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Research links deforestation in Cambodia to stunting in kids, anemia in women
- An analysis of public health data in Cambodia has found increased rates of malnutrition among children born in areas where deforestation had recently occurred.
- It also found that pregnant women in these areas were more likely to suffer from anemia, a condition that often correlates with incidences of malaria.
- Cambodia has lost nearly 30% of its forest cover this century, while more than 30% of its children under 5 have stunted growth due to malnutrition.
- The study illustrates how deforestation and the ecological disruptions it causes can compound previously existing rural health issues.
Cornell receives $35m gift for research at nexus of wildlife and health
- Our newfound global awareness that human health, animal health and the health of the planet are inextricably linked has underscored the importance of research at the interface of wildlife and health.
- Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine has announced a donation of $35 million to support its work in this burgeoning field of research.
- The Cornell K. Lisa Yang Center for Wildlife Health aims to use the funds to further its research on how disease interactions affect wildlife, domestic animal and human health, and translate its findings into policy and action to protect wildlife and wild places.
‘Healthy humans without a healthy planet is a logical fallacy’: Interview with Dr. Sakib Burza
- Brought up watching nature’s grandeur in Indian Kashmir, Dr. Sakib Burza’s early inspiration in medicine began at home before he went on to work with Indigenous and local communities in tropical forest regions.
- Having worked in communities responding to the impacts of droughts and climate shocks, he says improved planetary health is crucial for better human health, and that health problems are often the symptoms of climate change or environmental problems.
- At Health In Harmony, he leads medical projects with rainforest communities through the concept of radical listening and supporting their medical needs and livelihoods.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Dr. Burza lays out his argument for how and why the health of people and the planet are connected, and actions that can improve the state of both.
Amazonia in flames: Unlearned lessons from the 2023 Manaus smoke crisis (commentary)
- In 2023 the city of Manaus, in central Amazonia, found itself covered in dense smoke from burning rainforest, with levels of toxic PM 2.5 particulates even higher than those experienced that year during the pollution crisis in New Delhi, India.
- The governor of Brazil’s state of Amazonas, where Manaus is located, blamed the neighboring state of Pará for the smoke, a politically convenient theory we show to be false.
- The fires responsible for the smoke were south of Manaus in an area of Amazonas impacted by the notorious BR-319 highway, where a proposed “reconstruction” project would have disastrous environmental consequences by opening vast areas of rainforest to the entry of deforesters.The BR-319 highway project is a top priority for politicians in Amazonas, who take pains not to admit to the project’s impacts. The project’s environmental license is not yet approved, and the Manaus smoke crisis should serve as a warning as to how serious those impacts would be.
- This text is a commentary and does not necessarily reflect the views of Mongabay.
Long-term wildlife impacts at Chornobyl, Fukushima may yield ‘a new ecology’
- The world’s worst nuclear power plant accidents to date, at Chornobyl, Ukraine, in 1986, and Fukushima, Japan in 2011, and the human exclusion zones created around them have given scientists a unique opportunity to study the effects on wildlife of radiation and of reduced pressure from people.
- Chornobyl disaster findings regarding the impacts on exclusion zone organisms vary: Some point to a resurgence of the studied wildlife in the absence of humans, while others indicate radiation negatively impacting certain animal populations.
- Fukushima radiation impacts are statistically harder to detect. But scientists have made similar observation to Chornobyl: Some, but not all, species appear to thrive from reduced human pressure.
- Radioactive contamination moves in ecosystem-specific ways, depending on factors such as water flow. A combination of radioactive contamination and reduced human activity in nuclear exclusion zones may be giving rise to “a new ecology,” with nature overall neither suffering nor thriving, simply different in the impacted areas.
Study links pesticides to child cancer deaths in Brazilian Amazon & Cerrado
- According to new research, for every 5 tons of soy per hectare produced in the Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado, an equivalent of one out of 10,000 children under 10 succumbed to acute lymphoblastic leukemia five years later.
- The researchers estimate that 123 childhood deaths during the 2008-19 period are associated with exposure to pesticides from the soy fields, amounting to half the deaths of children under 10 from lymphoblastic leukemia in the region.
- Experts say that the research is just the tip of the iceberg, and many other diseases and deaths may be associated with chemicals used in crops; further studies are needed.
Muslim women’s group to reopen oxygen homes if Indonesia wildfires intensify
- In 2019, volunteers with the environmental wing of Indonesia’s largest Islamic women’s organization, ‘Aisyiyiah, operated “Rumah Oksigen,” homes equipped with air purifiers and first aid.
