phenomenon and its complexity make causality difficult to prove.
- As global warming continues to melt Antarctica’s edges, a modeling study shows that fresh water going into the ocean could result in the next three decades in a more than 40% slowdown in the currents carrying heat and nutrients northward, essential to sustain ocean life as we know it. If ice shelves melt, allowing Antarctica’s ice sheets to flow to the sea, sea level rise will escalate.
- The latest discovery of a new colony of emperor penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri) in a marginal habitat of the Antarctic is good news, but also bad news, as it further highlights the vulnerability of the species as Antarctic ice masses destabilize — volatility that threatens their survival.

Climate warming alters offspring production of birds, study shows
- A global meta-study investigating the effects of climate change on bird reproduction has found an overall decline in annual offspring production over 50 years.
- Offspring production in migratory and large birds decreased, whereas it increased in smaller-bodied and sedentary species.
- Migratory species may find it difficult to adapt to a rapidly changing climate in their breeding and wintering areas. Large birds may have problems adapting to changing climate conditions because they tend to live a ‘slower pace of life’ and have offspring only once a year.
- Curbing our carbon dioxide emissions will halt rising temperatures impacting bird species, say the study’s authors. People can also help boost bird reproduction by creating a cooler environment for bird nests in yards and parks through dense vegetation during heat waves.

Africa’s land and forest restoration initiative gathers pace in Malawi
- In 2015, African countries launched the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100), committing to restore 100 million hectares (250 million acres) of degraded forests and landscapes by 2030.
- A June 2022 progress report on the initiative showed that nations had put 917,014 hectares (2.27 million acres) under restoration between 2016 and 2021, 63% of that as agroforestry.
- Malawi, which has committed to restoring 4.5 million hectares (11.1 million acres) by 2030, is seen to be making progress with a raft of frameworks formulated to support the initiative and more partners joining the cause, building on some previous interventions.
- Experts insist there needs to be decisive action to tackle deforestation, which they say is a significant threat to the restoration initiatives in Malawi.

Protected areas store a year’s worth of CO₂ emissions, study reveals
- Researchers analyzed never-before-used satellite data to calculate how much carbon is stored in protected areas worldwide.
- The Amazon Rainforest’s protected areas accounted for the highest rate of carbon stock, according to the unprecedented study.
- The results can help policymakers and conservationists assess areas for protection to fight climate change — and not just forests.

Deforestation linked to less rainfall, study shows; El Niño could make it worse
- A new study shows concerning links between deforestation and reduced precipitation in tropical regions, which can in turn lead to reduced agricultural yields and food security issues.
- Now, researchers are concerned about the potential for another El Niño, which typically brings hotter, drier conditions to tropical regions, particularly in Southeast Asia, and can compound the effects of deforestation and reduced rainfall.
- The 2015-16 El Niño triggered crop losses, disease outbreaks, malnutrition and food insecurity, livestock deaths and other hardships that affected 60 million people globally; researchers say these trends signal the need for greater climate resilience in local communities.

Expedition to Pacific ecosystems hopes to learn from their resilience
- An expedition led by National Geographic’s Pristine Seas project will voyage across the Pacific over five years to gather information about marine ecosystems needing protection.
- The Pristine Seas team will collaborate with Pacific island nation governments, communities, Indigenous and local peoples, and local scientists, to gather data and produce films.
- The first stop of the expedition will be the southern Line Islands, part of Kiribati, to understand how its reefs recovered after an El Niño triggered a large-scale bleaching event in 2015 and 2016.

Head of Verra, top carbon credit certifier, to leave in June
- David Antonioli is the founding CEO of Verra, the world’s most prominent carbon credit standards organization.
- Antonioli will leave the post in June amid increasing scrutiny of carbon markets and credits, as well as the methodologies by which they are certified to ensure they provide climate benefits that do not come at the expense of communities.
- Indigenous groups and forest communities are often key participants in restoration and protection efforts to boost carbon sequestration.
- But they say that little of the financing for climate mitigation flows directly to them, and they also want a more prominent role in the discussions about climate change mitigation projects and the future of mechanisms like carbon credits and markets.

Climate change is no joke for Australians, says award-winning comedian Dan Ilic
- Despite citizens voting out the Scott Morrison-led government of Australia in 2022, Dan Ilic says there’s still a lot of talk around climate change policy with not enough action to meet national climate targets.
- Known widely for his epic billboards appearing in New York’s Times Square during the COP26 climate summit satirizing Australia’s lack of seriousness at the conference, Ilic is host of the award-winning Australian comedy/climate-focused podcast “A Rational Fear” and spoke with the Mongabay Newscast in Sydney about the landscape surrounding climate policy in the country today.
- He also shares his thoughts on victories for Indigenous communities in the Tiwi Islands and the Galilee Basin, both in Australia, where massive fossil fuel proposals were recently blocked.

Melting Arctic sea ice is changing bowhead whale migrations, study finds
- Research has found that some bowhead whales in the Bering–Chukchi–Beaufort (BCB) population are no longer migrating to the northwestern Bering Sea in the winter but remain in the Canadian Beaufort Sea.
- These migratory shifts are occurring as sea ice declines in the region due to climate change.
- These changes could mean that bowhead whales become more susceptible to ship strikes, underwater noise, and entanglements, and that Indigenous communities may not be able to rely on bowhead whales for nutrition and cultural subsistence.
- However, this bowhead population is currently not threatened, and these changes may not be fully impacting Indigenous communities yet.

An Asian grass helps Mexican farmers build resilience to climate change
- A longtime ingredient in fragrances, vetiver is becoming an ally for farmers facing the impacts of climate change.
- Planting vetiver grass in tropical and subtropical regions is a cheap and simple way to prevent soil erosion, capture carbon dioxide and detoxify the soil, with this nature-based solution already in use for decades in India and now becoming increasingly popular elsewhere.
- In Mexico, where 76% of the land suffers from erosion, one environmental expert in Veracruz state has become a pioneer in using vetiver to stop soil erosion.
- The method used on a tobacco farm helped reduce crop loss and improve harvests significantly in just its first year of implementation.

Studies show oyster reef restoration can work out well — given enough time
- Researchers have found that the restoration of eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) reefs in the U.S. have been largely successful, improving oyster production, enhancing habitat, and increasing nitrogen cycling.
- They also found that oyster restoration was more successful in deeper, saltier parts of coastal waters and that it generally took at least eight years for restored reefs to yield long-term benefits.
- But since the 1800s, more than 85% of global reefs have disappeared due to overfishing, disease and other anthropogenic pressures.
- Researchers say their findings can help restoration managers identify which ecosystem services can benefit from their work, how long those benefits might take to accrue, where to construct oyster reefs.

In Indonesia, clouds form over East Java’s promising band of avocado growers
- Global avocado production is rising to meet demand from increasingly health-conscious consumers.
- South and Central American producers remain the world’s largest, but production in Indonesia is rising quickly.
- Farmers have found new ways to increase value, but research shows rising temperatures and increased rainfall threaten to undermine productivity.

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.

Crud-to-crude: The global potential of biofuels made from human waste
- Creating liquid biofuels from human waste shows promise as a way to meet one of alternative energy’s greatest challenges: reducing the transportation sector’s heavy carbon footprint. The good news is there is a steady supply stream where waste is treated.
- Humanity produces millions of tons of sewage sludge annually via wastewater treatment. Existing disposal methods include landfilling, application on agricultural land, and incineration; each with social and environmental consequences.
- Harnessing the carbon-rich potential of sludge as a transportation fuel for planes, ships and trucks is part of a drive toward zero waste and creating a circular economy, say experts. A host of projects are underway to prove the effectiveness of various methods of turning all this crud into biocrude.
- Some techniques show promise in lab and pilot tests, but large-scale industrial plants have yet to be built. Using pollutant-laden sewage sludge as a biofuel comes with its own environmental concerns, but lacking a silver-bullet solution to the human waste problem, it could be part of a suite of best alternatives.

Australia bushfires may have caused global climate phenomenon La Niña: Study
- The 2019-2020 Australian bushfires threw up so much ash into the atmosphere that it resulted in a cooling of the southern Pacific and hence a La Niña climate phenomenon, a new study says.
- Volcanic eruptions that send vast ash plumes into the atmosphere are thought to trigger La Niña events, but this is the first time a fire has been recorded as doing so.
- La Niña can produce ruinous weather conditions in contrasting ways, from additional hurricanes in North America and droughts in the Horn of Africa, to crop failures in South America.
- The study’s findings call into question the assumption in current climate models that biomass emissions — including from bushfires — will decrease over time.

Seabird conservation mostly works, comprehensive new data set shows
- Researchers compiled a data set of seabird restoration projects, including those that used translocation and social attraction, from around the world.
- Ornithologist Stephen Kress pioneered translocation and social attraction, but these methods have been used more than 850 times in the last 70 years — mostly to great success.
- Experts say seabirds are one of the most threatened bird groups in the world, and translocation and social attraction can help protect them against threats like invasive species and the impacts of climate change.

Dhaka faces manifold problems as water bodies diminish
- A study by the Bangladesh Institute of Planners, or BIP, says the capital has lost 36% of its water bodies since 2010.
- Dhaka city has experienced water scarcity during dry months, which puts a strain on firefighters as they battle large fire; during monsoon months, the city experiences regular waterlogging as water retention points fill up.
- The disappearance of water bodies has created multifaceted problems like rising water levels, airborne disease, and mosquito-related diseases.
- In 2000, the government passed the Natural Water Reservoir Conservation Act, which mandates that natural water bodies be kept intact.

As Exxon bows out, industry takes step toward sustainable algae biofuels
- In February, ExxonMobil gave up its decade-long attempt to cultivate algae as a profitable and scalable feedstock for biofuel — a liquid alternative energy source needed to power aviation, ocean-going ships, and long-distance trucking, while also combating climate change.
- That corporate setback was offset by advances elsewhere in the industry: California-based algae biofuel company Viridos, which lost ExxonMobil as its partner, raised $25 million this year as it gained United Airlines, Chevron and Breakthrough Energy Ventures as investors to keep its algae project moving toward commercialization.
- Also, this year, the U.S. Department of Energy Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) funded four major algae biofuel and biomass projects to chart scalable production processes and achieve low-carbon intensity efficiency.
- Several of these algae initiatives are now moving from basic R&D into pilot programs, with scaled-up commercial production possibly just a few years away, according to industry experts. Environmentalists are concerned about future land, energy and fertilizer impacts during production, though say it is too early to assess potential commercialization effects.

Indigenous groups voice support for REDD+, despite flaws
- A letter published May 9 and signed by a group of Indigenous-led organizations backs a mechanism for providing compensation in return for forest protection efforts known as REDD+, which is short for “reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.”
- The aim of REDD+ is to provide results-based funding for economic development tied to those protection efforts, with financing coming from credits sold to companies and individuals to account for their carbon emissions.
- But critics question how carbon credits are calculated, and others have concerns about the lack of consent and participation by Indigenous and local communities most affected by REDD+ work.
- The letter argues that REDD+, in despite its shortcomings, is one of the few direct funding flows to communities for climate-related work, and they call for greater inclusion in the broader conversation about REDD+ and carbon credits and offsets.

‘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.

Bringing the ocean’s vast ‘awesomeness’ to light: Q&A with Farah Obaidullah
- “The Ocean and Us,” edited by ocean advocate Farah Obaidullah, provides information from more than 35 female experts on various topics related to the ocean.
- These cover, among others, climate change, overfishing, pollution, ocean management schemes, the human relationship with the ocean, and inclusion and diversity in the ocean space.
- The book helps fulfill the aims of “ocean literacy,” a concept identified by the United Nations as a key driver for achieving the U.N. Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development outcomes.
- “The Ocean and Us” was published by Springer Nature in February 2023.

Drying wetlands and drought threaten water supplies in Kenya’s Kiambu County
- Prolonged drought in Kenya has caused a water crisis, threatening local livelihoods and biodiversity; one of the badly affected areas is Kiambu County, a region normally known for its high agricultural productivity.
- Human activities such as dumping, encroachment and overgrazing coupled with dire effects of climate change exacerbate the degradation of wetlands, worsening the water crisis.
- Scientists say that conservation efforts must center around local communities to ensure the restoration of natural resources and combat the impacts of climate change.

Amid changing climate, Bangladesh farming groups conserve indigenous rice seeds
- Bangladesh, the fourth biggest rice-producing country in the world, produces around 39 million tons of rice annually to feed its 170 million people, with 130 lab-developed high-yielding varieties.
- For higher production, farmers have turned to a few high-yielding varieties, despite having around 1,000 indigenous varieties that have better adaptive quality amid changing climatic patterns; the trend has forced many traditional varieties to go extinct.
- By cultivating indigenous rice varieties, some farmers are fighting back against monoculture, and a few nongovernmental conservation organizations, as well as individuals, are creating awareness about protecting local varieties.
- Bangladesh Resource Center for Indigenous Knowledge (BARCIK) alone is conserving more than 600 local rice varieties and engaging with farmers across the country.

A caribou hunter and researchers uncover the impact of climate change on Arctic hunting
- Indigenous communities in the Alaskan and Canadian Arctic have relied on the migratory Porcupine caribou herd for thousands of years, leading to a deep relationship and respect for the caribou.
- A study found that decreased snowfall, driven by climate change, could make it more difficult for Indigenous communities to travel on snow mobiles to hunt for caribou.
- The study was a collaboration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers who analyzed a rare log of Indigenous knowledge, surveys that hunters completed annually.

Newly published carbon market standards aim to increase integrity, confidence
- The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM), an independent governance body, released a set of core carbon principles (CCPs) intended to provide a “threshold standard” for quality in the global carbon market.
- To earn the CCP label, projects must address governance issues such as verification and transparency, ensure that the emissions reductions and removals of carbon actually happen at claimed levels above what would have been accomplished under the business-as-usual scenario, and adhere to strict guidelines intended to ensure that projects don’t harm communities or the environment, according to the ICVCM’s statement.
- The global voluntary carbon market sits at a pivotal crossroads, as several investigations have raised concerns about how much the projects supported by the purchase of carbon credits actually protect or restore forests as a climate change-mitigation strategy.

Deforestation drives fire risk in Borneo amid a warming climate, study finds
- Annual peatland fires in Indonesia affect ecology, air quality, nutrient distribution of the soil, and human health.
- A modeling study finds that under current climate change projections and with rapid deforestation in Borneo, fire risk increases by the end of the century.
- The findings show that deforestation is a significant factor in fire risk.
- While local governments can’t control global climate change, they work to stem forest lost and invest in reforestation of tropical forests and revitalization of peatlands to mitigate fire risks in the future, researchers say.

As oceans warm, temperate reef species edge closer to extinction, study shows
- New research found that most Australian shallow reef species, including fish, corals, seaweeds and invertebrates, experienced population declines over a decade, mainly in response to warming events driven by human-induced climate change.
- While scientists recorded species decline across Australian waters, some of the most pronounced changes occurred on the temperate reefs of southern Australia, a region that has received less conservation attention than tropical reefs.
- The authors say temperate reefs could be in greater danger of extinction than tropical species, leading to calls for increased conservation efforts for these threatened ecosystems.

Fish kills leave Kenya’s Lake Victoria farmers at a loss, seeking answers
- According to a Kenyan government report, fish farmers in sections of Lake Victoria lost more than 900 million Kenyan shillings ($7.2 million) in massive fish kills in November 2022.
- Scientists attribute the fish kills to reduced levels of dissolved oxygen likely due to a natural phenomenon called upwelling, which can be exacerbated by climate change and extreme weather.
- Local farmers who lost their fish, however, attribute the die-offs to pollution from Lake Victoria industries, which agencies have accused of discharging untreated effluent into the lake in recent years.

Southern atmospheric rivers drive irreversible melting of Arctic sea ice: Study
- Arctic sea ice extent has reached its winter maximum extent for 2023 at 14.62 million sq. km., the fifth lowest on record. Combined with this year’s unprecedentedly small Antarctic sea ice summer minimum extent, global sea ice coverage reached a record low in January.
- Arctic sea ice is not only receding, but also seriously thinning. New research has found that a huge melt in 2007 and associated ocean warming kicked off a “regime shift” to thinner, younger, more mobile and transient ice that may be “irreversible.”
- A big reason why Arctic sea ice is declining even in the frigid polar winter is that atmospheric rivers, which carry warmth and rainfall like the deluges seen in California recently, are surging up from the south and penetrating the Arctic more often.

Can we fix our failing food systems? Agroecology has answers
- The U.S. has an industrialized and unsustainable food system that depletes non-renewable resources such as groundwater and soil, and this model has been exported widely around the world, a top agriculture author explains on this episode of the Mongabay Newscast.
- Two regions where these impacts and depletion are being felt most are in California’s Central Valley and on America’s Great Plains.
- Consistent overproduction of commodities such as soy, milk and corn under an agribusiness model that pursues constant profits despite a local lack of demand exacerbates the problem, says Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future research associate Tom Philpott.
- An author and former food journalist for Mother Jones and Grist, Philpott joins the podcast to talk about these acute problems and what can be done to reform unsustainable food systems with practices like agroecology.

Sagarmatha microbes may survive harsh conditions for decades
- Researchers have found microbes on Mount Everest that can survive harsh winds and conditions at some of the world’s highest elevations.
- The research comes at a time when scientists say melting glaciers and permafrost could reawaken viruses and bacteria as the climate warms.
- However, the microbes found on Mount Everest, which were possibly transported by humans through their coughing and sneezing, are unlikely to grow and reproduce, said University of Colorado Boulder scientist Steve Schmidt, a co-author of a new study on the team’s findings.

A liquid biofuels primer: Carbon-cutting hopes vs. real-world impacts
- Liquid biofuels are routinely included in national policy pathways to cut carbon emissions and transition to “net-zero.” Biofuels are particularly tasked with reducing emissions from “hard-to-decarbonize” sectors, such as aviation.
- Three generations of biofuel sources — corn, soy, palm oil, organic waste, grasses and other perennial cellulose crops, algae, and more — have been funded, researched and tested as avenues to viable low-carbon liquid fuels. But technological and upscaling challenges have repeatedly frustrated their widespread use.
- Producing biofuels can do major environmental harm, including deforestation and biodiversity loss due to needed cropland expansion, with biofuel crops sometimes displacing important food crops, say critics. In some instances, land use change for biofuels can add to carbon emissions rather than curbing them.
- Some experts suggest that the holy grail of an efficient biofuel is still obtainable, with much to be learned from past experiments. Others say we would be better off abandoning this techno fix, investing instead in electrifying the transportation grid to save energy, and rewilding former biofuel croplands to store more carbon.

Make it local: Deforestation link to less Amazon rainfall tips activism shift
- A new study supports mounting evidence that deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest correlates with a reduction in regional rainfall.
- Experts say this research reinforces the findings of other studies that claim the Amazon is leaning toward its “tipping point” and the southern regions are gradually becoming drier.
- Environmentalists see this research as an opportunity to reshape conservation activism and policy towards local communities.

As Himalayas thaw, snow leopards scramble for habitat: Q&A with Bikram Shrestha
- Snow leopards face a severe prospect of both a shrinking range and fragmented populations as climate change makes their Himalayan homeland less hospitable.
- Bikram Shrestha is a leading snow leopard researcher in Nepal, where he says it’s possible there may not be habitable space for the big cat as temperatures rise.
- He says a key action to conserving snow leopards is to ensure a plentiful supply of prey species, which means ensuring there’s enough suitable habitat for species like Himalayan tahrs and martens.
- Shrestha spoke with Mongabay’s Abhaya Raj Joshi about the need for more research into the world’s most elusive big cat, the prospect of conflict with humans, and why some locals want snow leopards killed.

Amazon deforestation linked to reduced Tibetan snows, Antarctic ice loss: Study
- Earth’s climate is controlled by a complex network of interactions between the atmosphere, oceans, lands, ice and biosphere. Many elements in this system are now being pushed toward tipping points, beyond which changes become self-sustaining, with the whole Earth system potentially shifting to a new steady state.
- A recent study analyzed 40 years of air temperature measurements at more than 65,000 locations to investigate how changes in one region rippled through the climate system to affect temperatures in other parts of the globe. Computer models then simulated how these links may be affected by future climate change.
- Researchers identified a strong correlation between high temperatures in the Amazon Rainforest and on the Tibetan Plateau. They found a similar relationship between temperatures in the Amazon and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
- Deforestation in the Amazon likely influences the Tibetan Plateau via a convoluted 20,000-kilometer (12,400-mile) pathway driven by atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns. The study suggests that a healthy, functioning Amazon is crucial not only for the regional climate in Brazil, but for the whole Earth system.

Climate change is exacerbating human-wildlife conflict, but solutions await: Study
- A review of 49 studies reveals that a variety of weather-related phenomena that are likely to become increasingly common due to climate change may increase human-wildlife conflict.
- The most commonly reported conflict outcomes were injury or death in people (43% of studies) and wildlife (45% of studies), and loss of crops or livestock (45% of studies). Many documented cases are occurring in the tropics, with animals such as Baird’s tapir (Tapirus bairdii) in Mexico, and elephants in Africa and Asia, increasingly coming into conflict with local communities.
- The impacts of climate change on human-wildlife conflict may especially affect vulnerable human populations, particularly when combined with pressures that limit mobility and flexibility in humans and animals. These stressors should be minimized where possible, researchers suggest.
- A better understanding of the climatic drivers of human-wildlife conflict could help prevent or alleviate conflicts. Predicting the onset of extreme weather events such as droughts, and proactively responding with temporary measures to protect animals and people, could be one effective solution, as could sharing information on how to avoid the hazards of wildlife conflict.

Himalayan catfight looms as tigers, leopards venture into snow leopard land
- A warming climate threatens to push Nepal’s three big cat species — tigers, leopards and snow leopards — into closer proximity to each other, with unknown consequences for the survival of each.
- Conventional wisdom says tigers prevail in the country’s southern plains, leopards in the mid-country hill region, and snow leopards in the Himalayas.
- But both tigers and leopards have been observed at elevations above 3,000 meters (9,800 feet), well within snow leopard territory, although conservationists say tigers are less likely to persist at these altitudes over the long term.
- A complicating factor is the role of humans, with human settlements also moving up in altitude in search of more suitable conditions, and putting all four apex species in direct competition.

Machine learning makes long-term, expansive reef monitoring possible
- Conservationists can now monitor climate impacts to expansive marine ecosystems over extended periods of time, a task that used to be impossible, using a tool developed by scientists in the U.S.
- The machine learning tool, called Delta Maps, provides a new way to assess which reefs might be best suited for survival, and which play a key role in delivering larvae to others, and therefore should be targeted for preservation efforts, according to the scientists.
- The scientists used the tool to examine the impacts of climate change on connectivity and biodiversity in the Pacific Ocean’s Coral Triangle, the planet’s most diverse and biologically complex marine ecosystem.
- The authors also noted that the Coral Triangle had more opportunities for rebuilding biodiversity, thanks to the region’s dynamic climate component, than anywhere else on the planet.