- This year as El Niño strengthens, ‘Aisyiyah will advise members to reopen the facilities for the young, old and those most susceptible to air pollution generated by wildfires.
- The volunteers will also work to raise awareness in the community on how families can best protect themselves.
Nepal’s rhinos are eating plastic waste, study finds
- A study found plastic waste in the dung of one-horned rhinos in Nepal’s Chitwan National Park, which could harm their health and survival.
- The plastic waste comes from the rivers that flood the park during monsoon season, as well as from visitors who litter the park.
- The study suggested that the government and its conservation partners should conduct clean-up programs and implement sustainable waste management plans to protect the rhinos, which are a vulnerable species.
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.
Indigenous Amazon forests absorb noxious fumes and prevent diseases from wildfires, study suggests
- A new decade-long study estimates forests in Indigenous lands in the Brazilian Amazon can potentially prevent about 15 million cases of respiratory and cardiovascular infections each year by absorbing thousands of tons of dangerous pollutants emitted by forest fires.
- Forest fires are mainly caused by deforestation to clear the land, releasing noxious fumes which contain carbonaceous aerosol, the main component of fine particulate matter which enters the bloodstream and can cause heart disease and lung cancer.
- Health impacts from forest fires are not only restricted to nearby populations. Intense smoke can travel hundreds of kilometers away from the point of origin.
- The researchers say the study’s findings demonstrate the need for Brazil’s government to resume Indigenous territories’ demarcations and public policies.
Lula government scrambles to overcome Yanomami crisis, but hurdles remain
- Within weeks of taking office, the new Brazilian government began an emergency operation to provide health care assistance to Indigenous people in the Yanomami territory and remove the 20,000 illegal gold miners there who have sparked a humanitarian and environmental crisis.
- So far, over 6,200 Yanomami people have been treated and more than 100 health care personnel have been recruited. However, a lack of health care workers, deteriorating infrastructure and minimal support from the military is preventing access to communities most in need.
- As miners have begun to flee the area and environmental authorities seize and destroy their equipment, some Indigenous leaders say important progress is underway but more remains to be done.
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.
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.
Poisoned by pesticides: Health crisis deepens in Brazil’s Indigenous communities
- A recent report reveals communities in Brazil’s Mato Grosso region are contaminated by the agriculture industry’s increasing use of pesticides. About 88% of the plants collected, including medicinal herbs and fruits, on Indigenous lands have pesticide residue.
- Samples discovered high levels of pesticides in ecosystems and waters far from crop fields, including carbofuran — a highly toxic substance which is banned in Brazil, Europe and the U.S.
- Experts blame the lack of control by government officials for widespread environmental damage and an escalating health crisis among Indigenous populations, as communities report growing numbers of respiratory problems, acute poisonings and cancers.
- A spokesperson for the biggest agrochemical companies operating in Brazil disputes the findings of the report and numbers of people far from crop regions affected by pesticide usage.
Better livestock health reduces carbon emissions (commentary)
- One direct, humane, and cost-effective way to bring down carbon emissions associated with livestock that few people are talking about is improving animal health.
- Lethal or not, diseases are directly responsible for driving up emissions from animal agriculture because farmers wind up raising more animals and using more resources to produce the same amount of food, fuel or fiber.
- Healthy animals can act as a potent tool in our global response to climate change – but only if policymakers act to better integrate animal health into climate strategies under the interconnected principles of ‘One Health,’ a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
In temperate Nepal, climate change paves way for tropical dengue fever
- Nepal is experiencing its worst outbreak of dengue fever in recorded history, which health experts attribute in part to a changing climate.
- Wetter monsoons and warmer temperatures have made for ideal breeding conditions for the mosquitoes that carry the virus.
- Poor water and waste management are also factors, allowing for water to stagnate for long periods and giving the mosquitoes a place to lay their larvae.
- Experts say it will take a combination of personal responsibility — to eradicate mosquito-breeding grounds — and government leadership — to coordinate the public health response — if dengue is to be eradicated in Nepal.
Mongabay probe key as Brazil court rules on palm oil pesticide contamination
- Prosecutors in Brazil say the findings from a Mongabay investigation were key to obtaining a court decision this week to probe the environmental impacts of pesticides used by oil palm plantations on Indigenous communities and the environment in northern Pará state.
- On Oct. 4, the Federal Circuit Court for the First Region in Brasília approved a forensic investigation into pesticide contamination and the socioenvironmental and health impacts in the Turé-Mariquita Indigenous Territory and the production zone of the country’s largest palm oil operation in the Tomé-Açú region.