Carbon uptake in tropical forests withers in drier future: Study
- A new study incorporating satellite data on organic material, or biomass, in tropical forests with experimental data about the effects of temperature and precipitation suggests that forests may lose substantial amounts of carbon by the end of the 21st century.
- Even with low continued carbon emissions, tropical forests, especially those in the southern Amazon, could lose between 6.8 and 12% of their aboveground carbon. With higher emissions, they could lose 13.3 to 20.1% of their carbon stores.
- The results highlight the need to reduce global temperatures rapidly to maintain the healthy forests best able to sequester carbon from the atmosphere.
- The team reported their findings Feb. 6 in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Podcast: Goodbye to blue skies? The trouble with engineered solutions
- Humanity has created a lot of ecological problems, and many of the proposed solutions come with giant price tags — or the things lost can even be priceless, like the sight of a blue sky — with no guarantee of solving the situation in the long term.
- Many such solutions — like Australia’s deliberate introduction of the toxic cane toad, which has wreaked havoc on the country’s wildlife — create new problems.
- Solar geoengineering to slow climate change would have the most visible effect to all, likely making the sky appear white: No more blue skies—but how would this affect the global plant community’s ability to photosynthesize, would it harm agriculture?
- Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Kolbert joins the Mongabay Newscast to talk about her latest book, “Under a White Sky,” which examines these interventions, the problems they come with and humanity’s seeming inability to stop turning to them.

On Lombok, rising sea levels force fishers into different jobs
- Residents of the Indonesian island of Lombok say sea levels are rising at alarming levels, swallowing seaside towns.
- People are abandoning their family trade of fishing to instead grow seaweed or leave the island for stable employment.
- The provincial government created a climate adaptation task force to address the compounding problems of climate change, as families send their children to school and hope they choose a life different from fishing.

Updated guide gives practical advice for buyers of tropical forest carbon credits
- An updated guide written by eight conservation and Indigenous organizations offers a detailed path forward for companies that want to compensate for their carbon emissions in addition to decarbonizing their supply chains.
- Though the carbon market faces criticism over the true value it brings to climate change mitigation, proponents say it can complement earnest efforts to decarbonize supply chains if used properly.
- The updated Tropical Forest Credit Integrity guide calls for due diligence on the part of companies to ensure the credits they purchase will result in climate gains.
- The authors of the guide also stress the importance of including Indigenous peoples and local communities in decisions about offset efforts.

Peatland restoration in temperate nations could be carbon storage bonanza
- Much maligned and undervalued over the centuries, temperate peatlands have seen a lot damage in that time — drained for agriculture, planted with trees, mined for horticulture and fuel. But in an age of escalating climate change, people are now turning to restoration.
- As potent carbon sequesters, peatlands have only recently been given new attention, with active restoration taking place in many nations around the world. This story focuses on groundbreaking temperate peatland restoration efforts in the U.S. Southeast, Scotland and Canada.
- Every temperate peatland is different, making each restoration project unique, but the goal is almost always the same: restore the natural hydrology of the peatland so it can maximize carbon storage and native biodiversity, and improve its resilience in the face of climate change and increasingly common fires in a warming world.

Pollution and climate change set stage for rise in antimicrobial resistance
- A new report from the United Nations Environment Programme illustrates the role that pollution, climate change and biodiversity loss can play in the development of antimicrobial resistance.
- The compounds used to treat bacterial, viral, parasitic and fungal infections have saved countless lives, but their overuse and their presence in the environment from human waste, agriculture and effluent from the pharmaceutical industry and places like hospitals has given rise to resistance to these chemicals in potentially harmful microbes.
- If this resistance continues to increase, experts warn that an additional 10 million people may lose their lives by 2050 — about the same number who died of cancer in 2020.
- The report’s authors recommend stronger safeguards around industrial runoff, better sanitation and more judicious use of antimicrobials to address this potential crisis.

Forest modeling misses the water for the carbon: Q&A with Antonio Nobre & Anastassia Makarieva
- An expanded understanding of forests’ role in moisture transport and heat regulation raises the stakes on the health of the Amazon Rainforest and the need to stop cutting trees.
- The biotic pump theory, conceived by scientists Anastassia Makarieva and the late Victor Gorshkov, suggests that forests’ impact on hydrology and cooling exceeds the role of carbon embodied in trees.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Makarieva and Brazilian scientist Antonio Nobre explain how the theory makes the case for a more urgent approach by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to protect the Amazon.

An El Niño is forecast for 2023. How much coral will bleach this time?
- Forecasts suggest that an El Niño climate pattern could begin later this year, raising sea temperatures at a time when global temperatures are already higher than ever due to human-driven climate change.
- If an El Niño develops and it becomes a moderate to severe event, it could raise global temperatures by more than 1.5°C (2.7°F) above pre-industrial levels, the threshold set by the Paris Agreement.
- An El Niño would generate many impacts on both terrestrial and marine ecosystems, including the potential for droughts, fires, increased precipitation, coral bleaching, invasions of predatory marine species like crown-of-thorns starfish, disruptions to marine food chains, and kelp forest die-offs.

Pollinator declines linked to half million early human deaths annually: Study
- A new modeling study finds that half a million people are currently dying prematurely every year due to global insect pollinator decline because of lack of availability and/or high price of healthy foods such as nuts, legumes, fruits and vegetables.
- Robust epidemiological research has linked higher fruit, vegetable and nut intake to lowered mortality from many major chronic diseases like heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes.
- Researchers assessed the problem nationally: Middle-income countries, including Russia, China and India, are among the hardest hit, as are Indonesia, Vietnam and Myanmar, though surprisingly, parts of Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa were among the least affected. Wealthy nations were more immune from pollinator decline.
- Experts say multiple solutions are readily available: Wild pollinators can be significantly increased by protecting existing, and creating new, pollinator habitat at the farm and national level, by reducing and eliminating the use of harmful pesticides like neonicotinoids, and by effectively combating climate change.

Temperature extremes, plus ecological marginalization, raise species risk: Studies
- In a business-as-usual carbon emissions scenario — humanity’s current trajectory — two in five land vertebrates could be exposed to temperatures equal to, or exceeding, the hottest temperatures of the past decades across at least half of their range by 2099. If warming could be kept well below 2°C (3.6°F), that number drops to 6%, according to a new study.
- More than one in eight mammal species have already lost part of their former geographical range. In many cases, this means those species no longer have access to some (or sometimes any) of their core habitat, making it much more difficult to survive in a warming world.
- When animal populations continue to decline in an area even after it has been protected, one possible explanation may be that the conserved habitat is marginal compared to that found in the species’ historical range.
- In the light of recent pledges to protect 30% of the planet’s surface, it is important to prioritize the right areas. The focus should be on conserving core habitat — which is often highly productive and already intensively used by humans — while respecting the rights and needs of Indigenous people, many of whom have also been pushed to the margins.

With climate change, Nepal’s leopards get a bigger range — and more problems
- Climate change will make higher-elevation areas of Nepal suitable habitat for leopards, a new study shows.
- This is expected to push the big cats into increased conflict with humans and more competition with snow leopards.
- Most of the current and new habitat will fall outside protected areas, and the leopards’ preferred prey may not be available there, which could prompt the predators to hunt livestock.
- But the finding could also be an opportunity to conserve leopards in their potential new habitat, by educating communities there, ensuring availability of wild prey, and drawing up wildlife management plans.

Re-carbonizing the sea: Scientists to start testing a big ocean carbon idea
- Ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) involves releasing certain minerals into the ocean, sparking a chemical reaction that enables the seawater to trap more CO₂ from the air and mitigating, albeit temporarily, ocean acidification.
- Some scientists believe OAE could be a vital tool for drawing down and securely storing some of the excess CO₂ humanity has added to the atmosphere that is now fueling climate change.
- Yet many questions about OAE remain, including most prominently how it would impact marine life and ecosystems.
- Several programs are aiming to spark the research needed to answer these questions, including field tests in the ocean.

The EU banned Russian wood pellet imports; South Korea took them all
- In July 2022, the European Union responded to the war in Ukraine by banning the import of Russian woody biomass used to make energy. At roughly the same time, South Korea drastically upped its Russian woody biomass imports, becoming the sole official importer of Russian wood pellets for industrial energy use.
- The EU has reportedly replaced its Russian supplies of woody biomass by importing wood pellets from the U.S. and Eastern Europe. But others say that trade data and paper trails indicate a violation of the EU ban, with laundered Russian wood pellets possibly flowing through Turkey, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to multiple EU nations.
- EU pellet imports from Turkey grew from 2,200 tons monthly last spring to 16,000 tons in September. Imports from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan reportedly rose too, even though neither has a forest industry. A large body of scientific evidence shows that woody biomass adds significantly to climate change and biodiversity loss.
- Enviva, the world’s largest woody biomass producer, which operates chiefly in the Southeast U.S., may be the big winner in the Russian biomass ban. Since the war began, Enviva has upped EU shipments, and also announced a 10-year contract with an unnamed European customer to deliver 800,000 metric tons of pellets annually by 2027.

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.

Extreme heat takes a toll on tropical countries’ economies
- Extreme heat costs tropical countries more than 5% of their annual per capita GDP, new research shows, while more prosperous mid-latitude countries lose only about a 1% of GDP due to heat waves, which can even bolster economic growth in some instances.
- Poorer tropical countries suffer the worst effects of heat waves despite being least culpable and least economically capable of adapting.
- The effects of extreme heat and drought can hit hard in local communities, such as among Kenyan families who rely on cattle they can no longer feed.

Protecting canids from planet-wide threats offers ecological opportunities
- Five species within the Canidae family are considered endangered. These species, while found far apart in North and South America, Asia and Africa, often share similar threats, including habitat loss, persecution, disease and climate change.
- For some at-risk canid species, loss of prey, particularly due to snaring, is a significant concern that can also exacerbate human-wildlife conflict. Ecosystem-level conservation that protects prey species populations is required to protect canids and other carnivore species, experts say.
- Conservationists and researchers emphasize that canids play important roles in maintaining the habitats in which they live. That makes protecting these predators key to restoring and maintaining functional ecosystems.
- In the face of widespread global biodiversity loss, some canid reintroductions are taking place and proving successful. These rewilding efforts are offering evidence of the importance of canids to healthy ecosystems and to reducing various ecosystem-wide threats, even potentially helping curb climate change.

2022’s top ocean news stories (commentary)
- Marine scientists from the University of California, Santa Barbara, share their list of the top 10 ocean news stories from 2022.
- Hopeful developments this past year include the launch of negotiations on the world’s first legally binding international treaty to curb plastic pollution, a multilateral agreement to ban harmful fisheries subsidies and a massive expansion of global shark protections.
- At the same time, the climate crises in the ocean continued to worsen, with a number of record-breaking marine heat waves and an accelerated thinning of ice sheets that could severely exacerbate sea level rise, underscoring the need for urgent ocean-climate actions.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

The Netherlands to stop paying subsidies to ‘untruthful’ biomass firms
- On December 5, 2022, Mongabay featured a story by journalist Justin Catanoso in which the first ever biomass industry insider came forward as a whistleblower and discredited the green sustainability claims made by Enviva — the world’s largest maker of wood pellets for energy.
- On December 15, citing that article and recent scientific evidence that Enviva contributes to deforestation in the U.S. Southeast, The Netherlands decided it will stop paying subsidies to any biomass company found to be untruthful in its wood pellet production methods. The Netherlands currently offers sizable subsidies to Enviva.
- Precisely how The Netherlands decision will impact biomass subsidies in the long run is unclear. Nor is it known how this decision may impact the EU’s Sustainable Biomass Program (SBP) certification process, which critics say is inherently weak and unreliable.
- Also in December, Australia became the first major nation to reverse its designation of forest biomass as a renewable energy source, raising questions about how parties to the UN Paris agreement can support opposing renewable energy policies, especially regarding biomass — a problem for COP28 negotiators to resolve in 2023.

Australia rejects forest biomass in first blow to wood pellet industry
- On December 15, Australia became the first major economy worldwide to reverse itself on its renewable classification for woody biomass burned to make energy. Under the nation’s new policy, wood harvested from native forests and burned to produce energy cannot be classified as a renewable energy source.
- That decision comes as the U.S., Canada, Eastern Europe, Vietnam and other forest nations continue gearing up to harvest their woodlands to make massive amounts of wood pellets, in order to supply biomass-fired power plants in the UK, EU, Japan, South Korea and elsewhere.
- In the EU, forest advocates continue with last-ditch lobbying efforts to have woody biomass stripped of its renewable energy designation, and end the ongoing practice of providing large subsidies to the biomass industry for wood pellets.
- Science has found that biomass burning releases more carbon dioxide emissions per unit of energy produced than coal. Australia’s decision, and the EU’s continued commitment to biomass, creates a conundrum for policymakers: How can major economies have different definitions of renewable energy when it comes to biomass?

Brazil’s Pantanal is at risk of collapse, scientists say
- Though the Pantanal is 93% privately owned, this vast Brazilian tropical wetland remains a stronghold for jaguars and untold other species, and connects animals with the Amazon, Cerrado and other biomes.
- A confluence of human activities in Brazil and worldwide — including deforestation and climate change — are heating and drying this watery landscape, threatening the entire ecosystem with drought, wildfires and habitat loss.
- Now, a plan to dredge and straighten the Paraguay River that feeds the Pantanal could serve as the death knell for this vast wetland ecosystem.
- There’s hope that president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who campaigned on an environmental platform, will initiate stewardship that stops Pantanal deforestation and the waterway project, helping curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Global study reveals widespread salt marsh decline
- The world lost 1,453 square kilometers (561 square miles) of salt marsh between 2000 and 2019, an area twice the size of Singapore, according to a new study based on satellite imagery.
- In addition to providing wildlife habitat and numerous ecosystem services, salt marshes store a great deal of carbon.
- Salt marsh loss resulted in 16.3 teragrams, or 16.3 million metric tons, of carbon emissions per year, according to the study. That’s the rough equivalent of the output of around 3.5 million cars.
- Climate change is one of the greatest threats to marshes. Other contributors to their global decline include conversion to aquaculture, coastal erosion, eutrophication, drainage, mangrove encroachment and invasive species.

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.

In Sierra Leone’s fishing villages, a reality check for climate aid
- In April, Mongabay’s Ashoka Mukpo visited the Sherbro estuary, a sprawling riverine ecosystem of mangroves and coastal fishing villages on the Sierra Leonean coastline.
- Like other coastal areas in West Africa, the Sherbro estuary is already suffering the impacts of climate change, including flooding and higher temperatures.
- Between 2016 and 2021, USAID financed mangrove replanting and the construction of makeshift seawalls in villages here as part of a coastal climate resilience aid project.
- The project’s struggles here are an example of the difficulties that climate aid efforts can face when they meet the economic and social needs of people in vulnerable areas.

In Brazil’s agricultural heartland, rivers run dry as monoculture advances
- The Paraná River Basin has suffered an unprecedented drought since 2021, affecting hydropower generation, river-borne food shipments, and freshwater supplies for 40 million people across Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay.
- In Brazil, the prolonged drought has hit some of the region’s most important reserves, including Várzeas do Rio Ivinhema State Park, which houses one of the last slices of forest in Mato Grosso do Sul state and acts as a refuge for hundreds of species.
- The drought has drained lagoons in the park, made parts of the reserve more prone to wildfires, and disrupted the breeding cycles of native birds.
- Environmentalists blame the advance of large-scale monoculture in the region, which has cleared most of the forests and ushered in changes in rain patterns and droughts.

Threatened cloud forests key to billions of dollars worth of hydropower: Report
- Payments for the provision of water by cloud forests for hydropower could produce income for countries and bolster the case for the forests’ protection, a new report reveals.
- These fog-laden forests occur on tropical mountains, with about 90% found in just 25 countries.
- Cloud forests are threatened by climate change, agricultural expansion, logging and charcoal production, and studies have shown that the quality and quantity of water that these forests generate is tied to keeping them healthy.

Climate change is hammering insects — in the tropics and everywhere else: Scientists
- A new review paper finds that climate change is pounding insects in a wide variety of ways all over the world.
- Because insects are so sensitive to temperature change, climate change is impacting them directly, including potentially decreasing their ability to breed.
- But climate change is also causing insects to change their behavior as it shifts seasonal beginnings and ends, risking that insects will act out of sync with the rest of the environment on which they depend. Climate change-intensified drought, extreme precipitation, lengthening heat waves, and fires are also harming insects.
- The best way to protect insects? Combat climate change and safeguard micro-habitats.

As EU finalizes renewable energy plan, forest advocates condemn biomass
- The EU hopes to finalize its revised Renewable Energy Directive (RED) soon, even as forest advocates urge last minute changes to significantly cut the use of woody biomass for energy and make deep reductions in EU subsidies to the wood pellet industry.
- Forest advocates are citing a new commentary published in Nature that argues that the EU’s continued expansive commitment to burning forest biomass for energy will endanger forests in the EU, the U.S. and elsewhere — resulting in a major loss in global carbon storage and biodiversity.
- Changing RED to meet forest advocate recommendations seems unlikely at this point, with some policymakers arguing that woody biomass use is the only way the EU can achieve its 2030 coal reduction target. The woody biomass industry is pressing for sustained biomass use and for continued subsidies.
- Russia’s threat of reducing or cutting off its supply of natural gas to the EU this winter is also at issue. In the EU today, 60% of energy classified as renewable comes from burning biomass. If RED is approved as drafted, bioenergy use is projected to double between 2015 and 2050, according to the just published Nature commentary.

Whistleblower: Enviva claim of ‘being good for the planet… all nonsense’
- Enviva is the largest maker of wood pellets burned for energy in the world. The company has, from its inception, touted its green credentials.
- It says it doesn’t use big, whole trees, but only uses wood waste, “tops, limbs, thinnings, and/or low-value smaller trees” in the production of woody biomass burned in former coal power plants in the U.K., EU and Asia. It says it only sources wood from areas where trees will be regrown, and that it doesn’t contribute to deforestation.
- However, in first-ever interviews with a whistleblower who worked within Enviva plant management, Mongabay contributor Justin Catanoso has been told that all of these Enviva claims are false. In addition, a major recent scientific study finds that Enviva is contributing to deforestation in the U.S. Southeast.
- Statements by the whistleblower have been confirmed by Mongabay’s own observations at a November 2022 forest clear-cut in North Carolina, and by NGO photo documentation. These findings are especially important now, as the EU considers the future of forest biomass burning as a “sustainable” form of renewable energy.

Some tree-dwelling primates may adapt more easily to life on the ground, massive study shows
- As deforestation and climate change alter rainforest habitats, monkeys and lemurs that normally live in trees are risking encounters with predators to spend time on the ground.
- Species with diverse diets, smaller body masses, and larger group sizes may adjust to terrestrial life more successfully than others.
- The huge international study drew from more than 150,000 hours of observations of 47 species in Madagascar and Central and South America.

Despite pledges, obstacles stifle community climate and conservation funding
- As science has increasingly shown the importance of conservation led by Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs), donors have begun to steer funding toward supporting the work these groups do.
- In 2021, during last year’s COP26 U.N. climate conference, private and government donors committed $1.7 billion to secure the land rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities.
- But a recent assessment of the first year of the pledge shows that little of the funding goes directly to them, often going first through international NGOs, consultancies, development banks and other intermediaries.
- Most aid intended to support IPLC-led conservation work follows this path. Now, however, donors and IPLC leaders are looking for ways to ease the flow of funding and channel more of it to work that addresses climate change and the global loss of biodiversity.

Where is the money? Brazil, Indonesia and Congo join forces in push for rainforest protection cash
- Representatives of the world’s three forest giants – Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo – have signed a cooperation agreement in Jakarta calling for more funding to help protect half of the world’s rainforests.
- The statement follows a loss of 2.3 million hectares (5.7 million acres) of primary forest in the three countries in 2021, most notably due to skyrocketing deforestation rates in Brazil, responsible for almost 50% of global deforestation last year, according to data by the Global Forest Watch.
- Critics say the joint statement lacks action and real commitment. Others say it is a step in the right direction, and international cooperation is urgent to protect the world’s rainforests.
- At COP27, Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president-elect called on rich countries to pay into their 2009 promise of $100 billion for helping less developed countries face climate change and promised to reverse deforestation trends in his upcoming mandate.

Blue jeans: An iconic fashion item that’s costing the planet dearly
- The production of blue jeans, one of the most popular apparel items ever, has for decades left behind a trail of heavy consumption, diminishing Earth’s water and energy resources, causing pollution, and contributing to climate change. The harm done by the fashion industry has intensified, not diminished, in recent years.
- The making of jeans is water intensive, yet much of the world’s cotton crop is grown in semiarid regions requiring irrigation and pesticide use. As climate change intensifies, irrigation-dependent cotton cultivation and ecological catastrophe are on a collision course, with the Aral Sea’s ecological death a prime example and warning.
- While some major fashion companies have made sustainability pledges, and taken some steps to produce greener blue jeans, the industry has yet to make significant strides toward sustainability, with organic cotton, for example, still only 1% of the business.
- A few fashion companies are changing their operations to be more sustainable and investing in technology to reduce the socioenvironmental impacts of jeans production. But much more remains to be done.

With climate reparations finally on the table at COP27, what now?
- The question of who should pay damages for climate change-induced losses is finally on the table at the COP27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
- While mitigation and adaptation goals aim to curb carbon emissions and prepare for future impacts, loss and damage is concerned with harm already wrought by climatic disruptions or locked in by current emission levels — and with who should foot the bill.
- Emerging research on climate-related damages shows that the U.S. could face the biggest claims for reparations, even though drawing direct causal links between carbon emissions arising in one country and damaging climatic events in another country is complicated.
- “Is there a scientific basis for loss and damage and climate liability? The answer is yes,” says Justin Mankin, a climate scientist at Dartmouth College in the U.S. and co-author of a recent study on calculating climate damages.

Deforestation is pushing Amazon to ‘point of no return’: WWF report
- A new report from the World Wildlife Fund, called the Living Amazon Report, warns that threats to the Amazon have gotten worse in recent years, and could result in the disappearance of the biome if more drastic action isn’t taken.
- Around 18% of Amazon forests are lost and another 17% are highly degraded, the report said.
- If more drastic action isn’t taken, the report said the biome could transition from forest to savanna and push global warming above the safe threshold of 1.5°C.

Agroecology can feed Africa and tackle climate change — with enough funding
- Advocates say agroecological systems are the way to meet the climate crisis in its fullness — from limiting emissions to coping with climatic shocks — provided it gets the support of national governments and international donors.
- They are pushing for agroecology to be considered a climate solution by leaders at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt later this month.
- The agroecology movement is forged around opposition to the mindless transplantation of large-scale industrial agriculture to African countries, which is also one of the major sources of greenhouse gas emissions in more industrialized nations like the U.S.
- But its direct impacts on carbon budgets and effectiveness as an adaptation tool are understudied. Proponents like Bridget Mugambe say this hurdle could be overcome with adequate funding.

Is natural gas the solution to Africa’s energy needs? New research says no.
- Three reports released by the African Climate Foundation analyzed the potential impact of natural gas extraction on the economies of a series of countries in Africa.
- Research for the reports was carried out in partnership with Willis Towers Watson, a British-American insurance risk adviser.
- The groups found that a global transition away from fossil fuels could lead LNG investments in Mozambique, Tanzania and elsewhere to become a drain on public finances in the long term.
- The reports suggested that as the cost of renewable energy declines, LNG-producing governments will also come under pressure to pay expensive, inefficient subsidies for domestic gas consumption.

Who decides on ‘priorities’ for ecosystem restoration?
- A set of maps from research published in 2020 in the journal Nature suggested that restoring ecosystems in “priority areas” offered a cheap and effective way to slow climate change and stem the global loss of species.
- Soon after the study’s release, however, researchers from around the world raised concerns about the areas identified by the study, whether the biodiversity- and climate-related gains would be as substantial as the authors claimed, and how decision-makers might use the maps to guide policy.
- The study aimed to point out optimal spots for restoration based on the biggest boost they could provide to avoid the extinction of species and sequester the most carbon at the lowest costs. But, the authors wrote, the study did not consider “socio-economic issues,” and the maps were not intended to directly inform local implementation.
- The study’s critics say that, in spite of the authors’ intentions, investors and policymakers could use the maps in ways that might not consider the impacts on local communities.