- The green light to carry out the expert report was finally issued eight years after the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) filed a lawsuit to hold palm oil company Biopalma — acquired by Brasil BioFuels S.A. (BBF) in late 2020 — accountable for environmental impacts.
- A 2017 University of Brasília study, contained in the Mongabay investigation, found traces of three pesticides (two of them typically listed among those used in oil palm cultivation) in the major streams and wells used by the Tembé people in Turé-Mariquita.
Even Antarctic snow can’t escape the plastic peril, study shows
- A study presents new evidence that microplastics are present in snow in Antarctica, one of the remotest places on Earth.
- Researchers collected snow samples at 19 sites across the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica, and found 29 microplastic particles per liter of melted snow — a higher amount than what was found in marine samples in Antarctica.
- The microplastics found in samples close to research stations were three times higher than what was found at other locations, prompting researchers to conclude that much of the plastic was coming from local clothing and equipment.
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.
WWF report calls forests a vital public health solution
- A new report from WWF lays out the evidence for how forests directly impact public health.
- Forests not only act as reservoirs for potentially contagious diseases, but also filter water and air pollution that can otherwise lead to illnesses like cancer and diabetes.
- The report makes a case that forests also help alleviate food insecurity and malnutrition while improving mental health, among other benefits.
- It calls on conservationists and public health experts to work more closely and view forests as a public health tool.
In a biodiversity haven, mining drives highest ever recorded levels of mercury
- A recent study has found that forests in the southwestern Peruvian Amazon collect mercury from the atmosphere that’s used in artisanal small-scale gold mining in the Madre de Dios region.
- The study’s authors found “the highest ever recorded” levels of mercury from the “throughfall” that ends up on the forest floor when the leaves fall or rain washes the mercury from their surfaces.
- Mercury is highly toxic, causing neurological and reproductive problems in humans and other animals.
- Organizations are looking at different ways to reduce or even eliminate the use of mercury, which miners use to bind the flecks of gold found in the region’s riverine silt.
Caffeine: Emerging contaminant of global rivers and coastal waters
- Caffeine is the most consumed psychostimulant in the world, and a regular part of many daily lives, whether contained in coffee, chocolate, energy drinks, or pharmaceuticals.
- Partially excreted in urine, it is now ubiquitous in rivers and coastal waters. So much so that its detection is used to trace wastewater and sewage pollution. A new study found it to be in more than 50% of 1,052 sampling sites on 258 rivers around the globe. Another new study enumerates caffeine harm in coastal and marine environments.
- This continual flow of caffeine into aquatic ecosystems is causing concern among scientists due to its already identified impacts on a wide range of aquatic life including microalgae, corals, bivalves, sponges, marine worms, and fish. Most environmental impacts — especially wider effects within ecosystems — have not been studied.
- Soaring global use of products containing caffeine means the problem will worsen with time. Untreated sewage is a major source. And while some sewage treatment facilities can remove caffeine, many currently can’t. Far more study is needed to determine the full scope and biological impacts of the problem.
Tiny plastic particles accumulating in river headwaters: Study
- Researchers modeled the journey of microplastics released in wastewater treatment plant effluent into rivers of different sizes and flow speeds, focusing on the smallest microplastic fragments — less than 100 microns across, or the width of a single human hair.
- The study found that in slow-flowing stream headwaters — often located in remote, biodiverse regions — microplastics accumulated quicker and stayed longer than in faster flowing stretches of river.
- Microplastic accumulation in sediments could be the ‘missing plastic’ not found in comparisons of stream pollution levels with those found in oceans. Trapped particles may be released during storms and flood events, causing a lag between environmental contamination and release to the sea.
- A few hours in stream sediments can start to change plastics chemically, and microbes can grow on their surfaces. Most toxicity studies of microplastics use virgin plastics, so these environmentally transformed plastics pose an unknown risk to biodiversity and health.
Preventing the next pandemic is vastly cheaper than reacting to it: Study
- A new study emphasizes the need to stop pandemics before they start, stepping beyond the quest for new vaccines and treatments for zoonotic diseases to also aggressively fund interventions that prevent them from happening in the first place.
- Researchers estimated that based on Earth’s current population and on past pandemics, we can expect 3.3 million deaths from zoonotic diseases each year in future. COVID-19 pushed numbers in 2020-21 even higher. These outbreaks are now happening more frequently, and their cost is calculated in trillions of dollars.
- Addressing the main drivers — deforestation, the wildlife trade and burgeoning agriculture, especially in the tropics — could prevent future pandemics, save lives and catastrophic societal disruptions.
As world drowns in plastic waste, U.N. to hammer out global treaty
- After years of largely neglecting the buildup of plastic waste in Earth’s environment, the U.N. Environment Assembly will meet in February and March in the hopes of drafting the first international treaty controlling global plastics pollution.
- Discarded plastic is currently killing marine life, threatening food security, contributing to climate change, damaging economies, and dissolving into microplastics that contaminate land, water, the atmosphere and even the human bloodstream.
- The U.N. parties will debate how comprehensive the treaty they write will be: Should it, for example, protect just the oceans or the whole planet? Should it focus mainly on reuse/recycling, or control plastics manufacture and every step of the supply chain and waste stream?
- The U.S. has changed its position from opposition to such a treaty under President Donald Trump, to support under President Joe Biden, but has yet to articulate exactly what it wants in an agreement. While environmental NGOs are pushing for a comprehensive treaty, plastics companies, who say they support regulation, likely will want to limit the treaty’s scope.
Innovative sewage solutions: Tackling the global human waste problem
- The scale of the world’s human waste problem is vast, impacting human health, coastal and terrestrial ecosystems, and even climate change. Solving the problem requires working with communities to develop solutions that suit them, providing access to adequate sanitation and adapting aging sewage systems to a rapidly changing world.
- Decentralized and nature-based solutions are considered key to cleaning up urban wastewater issues and reducing pressure on, or providing affordable and effective alternatives to, centralized sewage systems.
- Seeing sewage and wastewater — which both contain valuable nutrients and freshwater — as a resource rather than as pollutants, is vital to achieving a sustainable “circular economy.” Technology alone can only get us so far, say experts. If society is to fully embrace the suite of solutions required, a sweeping mindset change will be needed.
The thick of it: Delving into the neglected global impacts of human waste
- Though little talked about, our species has a monumental problem disposing of its human waste. A recent modeling study finds that wastewater adds around 6.2 million tons of nitrogen to coastal waters worldwide per year, contributing significantly to harmful algal blooms, eutrophication and ocean dead zones.
- The study mapped 135,000 watersheds planetwide and found that just 25 of them account for almost half the nitrogen pollution contributed by human waste. Those 25 were pinpointed in both the developing world and developed world, and include the vast Mississippi River watershed in the United States.
- Human waste — including pharmaceuticals and even microplastics contained in feces and urine — is a major public health hazard, causing disease outbreaks, and putting biodiversity at risk. Sewage is impacting estuary fish nurseries, coral reefs, and seagrasses, a habitat that stores CO2, acting as a buffer against climate change.
- Waste is often perceived as mostly a developing world problem, but the developed world is as responsible — largely due to antiquated municipal sewage systems that combine rainwater and wastewater in the same pipes. As a result, intense precipitation events regularly flush raw sewage into waterways in the U.S., U.K. and EU.
Lockdown underscores Uganda’s overreliance on tourism to fund conservation
- When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in March 2020, Uganda quickly shut down parks like Bwindi Impenetrable National Park to protect the gorillas and chimpanzees from getting infected.
- Tourism provides up to 60% of the Uganda Wildlife Authority’s operating revenue and is also an important source of income for communities living around Bwindi.
- Poaching in Bwindi rose sharply during lockdown in 2020 as some villagers entered the park to hunt for food or an income.
- One NGO reinforced its programs supporting public health and livelihoods in an attempt to reduce this pressure.
Uganda’s ‘Dr. Gladys’ honored by U.N. for work linking conservation and health
- The United Nations on Dec. 7 recognized Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka as one of its “champions of the Earth” for promoting the One Health approach to conservation in Africa.
- The Ugandan conservationist, a trained wildlife veterinarian, established the NGO Conservation Through Public Health (CTPH) in 2003 to ensure better health care access for communities living around Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and to lower the risk of human pathogens jumping to mountain gorillas.
- UNEP selected Kalema-Zikusoka for its science and innovation category; the other awardees were Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, Kyrgyz youth activist Maria Kolesnikova, and the nonprofit Sea Women of Melanesia.
- “If you make the community feel that you care about them, then there’s less need to fight them,” Kalema-Zikusoka said.
In a warming world, deforestation turns the heat deadly, Borneo study finds
- New research identifies how rising localized temperatures driven by deforestation and global warming are increasing heat-related deaths and creating unsafe working conditions in Indonesia.
- In the Bornean district of Berau, 4,375 square kilometers (1,689 square miles) of forest were cleared between 2002 and 2018, contributing to a 0.95°C (1.71°F) increase in mean daily temperature across the district, according to the study.