Arctic sea ice loss to increase strong El Niño events linked to extreme weather: Study
- The frequency of strong El Niño events could increase by 35% by the end of the century as Arctic sea ice begins to melt out completely in the summer, according to a recent modeling study. El Niños — buildups of especially warm water in the eastern Pacific off of Peru — often trigger ‘devastating’ droughts, floods and cyclones around the globe.
- The findings provide more evidence that Arctic warming is affecting weather in other parts of the world — not only in the mid-latitudes, but as far away as the tropics.
- Other recent studies have found that sea ice loss is causing rapid acidification of the Arctic Ocean and more extreme precipitation and flooding in Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago located between mainland Norway and the North Pole.

As climate risks intensify in Brazil, election rivals offer few solutions
- Extreme weather events have intensified in Brazil in recent years, claiming hundreds of lives and taking a massive toll on the environment.
- A study documents more than 50,000 natural disasters, mostly caused by severe climate events, between 2013 and 2022, causing losses of $64 billion.
- Experts attribute the toll to the government repeatedly ignoring warnings about climate-related risks and failing to invest in adaptation and prevention measures.
- As the country prepares to elect a president at the end of this month, neither candidate has offered any concrete proposals for the prevention and management of climate disaster risks.

Cambodia’s elites swallow up Phnom Penh’s lakes, leaving the poor marooned
- Lakes in Phnom Penh are fast being filled in and parceled off as prime real estate to wealthy and politically connected individuals.
- Families who have for generations fished and practiced aquaculture on the lakes and surrounding wetlands face eviction and the loss of livelihoods.
- At the same time, experts warn that filling in these natural rainwater reservoirs risks exacerbating flood intensity and damage in the Cambodian capital.
- This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn is a fellow.

A new method assesses health of Chile’s headwaters, and it’s not good news
- Headwaters are vital to ecosystem health and have been difficult to study, but now a group of researchers has developed a new method that relies on remote sensing to assess headwater vulnerability at multiple scales.
- Using the method, they assessed 2,292 headwaters in south-central Chile and found nearly two-thirds of the headwaters were affected by climate change and 23% by land use and land cover change; all of the headwaters were experiencing drought conditions.
- Chile has been in the grip of a megadrought for more than a decade now, with precipitation in south-central Chile decreasing by nearly 40% since 2010. Experts say water management suffers under water privatization, enshrined by the 1980 Constitution.
- Chile and Argentina host the only temperate rainforests in South America, with high levels of endemism, but nearly half of the native forests in the coastal zone of central-southern Chile have been replaced by tree plantations.

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.

2022: Another consequential year for the melting Arctic
- Arctic sea ice extent shrank to its summertime minimum this week — tied with 2017 and 2018 for the 10th lowest ever recorded. However, the last 16 consecutive years have seen the least ice extent since the satellite record began. Polar sea ice extent, thickness and volume all continue trending steeply downward.
- Arctic air temperatures were high this summer, with parts of the region seeing unprecedented heating. Greenland saw air temperatures up to 36° F. above normal in September. Canada’s Northwest Territories saw record highs, hitting the 90s in July. Sea temperatures also remained very high in many parts of the Arctic Ocean.
- Scientists continue to be concerned as climate change warms the far North nearly four times faster than the rest of the planet, sparking concern over how polar warming may be impacting the atmospheric jet stream, intensifying disastrous extreme weather events worldwide, including heat waves, droughts and storms.
- While a mostly ice-free Arctic could occur as early as 2040, scientists emphasize that it needn’t happen. If humanity chooses to act now to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, downward sea ice extent and volume trends could potentially be reversed.

Pandemic dip was just a blip as global emissions rebound, report shows
- A recent report published by the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR), a scientific group associated with the European Commission, found that while global CO2 emissions dropped in 2020, they returned to nearly pre-pandemic levels in 2021.
- The report found that China, the United States, the 27 countries that make up the European Union, India, Russia and Japan continue to be the world’s largest emitters, contributing about 70% of global CO2 emissions. Some of these countries’ emissions continued to rise, but others fell from 2019 levels.
- While experts say the EDGAR report provides a comprehensive view of global emissions, they point to limitations in the data, such as the fact that it only accounts for CO2 but not other greenhouse gas emissions.
- It’s estimated that the world has already warmed about 1.2°C (2.2°F) above pre-industrial levels, but some experts say we can still meet the target of the Paris Agreement targets if nations have the political will to instigate change.

Agulhas Current enigma: An oceanic gap in our climate understanding
- Comprehending the workings of western boundary ocean currents, like those of the Agulhas Current off the South African coast, may hold a key to Earth’s climate system. But understanding this particular current is hampered by a major lack of in-situ data. This gap leaves us in the dark about local, regional and global climate impacts.
- The Agulhas Current, located in the Indian Ocean, is one of the most energetic ocean current systems in the world. Changes to it can impact local weather in South Africa and elsewhere in the Southern Hemisphere, and perhaps influence large-scale climatic changes in the Northern Hemisphere and globally as well.
- However, it is not clear how and what these impacts may be, or when they may occur. With climate change escalating rapidly due to unabated human carbon emissions, it is now more important than ever that we understand the impacts of Southern Hemisphere ocean currents, and integrate their actions into climate models.
- But attempts at long-term monitoring of the Agulhas Current System have not been fully successful. Accomplishments and failures to date have underscored significant local research capacity challenges, and differences in the approach to, and financing of, ocean science in the Global North as compared to the Global South.

How close is the Amazon tipping point? Forest loss in the east changes the equation
- Scientists warn that the Amazon is approaching a tipping point beyond which it would begin to transition from a lush tropical forest into a dry, degraded savanna. This point may be reached when 25% of the forest is lost.
- In a newly released report, the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP) estimates that 13.2% of the original Amazon forest biome has been lost due to deforestation and other causes.
- However, when the map is divided into thirds, it shows that 31% of the eastern Amazon has been lost. Moisture cycles through the forest from east to west, creating up to half of all rainfall across the Amazon. The 31% figure is critical, the report says, “because the tipping point will likely be triggered in the east.”
- Experts say the upcoming elections in Brazil could have dramatic consequences for the Amazon, and to avert the tipping point we must lower emissions, undertake ambitious reforestation projects, and build an economy based on the standing forest. Granting and honoring Indigenous land tenure and protected areas are also key strategies.

More droughts are coming, and the Amazon can’t keep up: Study
- Up to 50% of rainfall in the Amazon comes from the forest itself, as moisture is recycled from the trees to the atmosphere.
- In severe droughts, when the forest loses more water to evaporation than it receives from rain, the trees begin to die. For every three trees that die due to drought in the Amazon rainforest, a fourth tree, even if not directly affected by drought, will also die, according to a new study.
- As trees are lost and the forest dries up, parts of the Amazon will rapidly approach a tipping point, where they will transition into a degraded savanna-like ecosystem with few to no trees.
- The southern and southeastern Amazon are the most vulnerable regions to tipping. Here, deforestation and fires are at their most extreme, driven largely by cattle ranching and soy farming.

EU votes to keep woody biomass as renewable energy, ignores climate risk
- Despite growing public opposition, the European Parliament voted this week not to declassify woody biomass as renewable energy. The forest biomass industry quickly declared victory, while supporters of native forests announced their plan to continue the fight — even in court.
- The EU likely renewed its commitment to burning wood as a source of energy largely to help meet its target of cutting EU carbon emissions by 55% by 2030, something it likely couldn’t achieve without woody biomass (which a carbon accounting loophole counts as carbon neutral, equivalent to wind and solar power).
- Scientific evidence shows that burning wood pellets is a major source of carbon at the smokestack. The European Union also likely continued its embrace of biomass this week as it looks down the barrel of Russian threats to cut off natural gas supplies this winter over the EU’s opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
- While the EU decision maintains that whole trees won’t be subsidized for burning, that natural forests will be protected, and that there will be limits to logging old growth and primary forests, these provisions include legal loopholes and were not backed with monitoring or enforcement commitments. No dates were set for biomass burning phase down.

Even without human-driven deforestation, climate change threatens some forests
- In a study published in Science, researchers analyzed a set of climate and ecosystem models to predict the risks that climate change poses to forests.
- The models displayed consistent risks to forests in western North America, drier tropical forests like the southeastern Amazon, and northern boreal forests.
- Researchers say their findings speak to the need to be careful when evaluating the role trees can play as a climate solution.

‘Mind-blowing’ marine heat waves put Mediterranean ecosystems at grave risk
- A recent study reveals the widespread effects of climate change-driven marine heat waves on the ecological communities of the Mediterranean Sea.
- Rises in sea surface temperatures as high as 5° Celsius (9° Fahrenheit) above normal have caused die-offs in 50 different taxonomic groups of animals from around the Mediterranean Basin.
- These far-reaching impacts of the warming sea could devastate the fisheries on which many of the Mediterranean region’s 400 million people rely.
- Researchers advocate bolstering and expanding marine protected areas. Although they can’t hold back the warmer waters that have proven deadly to the sea’s rich biodiversity, these sanctuaries can help ensure that these species don’t have to cope simultaneously with other pressures, such as overfishing or pollution.

Warming has set off ‘dangerous’ tipping points. More will fall with the heat
- A new study warns that multiple tipping points will be triggered if global warming exceeds 1.5°C (2.7°F) above pre-industrial levels.
- The researchers say humanity is already at risk of passing five tipping points, including the melting of the Greenland and West Antarctica ice sheets and the mass die-off of coral reefs, at the current levels of warming, and that the risk will increase with each 0.1°C (0.18°F) of warming.
- While many nations have committed to the 2015 Paris Agreement, which stipulates that warming should be limited to 1.5°C, it’s unclear whether this goal will be achieved.

For lightning-prone communities in Bangladesh, new warning system may not be enough
- An average of four people a week are killed by lightning in Bangladesh, and the problem is expected to get worse as climate change increases the frequency of lightning strikes.
- Most of the victims tend to be farmers and fishers, who, like members of other poor communities around the world, are bearing the brunt of climate change impacts.
- The Bangladesh Meteorological Department has rolled out an early-warning system, based on modeling developed in collaboration with NASA, that it says will provide up to 54 hours’ warning of potential lightning strikes.
- But experts say the communities most in need of these alerts are those who don’t have access to the technology, and have called for other measures, such as building lightning arresters in open fields and wetlands, to protect vulnerable communities.

Blazing start to Amazon’s ‘fire season’ as burning hits August record
- Fires in the Brazilian Amazon surged in August to the highest for the month since 2010, surpassing the blazes in August 2019 that drew global attention.
- On Aug. 22 alone, more than 3,300 fire alerts were reported in 24 hours, the worst single-day tally in the Amazon in 15 years.
- Researchers say it’s still too early to tell how severe this fire season will be, but what happened in August is an early warning.

Seaweed an increasingly fragile lifeline for Philippine farmers
- Commercial seaweed farming began in the Philippines in the 1970s and has grown to be one of the country’s most significant aquaculture enterprises, supporting more than 200,000 coastal families.
- In communities in Palawan, seaweed farming also plays a role in protecting marine life, with small farmers serving as extra eyes and ears in the fight against illegal fishing.
- As climate change intensifies, warmer waters are making seaweed farms more susceptible to pests and diseases, threatening the survival of the industry and the families that depend on it.