- It concluded climate change temperature increases in the region caused an 8% rise in mortality rates in 2018, or more than 100 deaths annually, and an additional almost 20 minutes per day of unsafe work time.
- Based on the 2018 data, a projected 2°C (3.6°F) global temperature increase in deforested areas could result in a 20%increase in all-cause mortality — an additional 236-282 deaths per year — and almost five unsafe work hours per day.
‘To change policies, insert yourself in them’: Q&A with biologist Liliana Dávalos
- Colombian biologist Liliana Dávalos has combined conservation research with evolutionary ecology from her laboratory at Stony Brook University.
- Dávalos was one of the first scientists to warn, in 2001, about the environmental risks that an eventual end to the civil war in Colombia would have — a scenario that is now playing out as Colombia’s forests are being opened up for commercial activity.
- Bats are another of Dávalos’s subjects of study: In addition to deciphering their genome to understand their evolution in space and time, more recently Dávalos has studied the relationship of these flying mammals with pathogens such as coronaviruses.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Dávalos, who is openly gay, also talks about attitudes in academia toward women and lesbians, and sends a message to young researchers not to be blinded by the awareness of obstacles.
Poisoned city: The story of Brazil’s forgotten environmental disaster
- Hundreds of tons of carcinogenic agrochemicals, including DDT, were abandoned by the Brazilian government at a factory near an orphanage on the outskirts or Rio de Janeiro in the 1960s.
- The factory had produced the pesticides as part of the government’s push to eradicate malaria-carrying mosquitoes.
- After it shut down, the residents, unaware of the dangers of the chemicals, continued to use them, even applying the dust directly to their children’s hair to kill head lice.
- More than half a century later, residents continue to suffer from the impact on their health, with 73% of those tested having high levels of contamination in their bodies.
Supporting more holistic approaches to conservation: an interview with Kai Carter
- For at least the past 20 years, there has been regular talk about the need to break down silos in conservation. But in practice, the conservation sector as a whole has been slow to bring the necessary voices and expertise into the conversation. That hesitancy, or inertia, can mean missed opportunities to connect conservation with other positive outcomes, from health to livelihoods.
- Kai Carter understands this well: As a program officer at the Packard Foundation’s Agriculture, Livelihoods, and Conservation (ALC) strategy, her work focuses on supporting organizations that work at the intersection of local communities, rights, health, and the environment.
- “Local agriculture, economic development, and conservation are interwoven in people’s lives; they don’t view them as separate,” Carter told Mongabay. “We’ve been exploring how our grantmaking can be more effective by approaching environmental sustainability, livelihoods, community resilience, and health holistically and with the intention of centering the needs and aspirations of smallholder farming communities.”
- Carter spoke about the Packard Foundation’s ALC strategy, equity and inclusion in conservation, and a range of other issues during a recent conversation with Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler.
Biosurveillance of markets and legal wildlife trade needed to curb pandemic risk: Experts
- Almost 90% of the 180 recognized RNA viruses that can harm humans are zoonotic in origin. But disease biosurveillance of the world’s wildlife markets and legal trade is largely absent, putting humanity at significant risk.
- The world needs a decentralized disease biosurveillance system, experts say, that would allow public health professionals and wildlife scientists in remote areas to test for pathogens year-round, at source, with modern mobile technologies in order to help facilitate a rapid response to emerging zoonotic disease outbreaks.
- Though conservation advocates have long argued for an end to the illegal wildlife trade (which does pose zoonotic disease risk), but the legal trade poses a much greater threat to human health, say experts.
- Governments around the world are calling for the World Health Organization to create a pandemic treaty. Wildlife groups are pushing for such an agreement to include greater at-source protections to prevent zoonotic spillover.
Extreme heat exposure in cities tripled in less than 35 years, study finds
- Exposure to dangerously high temperatures in cities nearly tripled between 1983 and 2016, according to a study that considered both warming and population growth.
- Cities are hotter than their surrounding areas because they are densely populated and tend to generate and trap more heat.
- The decade starting 2011 was the warmest in recorded history, and the proportion of the global population exposed to extreme heat is expected to multiply in the coming decades.
- Excessive warming of urbanized areas and the relentless influx of people points to an urgent need for policies that protect city residents, especially in developing countries.
Look beyond carbon credits to put a price on nature’s services, experts say
- Valuing nature as a “new asset class” could be the key to getting trillions of dollars in investments to flow to nature-based solutions, experts said at a recent sustainability conference in Singapore.
- Because policymakers and investors haven’t been able to properly value nature, the finance industry has been using carbon markets as a proxy for investing in it.
- Governments should account for the ecosystem benefits of nature beyond carbon capture, the experts said.
- Proper valuation of nature’s benefits requires inputs from not only investors, but also scientists, communities and NGOs.
Not just for humans — scientists turn to vaccines to save endangered species
- Vaccines developed for animals, including rabies or swine fever shots, have historically been aimed at protecting humans rather than the animals themselves.
- Scientists are now increasingly looking at animal vaccines as a means of saving wild populations of threatened species.
- As with vaccines for humans, development cycles can take a decade or more, and the challenge of administering doses is far more complex.
- But some initiatives have shown promise in protecting wildlife from infectious diseases that could otherwise lead to entire species being decimated.
Black Death aside, we know surprisingly little about rodents and disease
- Rodents make up 40% of all mammal species on the planet, and an estimated 10.7% of them are known hosts of zoonotic diseases, such as cat scratch disease, bartonella, hantavirus, Lyme disease, leishmaniasis, leptospirosis, and the plague.
- A recent letter in the journal Conservation Biology calls for more attention and funding to be directed toward studying small rodents, “the wildlife species most likely to be abundant, come into contact with humans, and be potential reservoirs in future zoonotic outbreaks.”
- Controlling and mitigating the risk of zoonotic diseases through rodent control is another area that lacks research, with the current approach of killing and poisoning rodents in urban areas actually posing the risk of causing more disease.
- Experts call for evidence-based, whole-system approaches to control rodents and champion the One Health approach to address zoonotic disease, acknowledging that human, environmental, and animal health are all interconnected.
Address risky human activities now or face new pandemics, scientists warn
- The new, highly-contagious Delta variant — spread with the ease of chickenpox — is causing COVID-19 cases to skyrocket across the globe as health officials respond with alarm. “The war has changed,” said a recent internal U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) document.
- Globally, numerous infectious diseases are being transmitted between wildlife, livestock and humans at escalating rates, including outbreaks of COVID-19, Ebola, dengue, HIV and others, as the threat of new emergent zoonotic diseases grows ever greater. The cost is huge in lives lost and ruined economies.
- The driver: human activities, particularly intrusion into wild landscapes and eating and trading wild animals. Bringing people, domestic and wild animals into unnatural proximity exposes all to pathogens for which they lack immunity. International travel and a booming global wildlife trade quickly spread viruses.
- Experts say that a “One Health” approach is urgently needed to prevent future pandemics — simultaneously addressing human, animal and ecosystem health, protecting humanity and nature, and incorporating disease risk into decision-making.
Podcast: Connecting kids and ourselves to nature
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we discuss the latest research showing how important it is to connect kids to nature and educate them about the environment.
- We’re joined by author and journalist Richard Louv, who created the ‘nature deficit disorder’ concept in 2005 to facilitate discussion of the impacts our disconnectedness from nature has on human health and wellbeing. His latest book is Our Wild Calling: How Connecting With Animals Can Transform Our Lives — and Save Theirs.
- We’re also joined by Megan Strauss, an editor with Mongabay Kids, who tells us about how the site delivers the news and inspiration from nature’s frontline for young readers and discusses the importance of environmental education.
Scientists call for solving climate and biodiversity crises together
- A new report from United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) highlights the importance of confronting climate change and biodiversity loss together.
- Global climate change and the unprecedented loss of species currently underway result from a similar suite of human-driven causes, the report’s authors write.
- As a result, solutions that take both issues into account have the best chance of success, they conclude.
Talks break down over crumbling Yemeni tanker threatening massive oil spill
- The FSO Safer, an oil supertanker anchored for decades off Yemen, risks a catastrophic humanitarian and environmental disaster in the Red Sea.
- The civil war in Yemen has suspended essential maintenance on the increasingly fragile vessel with more than 1 million barrels of oil in its hold and hindered disaster preparedness.
- On June 1, talks appeared to break down between the U.N. and the Houthi administration, which controls the vessel. The two sides had spent months negotiating access for a U.N. team to investigate and stabilize the vessel.
- A spill would jeopardize corals with the best-known chance of surviving predicted global climate change.
As the rest of world tackles plastics disposal, the U.S. resists
- In an expansion of the U.N.’s 1989 Basel Convention, amendments to the international protocol on the shipment of hazardous waste were revised to include plastics in 2021, with nations currently figuring out how to implement the agreement.
- The United States is the only major nation not to have fully implemented the treaty, despite strong support for it among both the Republican and Democratic parties. The Biden administration could soon change that.