Biomass cofiring loopholes put coal on open-ended life support in Asia
- Over the past 10 years, some of Asia’s coal-dependent, high-emitting nations have turned to biomass cofiring (burning coal and biomass together to make electricity) to reduce CO2 emissions on paper and reach energy targets. But biomass still generates high levels of CO2 at the smokestack and adds to dangerous global warming.
- In South Korea, renewable energy credits given for biomass cofiring flooded the market and made other renewables like wind and solar less profitable. Although subsides for imported biomass for cofiring have decreased in recent years, increased domestic biomass production is likely to continue fueling cofiring projects.
- In Japan, renewable energy subsidies initially prompted the construction of new cofired power plants. Currently, biomass cofiring is used to make coal plants seem less polluting in the near term as utilities prepare to cofire and eventually convert the nation’s coal fleet to ammonia, another “carbon-neutral” fuel.
- In Indonesia, the government and state utility, encouraged by Japanese industry actors, plan to implement cofiring at 52 coal plants across the country by 2025. The initiative will require “nothing less than the creation of a large-scale biomass [production] industry,” according to experts.

What’s the chance of meeting Paris climate goal? Just 0.1%, study says
- Under the 2015 Paris climate accord, nearly 200 countries committed to reducing the carbon emissions that fuel climate change and keeping global warming under 2˚C (3.6°F), or 1.5 ˚C (2.7°F) if possible.
- The 1.5°C goal requires global greenhouse emissions to be cut by 45% by 2030 and brought down to net zero by 2050, which is extremely unlikely to happen, a new analysis has found.
- Even if mean temperatures were held below 2°C, people living in the tropics, in particular in India and sub-Saharan Africa, will be exposed to extreme heat for most days of the year, researchers warned.
- In the mid-latitude zone, which includes the U.S. and most of the European Union and the U.K., deadly heat waves could strike every year by 2100.

Study paints ‘bleak picture’ for nearly all marine life without emissions cuts
- New research published in Nature Climate Change has found that nearly 90% of assessed marine life would be at high or critical risk by 2100 if the world continues upon a high-emissions pathway.
- It found that the risks would be more concentrated in the tropics, and that top predators would be more at risk than species lower down the food chain.
- However, if countries drastically reduce their emissions, the study found that climate risk would decrease for more than 98% of these species.

Video: Biodiversity underpins all, as California is finding out the hard way
- A new episode of “Mongabay Explains” delves into the biodiversity crisis in California, which is known to be one of the most biodiverse states in the U.S., hosting about 6,500 animal species, subspecies and plants.
- California has been bearing the brunt of climate change in recent years as wildfires and drought transform the land.
- The film focuses on three species that are being negatively affected by the climate crisis: California tiger salamanders, acorn woodpeckers, and monarch butterflies.
- The filmmaker says California is the “poster child of what’s happening to our ecosystems around the world.”

As Europe eyes Africa’s gas reserves, environmentalists sound the alarm
- In the wake of an energy crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, European countries are turning to Africa for its natural gas reserves.
- The move is a turnaround from recent years, when many of the same countries vowed to stop financing fossil fuel projects on the continent.
- Some African heads of state, along with their allies in industry, have welcomed the change, saying gas extraction will help finance the transition to renewables.
- But environmental advocates on the continent are pushing back, saying that a new era of fossil fuel extraction will create more misery and harm the climate.

Are Bangladesh’s development measures leading to climate change readiness or maladaptation? (commentary)
- Bangladesh is trying to mainstream climate change adaptation into development measures to address climate change vulnerability and challenges.
- However, the socio-economic context and environmental consequences must be considered while implementing development programs.
- Failure to address local context might result in maladaptive trajectories, but Locally Led Adaptation (LLA) and Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are potential options for effective adaptation to climate change.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Bad weather knocks down Brazil’s grain production as ‘exhaustively forewarned’
- Brazil’s agricultural GDP declined by 8% in the first quarter of 2022 due to a severe drought in the country’s south caused by a rare triple-dip La Niña.
- In Rio Grande do Sul, the nation’s southernmost state, 56% of last year’s total soy harvest was lost, harming thousands of farmers.
- Scientists warn that climate change will make Brazil’s southern region, an agribusiness stronghold, widespread crop losses more common.
- Despite warnings, climate denial in the agriculture sector is getting in the way of mitigation efforts as the government of President Jair Bolsonaro and the agribusiness lobby push an anti-environmental agenda.

In Sumatra, rising seas and sinking land spell hard times for fishers
- Fishers operating near the port of Belawan on the Indonesian island of Sumatra are reporting declining catches and a hit to their livelihoods from tidal flooding.
- The flooding has grown more frequent and severe, exacerbated by rising seas and the clearing of mangrove forests for oil palm plantations.
- Traders who buy local catches have also been affected by the flooding, which can cut off commercial transport routes.
- This region of northern Sumatra is one of the areas targeted by the Indonesian government for mangrove restoration, but until that yields results, the fishers say they’re essentially helpless.

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.

In a hotter, drier climate, how serious is fire risk to island seabirds?
- A new study suggests that fires on remote islands in southwest Australia pose a rising threat to short-tailed shearwaters and other seabirds as climate change creates hotter and drier conditions.
- In 2021, a research team led by Jennifer Lavers surveyed an island in Western Australia’s Recherche Archipelago a year after a fire event, and found little evidence that short-tailed shearwaters had successfully bred after the fire, ignited by a lightning strike, had swept over most of the island.
- Lavers and her research team suggest that Indigenous-led methods of controlled burning could help reduce the risk of catastrophic fires that would endanger seabirds.
- However, a seabird and island expert not connected with the study disagrees that fire currently poses a major threat, since seabirds have been known to rebound from fires, even after the loss of their fledglings and burrows.

‘Sherpas’ real stories are seldom written’: Q&A with authors Ankit Babu Adhikari & Pradeep Bashyal
- The Indigenous Sherpa communities living in Nepal’s Himalayas find themselves at the forefront of climate change, say the authors of a recent book about the legendary mountaineers.
- Mountaineering has brought a steady source of income for communities living in harsh conditions, but it has also brought with it unprecedented challenges.
- Climate change is making climbing mountains harder and affecting the raising of yaks, considered the lifeline of Sherpa communities.
- To mark the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, Mongabay spoke to the co-authors of the new book, Sherpa: Stories of Life and Death from the Forgotten Guardians of Everest, about the people who live, work, adapt and survive on the roof of the world.

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.

Sea life may downsize with ocean warming — bringing challenging impacts
- A new model predicts that marine microbes could shrink by up to 30% in the future due to climate change, impacting bigger organisms that eat them including fish, potentially disrupting the food chain from the bottom up. Smaller fish would mean impacted fisheries. Smaller microbes could mean less carbon sequestration.
- Warmer oceans hold less oxygen, and the model predicts that sea life will get smaller in response to more limited oxygen. But scientists have long debated why this downsizing occurs, and some say that other factors not considered in the model could impact oceanic microbes in unexpected ways.
- Accurately predicting warming impacts on marine life could improve ocean resource management.

Building Indonesia’s ‘green’ new capital could see coal use surge (analysis)
- Indonesia is planning to construct a new capital city, known as Nusantara, in the Bornean province of East Kalimantan.
- Authorities promote Nusantara as a “green city,” but discussions of the city’s carbon footprint overlook key factors, notably the use of coal to manufacture the building materials required to construct a completely new city.
- With the new city being built in the country’s coal-mining heartland, coal is the most likely energy source for such manufacturing, putting Indonesia’s emissions reduction targets at risk, as well as casting doubt on the green commitments of funders like Japan and China.

Elevated homesteads give hope to flood-hit communities in Bangladesh
- Increasingly severe flooding in Bangladesh threatens the homes and livelihoods of some 10 million people who live on river islands known as chars.
- The rate of erosion of these chars has increased in recent years amid an intensified monsoon season that swells the volume of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers where the low-lying chars are located.
- As an adaptation measure the government and NGOs are supporting char communities to raise the height of their homesteads to protect themselves during the monsoon.

In Congo, a carbon sink like no other risks being carved up for oil
- New research has revealed that the peatlands of the Congo Basin are 15% larger than originally thought.
- This area of swampy forest holds an estimated 29 billion metric tons of carbon, which is the amount emitted globally through the burning of fossil fuels in three years.
- Beginning July 28, the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where two-thirds of these peatlands lie, will auction off the rights to explore for oil in 27 blocks across the country.
- Scientists and conservationists have criticized the move, which the government says is necessary to fund its operations. Opponents say the blocks overlap with parts of the peatlands, mature rainforest, protected areas, and a UNESCO World Heritage site.

As the Amazon burns, only the weather can ward off a catastrophe, experts say
- The Brazilian Amazon saw the highest number of fires for the month of June in 15 years, with 2,562 major fires detected, an increase of 11.14% over 2021.
- The first half of the year had 7,533 major fires, the most since 2019, according to data from the national space research institute.
- On June 23, the Brazilian government issued a decree banning the use of fires to manage forests throughout the country for the next 120 days.
- Experts say they’re skeptical about this ban, noting that similar measures failed to stop the burning in previous years, and say the weather is the only thing that can help curb the increase in fires as the dry season unfolds.

Turkey’s authoritarian development ignores planetary boundaries
- Turkey, an increasingly autocratic country since Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his AKP political party came to power in 2002, was the very last G20 nation to ratify the Paris climate agreement, doing so in October 2021. It has failed so far to take meaningful action against the steady increase of its greenhouse gas emissions.
- Turkey may also be exceeding limits to many of the nine planetary boundaries critical to the survival of civilization. In addition to unregulated carbon emissions, experts are concerned over the nation’s worsening air and plastic pollution, altered land use due to new mega-infrastructure projects, and biodiversity harm.
- For the past two decades, Turkey’s economic growth has been based on carbon-intensive sectors — including fossil fuel energy, transportation, construction, mining and heavy industry — all heavily supported by the state via subsidies, questionable public-private partnerships, and lax environmental laws.
- Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s authoritarianism has undermined checks and balances which might otherwise enhance environmental governance. As activists and academics criticize the lack of transparency regarding environmental data, they face rising governmental pressures and repression.

‘The sea means everything’: Q&A with deep-sea mining opponent Debbie Ngarewa-Packer
- New Zealand parliamentarian and Māori activist Debbie Ngarewa-Packer has spent more than two decades serving in leadership roles, using her positions to advance social justice issues and to campaign for the protection of the marine environment.
- A key issue that Ngarewa-Packer is currently working on is a push to ban deep-sea mining in the global ocean, a proposed activity that would extract large amounts of minerals from the seabed.
- Ngarewa-Packer previously worked with other Māori activists, NGOs and community members to block consent for a deep-sea mining operation in her home district of South Taranaki on New Zealand’s North Island.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Ngarewa-Packer talks about why it’s critical to protect the deep sea from mining, what ancestral teachings say about protecting the ocean, and why she feels hopeful about the future.

In world convulsed by climate-driven conflict, are peace parks an answer?
- Conflicts over disputed borders, increasingly exacerbated by climate change, are putting some of the world’s key biodiversity hotspots at risk.
- Even in countries that have avoided border wars, a global campaign of fence building — aimed at keeping out human migrants whose numbers are rising in an era of climate change and sociopolitical unrest — is causing widespread damage to vulnerable natural landscapes and migratory animal species.
- In potential conflict zones like the Himalayas, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and the South China Sea, this surging human march across national frontiers has already led to violence, and in some cases to open warfare.
- Border-straddling conservation zones known as peace parks offer a more sustainable way of managing border disputes than militarization and fence building. Peace parks on the U.S.-Canada border and in the Himalayas offer successful examples.

Climate change amplifies the risk of conflict, study from Africa shows
- New research shows that climate change can amplify the risk of conflict by as much as four to five times in a 550-kilometer (340-mile) radius, with rising temperatures and extreme rainfall acting as triggers.
- Many countries most vulnerable to climate impacts are beset by armed conflicts, such as Somalia, which is grappling with widespread drought amid a decades-long civil war; the research suggests the country is trapped in a vicious cycle of worsening climatic disasters and conflict.
- Both too little rain and too much rain are triggers for conflict, the research finds: persistent rainfall failures increase instability over a broader geographic region while extreme rainfall increases the likelihood of confrontations over a smaller area and for a shorter time, the analysis suggests.
- The research underscores the importance of tackling climate change impacts and conflict mitigation together because misguided climate adaptation strategies can intensify existing tensions.