- The U.S. remains a major dumper of hazardous waste globally, including large amounts of plastics, despite the attempted limitations imposed by the Basel Convention. The potential impacts of plastics and other “novel entities” on human health and ecosystems are largely unknown.
- Even if the Basel Convention is successful in its mission, it will only solve part of the plastics problem, as it doesn’t address the manufacture of plastics or their domestic disposal. Plastics and a wide variety of human-made materials are included in the “novel entities” planetary boundary — one of nine major threats to life on Earth.
Behind the scenes video unveils water contamination by ‘sustainable’ Amazon palm oil
- Brazil’s official policy states that Amazon palm oil is green, but is that true? An 18-month investigation showed the opposite, with impacts including deforestation and water contamination, and it revealed what appears to be an industry-wide pattern of brazen disregard for Amazon conservation and for the rights of Indigenous people and traditional communities in northern Pará state.
- The Mongabay investigation will be used by federal prosecutors as evidence to hold a palm oil company accountable for water contamination in the Turé-Mariquita Indigenous Reserve.
- Federal prosecutors have pursued Brazil’s leading palm oil exporters in the courts for the past seven years, alleging the companies are contaminating water supplies, poisoning the soil, and harming the livelihoods and health of Indigenous and traditional peoples, charges the companies deny.
- In this behind-the-scenes video, Mongabay’s Contributing Editor in Brazil, Karla Mendes, takes us on her reporting journey as her team tracks how the palm oil industry is changing this Amazonian landscape.
We can prevent the next pandemic (commentary)
- Research has shown that agriculture, urbanization, and other human activities that degrade forests and other ecosystems can trigger viruses to jump from other species into humans, a process known as “spillover.”
- In this commentary, Prevent Pandemics at the Source co-founders Sonila Cook and Nigel Sizer argue that “it’s only when we prevent new diseases before they start — at the source, where humans and animals come into close contact – that we will become less vulnerable to pathogens.”
- Cook and Sizer say that prevention is much less costly than fighting pandemics once they start. “We can protect forests, clean up and reduce wildlife trade, improve farming practices and expand surveillance to detect spillovers as they are occurring for about $10 billion per year,” they write. “Compared with the massive human and economic cost of another pandemic, this price tag is tiny.”
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
Humanity’s dysfunctional relationship with Earth can still be fixed, report says
- A new report released in the leadup to the “Our Planet, Our Future” Nobel Prize Summit, provides an overview of the numerous challenges facing our planet due to human pressures, including the transgression of several planetary boundaries that help regulate and stabilize the Earth.
- However, it also considers ways in which global sustainability can be achieved through transformative change.
- The authors say that emerging technologies, social innovations, shifts in cultural repertoires, and different approaches to biosphere stewardship can all play a part in paving the way for a more sustainable future.
- The Nobel Prize Summit, which will be the first of its kind, will take place between April 26 and 28, and will discuss what can be learned from the global pandemic we’re currently experiencing, and the changes that can be made in this decade to help achieve global sustainability.
Momentum is building for a ‘robust’ biodiversity framework: Q&A with Elizabeth Mrema
- One of the many impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic has been to rally global ambition for a biodiversity framework that sets the world on a path to a sustainable future, says Elizabeth Maruma Mrema.
- Mrema, executive secretary of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), says there’s growing awareness of the importance of biodiversity for everything from food security to the regulation of water and air quality, to pest and disease regulation.
- “World leaders fully recognize that the continued deterioration and degradation of Earth’s natural ecosystems are having major impacts on the lives and livelihoods of people around the world,” she says.
- In an interview with Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler, Mrema talks about building a robust post-2020 framework after the Aichi Biodiversity Targets fell short, how the conservation sector has changed over her career, and her hopes for the CBD summit coming up later this year.
Brazil prosecutors cite Mongabay probe in new legal battle against palm oil firms
- Prosecutors in Brazil say they will use findings from an investigation by Mongabay as evidence to hold a palm oil company accountable for water contamination in an Indigenous reserve in the Amazon.
- The move comes as prosecutors filed an appeal March 26 against a ruling blocking a forensic investigation into water contamination from pesticide use by Biopalma that has impacted the Tembé people of the Turé-Mariquita Indigenous Reserve in Pará state.
- Mongabay’s 18-month investigation, published March 12, revealed evidence of this pollution as well as similar cases involving two other top Brazilian palm oil companies, pointing to a potentially industry-wide pattern of disregard for Amazon conservation and for the rights of Indigenous people and traditional communities.
- The investigation also revealed the clearing of native forests for oil palm cultivation, as shown through satellite imagery, contradicting claims by the companies and the government that oil palm crops are planted only on already deforested land.