For women on Bangladesh’s coast, rising seas pose a reproductive health dilemma
- In coastal areas of Bangladesh, where poor families often can’t afford menstrual pads, women and adolescent girls are compelled to use cloth rags that they wash in water that’s becoming increasingly saline.
- This has led to a spate of uterine diseases, prompting many women and girls to misuse birth control pills in an effort to stop their menstrual cycles altogether.
- Health experts say this practice, carried out without medical advice, poses both short- and long-term risks to their reproductive and mental health.
- The root of the problem is the ever-worsening intrusion of saltwater into the water table, driven by a combination of rising sea levels, seepage from shrimp farms, and falling levels of the Ganges River.

Scientists strive to restore world’s embattled kelp forests
- Kelp forests grow along more than one-quarter of the world’s coastlines, and are among the planet’s most biodiverse ecosystems. But these critical habitats are disappearing due to warming oceans and other human impacts.
- Sudden recent wipeouts of vast kelp forests along the coastlines of Tasmania and California highlighted how little was known about protecting or restoring these vital marine ecosystems.
- Scientists are finding new ways to help restore kelp, but promising small-scale successes need to be ramped up significantly to replace massive kelp losses in some regions.
- Global interest in studying seaweed for food, carbon storage and other uses, may help improve wild kelp restoration methods.

‘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.

Habitat loss, climate change send hyacinth macaw reeling back into endangered status
- The hyacinth macaw, the world’s largest flying parrot, is closer to return to Brazil’s endangered species list, less than a decade after intensive conservation efforts succeeded in getting it off the list.
- The latest assessment still needs to be made official by the Ministry of the Environment, which is likely to publish the updated endangered species list next year.
- Conservation experts attribute the bird’s decline to the loss of its habitat due to fires in the Pantanal wetlands and ongoing deforestation in the Amazon and Cerrado biomes.
- Climate change also poses a serious threat, subjecting the birds to temperature swings that can kill eggs and hatchlings, and driving heavy rainfall that floods their preferred nesting sites.

Climate change puts Bangladeshi farmers’ reliance on rice varieties to the test
- Bangladeshi farmers overwhelmingly cultivate rice using the BRRI-28 and BRRI-29 varieties developed by the government, despite the availability of more than 100 alternative varieties, some of them better suited to changing climatic patterns.
- Yields are declining for these two popular varieties as arable land becomes more saline, dry, or submerged due to extreme weather phenomena.
- Scientists behind the range of varieties blame the low popularity of the climate-resistant varieties on the failure by government agencies to produce and promote them to farmers.
- But officials refute this, saying they cater to what the farmers demand, which is the two dominant varieties.

Beyond boundaries: Earth’s water cycle is being bent to breaking point
- The hydrological cycle is a fundamental natural process for keeping Earth’s operating system intact. Humanity and civilization are intimately dependent on the water cycle, but we have manipulated it vastly and destructively, to suit our needs.
- We don’t yet know the full global implications of human modifications to the water cycle. We do know such changes could lead to huge shifts in Earth systems, threatening life as it exists. Researchers are asking where and how they can measure change to determine if the water cycle is being pushed to the breaking point.
- Recent research has indicated that modifications to aspects of the water cycle are now causing Earth system destabilization at a scale that modern civilization might not have ever faced. That is already playing out in extreme weather events and long-term slow-onset climate alterations, with repercussions we don’t yet understand.
- There are no easy or simple solutions. To increase our chances of remaining in a “safe living space,” we need to reverse damage to the global hydrological cycle with large-scale interventions, including reductions in water use, and reversals of deforestation, land degradation, soil erosion, air pollution and climate change.

A tale of successes and new challenges in Senegal: Q&A with ICCA coordinator Salatou Sambou
- The Kawawana conserved area (ICCA) was created by a group of Indigenous Jola fishers in Casamance. After almost ten years, they have succeeded in restoring an area where biodiversity had all but disappeared.
- Now that biodiversity and resources have recovered, life in the village has become more secure. The model’s success has also encouraged young people to return and to renew their commitment to its conservation.
- But the ICCA has also come up against many challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, state indifference to poachers and climate change, since Mongabay’s last reporting in 2018.
- Mongabay interviewed Salatou Sambou, ICCA coordinator involved in the Kawawana conserved area, about the recent successes and challenges the ICCA is facing.

‘That’s a scam’: Indian firm’s REDD+ carbon deal in the DRC raises concern
- Environmental and human rights advocacy organizations say an Indian company has misled communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, convincing them to sign away the rights to sell carbon credits from the restoration, reforestation or avoided deforestation of locally managed forests.
- These forests, managed under a structure known by the French acronym CFCL, provide communities with control over how land is managed while giving them access to the resources the forests provide, proponents of the initiative say.
- But the contracts, the implications of which were not fairly or adequately explained to community members, may restrict their access to the forests for generations to come, the advocacy groups say.
- These organizations and the communities are now calling on the Congolese government to cancel the contracts.

Can wonder plant spekboom really bring smiles back to sad South African towns?
- Botanists are working on an ambitious project to restore 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres) of degraded land in South Africa that were previously covered by thickets of the indigenous succulent spekboom (Portulacaria afra).
- Farmers have stripped the land of its native thicket over the course of decades of commercial agriculture and livestock keeping, and following extended droughts, it’s now turning to desert.
- Spekboom, much praised for its ability to sequester carbon, is not only a resilient native plant, but its growth naturally promotes the recovery of other species.
- Carbon credits are one promising source of funding for restoration that could prove profitable for landowners and workers, though some critics say planting spekboom as an offset lacks a scientific basis.

A return to agroecology traditions points the way forward for Malawi’s farmers
- Malawi’s 3.3 million smallholder farming families are the backbone of the country’s economy, but many suffer poverty and food scarcity.
- For some farmers, agroecology has proved a lifeline, allowing them to boost yields and income while reducing the use of synthetic fertilizers.
- From 2012-2017, an initiative called the Malawi Farmer-to-Farmer Agroecology project, or MAFFA, trained 3,000 farmers in Dedza district in agroecology methods, including intercropping, composting, organic pest control and soil management. Years after the close of the program, many participants report ongoing success in using the techniques they learned.
- However, obstacles to wider adoption of agroecology remain, including the long lead time required before agroecology techniques yield results, and a policy framework that has traditionally focused on subsidizing synthetic fertilizers and hybrid seeds.

Bangladeshi coastal communities plant mangroves as a shield against cyclones
- Bangladesh’s southwestern coastal districts are prone to tidal surges, which can become extreme during cyclone seasons, with surges as high as 3 meters (10 feet).
- The coasts have embankments built across to keep the seeping seawater from reaching the coastal settlements, but as cyclones get more severe under a changing climate, these embankments aren’t enough, and losing houses to cyclonic floods has become the norm for coastal communities here.
- As a protection measure, the Bangladeshi government and several NGOs, with the communities’ participation, have initiated large-scale planting of mangrove trees along the embankments to act as a natural shield against tidal surges.
- The NGOs have provided the initial financial and technical support to the communities and are encouraging a self-reliant process of planting native mangrove species.

Legal and illegal cannabis: A cause for growing environmental concern
- Legalization of cannabis for medicinal and recreational use is an expanding global trend in the U.S. and globally, while the illicit market continues to feed large swaths of demand.
- Both the legal and illegal markets are linked to environmental challenges such as freshwater use, land-use change, toxic and nutrient pollution, and climate change-contributing CO2 emissions.
- Emerging legal cannabis businesses in the U.S. are subject to strict regulation, but many operate in ways that can contribute to environmental harms.
- While the scope of damage from booming legal growing operations is now being better assessed, the impacts of illicit clandestine operations remain mostly undetermined.

How will climate change impact cold-water corals? Mostly through food loss, study says
- A new study warns that cold-water corals, also known as deep-water corals, could be most impacted by a decrease in food supply as climate change shifts the dynamics of the planet’s oceans.
- The authors came to this conclusion by examining how cold-water corals survived the last major period of global warming that occurred at the end of the last glacial period and the start of the current interglacial period, which is somewhat analogous to how the Earth is projected to warm by the end of this century.
- However, experts point out that cold-water corals today are subjected to a number of additional stressors, including ocean acidification, destructive fishing practices, and pollution, and that the climate is changing far more rapidly than it did in the past.
- Cold-water corals are considered to be equally important — or perhaps even more important — than tropical corals, which makes understanding their chances of survival of the utmost importance, researchers say.

For 20 years, Comoros had only 1 national park. It’s now creating 5 more
- Comoros, an archipelagic nation in the western Indian Ocean, is dramatically expanding its network of protected areas (PAs) from one to six, including three new marine protected areas (MPAs).
- The idea is to replicate the co-management approach at Mohéli National Park, the country’s first and currently only national park, created in 2001 as an MPA.
- However, Comoros’s experience with Mohéli provided no clear blueprint for supporting communities whose traditional rights are curtailed because of the protected areas, or for sustainably funding for such a vast PA network.

Poor planning, persistent farming undermine mangrove restoration in Tanzania
- Tanzania’s government has been working since the 1990s to replant mangroves in the Rufiji Delta, one of East Africa’s most significant mangrove sites.
- New research indicates that efforts to restore degraded mangroves have been undermined by rice farming as well as by a lack of systematic planning and analysis of site and species suitability.
- However, the research found that despite these flaws, replanted areas were regenerating faster than areas left to regrow on their own.

As biomass burning surges in Japan and South Korea, where will Asia get its wood?
- In 2021, Japan and South Korea imported a combined 6 million metric tons of wood pellets for what proponents claim is carbon-neutral energy.
- Large subsidies for biomass have led Japan to import massive amounts of wood pellets from Vietnam and Canada; two pellet giants, Drax and Enviva, are now eyeing Japan for growth, even as the country may be cooling to the industry.
- South Korea imports most of its pellets from Vietnamese acacia plantations, which environmentalists fear may eventually pressure natural forests; South Korea wants to grow its native production sixfold, including logging areas with high conservation value.
- Vietnam may soon follow Japan and South Korea’s path as it phases out coal, and experts fear all this could add massive pressure on Southeast Asian forests, which are already among the most endangered in the world.

9m deaths a year from pollution, the ‘largest existential threat’ to humans
- A new report has found that pollution is responsible for 9 million premature deaths per year, the majority of them caused by air pollution.
- While deaths associated with household pollution and water quality have decreased, deaths related to industrialization and urbanization have increased.
- It’s estimated that lead and other chemical pollutants are responsible for about 1.8 million deaths, but the authors say this is likely to be an undercount.
- The authors argue that more needs to be done to address the issue of pollution, which would also help mitigate the impacts of climate change.

EU Parliament’s Environment Committee urges scale back of biomass burning
- The European Parliament’s Environment Committee this week made strong, but nonbinding, recommendations to put a brake on the EU’s total commitment to burning forest biomass to produce energy. While environmentalists cautiously hailed the decision, the forestry industry condemned it.
- A key recommendation urges that primary woody biomass (that made from whole trees) to produce energy and heat no longer receive government subsidies under the EU’s revised Renewable Energy Directive (RED).
- Another recommendation called for primary woody biomass to no longer be counted toward EU member states’ renewable energy targets. Currently, biomass accounts for 60% of the EU’s renewable energy portfolio, far more than zero-carbon wind and solar.
- The Environment Committee recommendations mark the first time any part of the EU government has questioned the aggressive use of biomass by the EU to meet its Paris Agreement goals. A final decision by the EU on its biomass burning policies is expected in September as part of its revised Renewable Energy Directive.

Spotted hyenas adapt to climate change in famed Tanzanian park
- Spotted hyenas seem to be adapting to changing rainfall patterns affecting their preferred prey in Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park.
- In the past decade, migratory herds have been arriving later than previously at hyena clan territories in the middle of the Serengeti, forcing lactating females to “commute” further from their dens to find a meal.
- But researchers have observed no change in how much time they spend with their cubs at these dens, suggesting they’re having no trouble locating prey further from home.
- Hyenas are known for their robust and flexible foraging behavior, but researchers caution that in places other than the Serengeti, they may face additional challenges, such as fragmented habitat and intensifying human activity.

Geoengineering Earth’s climate future: Straight talk with Wake Smith
- A new book, “Pandora’s Toolbox: The Hopes and Hazards of Climate Intervention,” explores a number of ideas for pulling carbon out of the atmosphere or artificially cooling the planet, known collectively as geoengineering.
- The book argues that such dire actions may need to be taken by future generations to combat climate change, and if so, those generations deserve to inherit research done now to understand the potential impacts and feasibility of geoengineering.
- One tool whose implementation is likely inevitable, according to the book, is pulling carbon from smokestacks and the air and then sequestering it deep in the Earth, a technology currently happening at a very small scale. Another approach, far more controversial, would be to inject aerosols into the stratosphere to cool the Earth.
- None of these methods precludes the need to decarbonize now and fast. But given the dangerous trajectory of climate change, author Wake Smith argues that suffering future generations may decide to pull the geoengineering trigger.

Missing the emissions for the trees: Biomass burning booms in East Asia
- Over the past decade, Japan and South Korea have increasingly turned to burning wood pellets for energy, leaning on a U.N. loophole that dubs biomass burning as carbon neutral.
- While Japan recently instituted a new rule requiring life cycle greenhouse gas emissions accounting, this doesn’t apply to its existing 34 biomass energy plants; Japanese officials say biomass will play an expanding role in achieving Japan’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 46% by 2030.
- South Korea included biomass burning in its renewable energy portfolio standard, leading to 17 biomass energy plants currently operating, and at least four more on the way.
- Experts say these booms in Asia — the first major expansion of biomass burning outside Europe — could lead to a large undercounting of actual carbon emissions and worsening climate change, while putting pressure on already-beleaguered forests.

As animal seed dispersers go the way of the dodo, forest plants are at risk
- Many plants rely on animals to reproduce, regenerate and spread. But the current sixth mass extinction is wiping out seed-dispersing wildlife that fill this role, altering entire ecosystems.
- Thousands of species help keep flora alive, from birds and bats to elephants, apes and rodents.
- Animals give plants the ability to “move,” with the need for mobility rising alongside warming temperatures and more frequent extreme weather events. Transported elsewhere, plants may be able to “outrun” a warming climate.
- There are growing efforts to restore these critical ecological relationships and processes: protecting and recovering wild lands, identifying and rewilding key animal seed dispersers, reforesting destroyed habitat, and better regulating destructive logging and agricultural practices.

Cradle of transformation: The Mediterranean and climate change
- The Mediterranean region is warming 20% faster than the world as a whole, raising concerns about the impacts that climate change and other environmental upheaval will have on ecosystems, agriculture and the region’s 542 million people.
- Heat waves, drought, extreme weather and sea-level rise are among the impacts that the region can expect to see continue through the end of the century, and failing to stop emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases could make these issues worse.
- Charting a course that both mitigates climate change and bolsters adaption to its effects is further complicated by the Mediterranean’s mix of countries, cultures and socioeconomics, leading to wide gaps in vulnerability in the region.

Teaching climate issues through gameplay gains a following in Brazil
- The Climate Fresk workshop, known in Brazil as the Climate Mural, is a teaching model created in France and replicated in more than 50 countries to disseminate science-based climate knowledge in an interactive setting.
- Its main teaching tool is a card game that allows participants to understand the cause-and-effect dynamics involved in climate change.
- The workshop is usually held at universities, high schools and government facilities, but a growing number of companies have asked to host workshops to train their employees on climate issues.
- In just three years, the global Climate Fresk initiative has trained 10,000 workshop facilitators and reached more than 300,000 participants around the world.

Unseen crisis: Threatened gut microbiome also offers hope for world
- Plants and animals provide a home within themselves to an invisible community of microbes known as the microbiome. But these natural microbial communities are being degraded and altered by human-caused biodiversity loss, pollution, land-use change and climate change.
- On the macro level, habitat loss and diminished environmental microbe diversity, particularly in urban environments, is altering the gut microbiomes of humans and wild animals. Studies have linked microbiome changes to higher risk of chronic and autoimmune diseases.
- Coral bleaching is an extreme example of climate stress-induced microbiome dysfunction: During heat waves, beneficial microbes go rogue and must be expelled, leaving the coral vulnerable to starvation. Microbiome resilience is key to determining corals’ ability to acclimate to changing ocean conditions.
- There are solutions to these problems: Inoculating coral with beneficial microbes can reduce bleaching, while the restoring natural green spaces, especially in socioeconomically deprived urban areas, could encourage “microbiome rewilding” and improve human and natural community health.

Tropical trees’ growth and CO2 intake hit by more extreme dry seasons
- A new study has found that dry seasons that are warmer and drier than usual can stunt the growth of tropical trees, causing them to take in less carbon dioxide.
- While trees tend to grow more during the wet season, the researchers found that the dry season actually had a stronger impact on tree growth than the wet season.
- As climate change continues to raise temperatures, tropical trees could face increased risk of mortality and the possibility of becoming a net source of carbon, rather than a carbon sink.

Robot revolution: A new real-time accounting system for ocean carbon
- Oceans are key to understanding climate change, seeing as they take up and store 25% of the carbon that human activities add to Earth’s atmosphere. But there are big gaps in our knowledge regarding ocean carbon storage and release, and how it is evolving as climate change unfolds, a problem scientists are now addressing.
- An international deployment of thousands of robotic floats, fitted with sophisticated biogeochemical sensors, is underway and already providing real-time data that scientists can integrate into ocean carbon budgets and climate models. Many more floats are coming, with the capacity to operate in remote regions.
- One such place is the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, which accounts for almost half of the worldwide oceanic carbon sink. Windier conditions there, caused by climate change, are churning up more carbon-rich waters from the depths, releasing stored carbon and introducing unforeseen variability into ocean carbon emission estimates.
- Robots are starting to monitor these emissions in real time. More accurate ocean carbon budgets will improve accounting of land-based carbon dioxide emissions, help create more accurate assessments of how well global carbon agreements such as the Paris Agreement are meeting goals, and will help assess ocean carbon dioxide removal plans.

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.

‘A huge mistake’: Concerns rise as deep-sea mining negotiations progress
- The International Seabed Authority (ISA), the U.N.-affiliated organization tasked with managing deep-sea mining activities, recently held a series of meetings to continue negotiating the development of mining regulations.
- Deep-sea mining may start as early as 2023 after Nauru triggered a two-year rule embedded in the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea that could essentially allow its sponsored company to start mining with whatever regulations are currently in place.
- Many states are eager to finalize a set of regulations over the next 15 months that would determine how mining can proceed in the deep sea.
- But other states and delegates have noted the lack of scientific knowledge around deep-sea mining, the absence of a financial compensation plan in the event of environmental damage, and ongoing transparency issues in the ISA — and the unlikelihood of finalizing regulatory measures in a short period of time.

Indonesia’s Riau province declares state of emergency ahead of fire season
- Almost every year vast swaths of Southeast Asia are covered in toxic haze, which causes air quality to reach hazardous levels and creates major health, environmental and economic problems.
- Recorded since the early ’70s, the smoke is almost entirely a result of large forest and peatland fires in Indonesia that are often illegally started to clear land for oil palm plantations.
- The governor of Indonesia’s Riau province in Sumatra, which, along with Borneo, is a primary location of the fires, has declared an emergency alert status to increase and expedite prevention and extinguishing efforts ahead of this year’s fire season.
- A national environmental NGO says the alert status shows the government has again failed to prevent the fires, and that the existing mitigation efforts fail to tackle the root of the problem.

IPCC report calls for ‘immediate and deep’ carbon cuts to slow climate change
- A new report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) finds that the world could face a more than 3° Celsius (5.4° Fahrenheit) increase in the global average temperature over pre-industrial levels based on current carbon emissions.
- However, the authors of the report say investment in renewable energy, green building and responsible land use could lower emissions enough to stay below an increase of 1.5°C (2.7°F), a target identified at the 2015 U.N. climate conference that scientists predict would avoid the worst impacts of global warming.
- Addressing continued global carbon emissions will require trillions, not billions, of dollars in financing from public and private sources to cut emissions, the report finds.
- Its authors also say that including Indigenous and local communities from the beginning in land-use decisions aimed at climate change mitigation is critical.

Climate crisis forecasts a fragile future for wildflowers and pollinators
- A first-of-its-kind experimental study has found that climate change reduces the abundance of wildflowers and causes them to produce less nectar and fewer and lighter seeds.
- These changes also impact pollinating insects visiting the flowers: they have to visit more flowers, more frequently, to gather the required food.
- Fewer flowers imply reduced reproductive fitness in plants, as well as fewer food resources for invertebrates that rely on these plants for food, habitat and shelter.
- Overall, climate change may disturb the composition of wildflower species and their pollinators, impacting agricultural crop yields, researchers say.

Indonesia’s gasification plans could be costly for budget and environment
- Indonesia has broken ground on a $2.1 billion coal gasification plant, and plans to build 10 more.
- In supporting coal gasification, Indonesian officials aim to bolster coal production even if export demand diminishes.
- A new analysis by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis concludes that coal gasification will require massive government subsidies to be commercially viable in Indonesia.
- Advocates for renewable energy say any funds that might be used to support coal gasification would be better spent on supporting renewable energy projects.

The Great Barrier Reef is bleaching — once again — and over a larger area
- The Great Barrier Reef is currently experiencing its sixth mass bleaching event, and the fourth event of this kind to happen in the past six years.
- Based on aerial surveys that were concluded this week, bleaching has affected all parts of the Great Barrier Reef, with the most severe bleaching occurring between Cooktown, Queensland, and the Whitsunday Islands.
- Sea surface temperatures around the Great Barrier Reef have been higher than normal, despite the region going through a La Niña climate pattern, which usually brings cooler, stormier weather.
- Climate change remains the biggest threat to the Great Barrier Reef and other reefs around the world, experts say.

Marine cold spells, a potential buffer against warming seas, are fading away
- A new study has found that marine cold spells have decreased in number and intensity since the 1980s due to climate change.
- Marine cold spells can have both negative and positive impacts on the environment; they can wreak havoc on ecosystems like coral reefs, but they can also buffer the impacts of heat stress during marine heat waves.
- While marine cold spells are decreasing, marine heat waves are increasing — but the relationship between these two kinds of events still isn’t clear, the study says.

Ships sunk in nuclear tests host diverse corals, study says. But do we need them?
- Researchers surveyed 29 warships at Bikini Atoll and Chuuk Lagoon and found that they hosted up to a third of coral genera found on natural reefs in neighboring regions.
- This study has led researchers to ask a controversial question: Can these kinds of shipwrecks act as biodiversity havens for corals?
- While the study does not provide an answer to this question, the authors say this idea should be explored.
- Climate change is one of the biggest threats to coral reefs since rising temperatures can cause widespread bleaching events.

Multiyear ice thinner than thought as Arctic sea ice reaches winter max: Studies
- Arctic sea ice has reached its yearly maximum extent at 14.88 million sq. km., the 10th lowest on record. The up-and-down story of sea ice extent in the past year highlights how unpredictable it can be from season to season, even as the overall decline continues.
- A study employing new satellite data found that Arctic multiyear sea ice — ice that survives the summer melt — is thinning even faster than previously thought and has lost a third of its volume in just two decades.
- This comes as Antarctic sea ice extent hit a record summer low, raising questions whether it is beginning a long-term decline, although experts are wary of drawing conclusions yet.
- While summer Arctic sea ice is predicted to mostly disappear by 2050, a new study suggests we could likely preserve it through 2100 by aggressively cutting methane emissions by 2030, along with reaching net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050.

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