Déjà vu as palm oil industry brings deforestation, pollution to Amazon
- Palm oil, a crop synonymous with deforestation and community conflicts in Southeast Asia, is making inroads in the Brazilian Amazon, where the same issues are playing out.
- Indigenous and traditional communities say the plantations in their midst are polluting their water, poisoning their soil, and driving away fish and game.
- Scientists have found high levels of agrochemical residues in these communities — though still within Brazil’s legal limits — while prosecutors are pursuing legal cases against the companies for allegedly violating Indigenous and traditional communities’ rights and damaging the environment.
- Studies based on satellite imagery also disprove the companies’ claims that they only plant on already deforested land.
Amid pollution and COVID-19, a quilombolas’ Amazon sanctuary turns hostile
- COVID-19 has ravaged the Afro-descendant quilombo communities throughout the Brazilian Amazon, amplifying the impacts of pollution, encroachment and lack of health care that they have long struggled with.
- In the Jambuaçu Territory, home to some 700 quilombolas, pollution of waterways from oil palm plantations may leave the communities lacking the clean water that’s essential to keeping infection at bay.
- Official data on COVID-19 infections and deaths among quilombolas are scant, as are most other statistics on this historically marginalized population group; one estimate suggests the mortality rate may be four times higher than the national average.
- The quilombolas’ fight for adequate health care and prioritization in Brazil’s vaccination drive is part of a larger struggle for official recognition of their land rights, advocates say.
‘Everything on this planet is connected’: Q&A with WWF’s Marco Lambertini
- As the world works to emerge from the devastation and hardship brought by the pandemic, there has been much talk about the recovery being an opportunity to drive transformative change toward a more sustainable, equitable society that recognizes that human well-being is underpinned by a healthy planet.
- Much of the focus on this concept has been on cutting carbon emissions from transportation and energy production. There’s been less emphasis on protecting and restoring nature, but the “Nature Positive” campaign is working to change that. WWF, which is arguably the best known conservation group in the world, is among the NGOs leading the charge on Nature Positive.
- Marco Lambertini, the director-general of WWF International, says we’re well past the time for taking action on the loss of nature: ““Science has been telling us for decades that our activities are destroying nature at a rate far faster than it can replenish itself… Tackling nature loss requires us to fundamentally transform our productive sectors, but to do that we need a clear time-bound goal that drives ambition and that governments, businesses and consumers can all contribute to achieving and be held accountable to.”
- Lambertini discussed the Nature Positive movement, the need for change, and several other topics during a February 2021 conversation with Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler.
As nature declines, so does human quality of life, study finds
- Researchers working with the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) reviewed more than 2,000 studies to determine how environmental decline is affecting human well-being.
- The study found “unambiguous declines” in quality of life related to half of the IPBES categories of nature’s contributions to humanity.
- Where the results were mixed, negative impacts were often felt more acutely by low-income people and poorer countries.
‘Great concern’ as study finds microplastics in human placentas
- A new study has found microplastics present inside human placentas, which could potentially affect fetal health and development.
- The microplastics probably entered the women’s bodies through ingestion and inhalation, and then translocated to the placentas, the study suggests.
- While further research needs to be done on the subject, it is believed that these microplastics could disrupt immunity mechanisms in babies.
Coronavirus risk grows as animals move through wildlife trade
- Animals consumed by people in Vietnam are increasingly likely to carry coronavirus as they move from the wild to markets to restaurants, a new study shows.
- The animals with the highest rates of infection are most likely to come into contact with humans.
- When animals are confined in crowded and stressful conditions, it makes it even easier for the virus to spread.
One Health: A necessary blend of biodiversity and human health goals (commentary)
- This week, the German Federal Foreign Office & WCS will co-host “One Planet, One Health, One Future: Moving forward in a post-COVID19 world.”
- The One Health approach acknowledges the interconnectedness of human, animal, and ecosystem health.
- COVID-19 provides an unfortunate but essential opportunity to demonstrate the fundamental importance of the One Health approach, and make connections with important biodiversity targets.
- This article is a commentary, the views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Amazon meatpacking plants, a COVID-19 hotspot, may be ground zero for next pandemic
- The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that slaughterhouses are among the outbreak hotspots for the disease because of the low temperatures and crowded production lines.
- But slaughterhouses are also ideal locations for the emergence of new viruses due to the contact between humans and the blood and entrails of cattle.
- Nearly a third of cases where diseases spread from animals to human beings occurred because their natural environments were invaded and destroyed, which puts Brazil’s beef industry, centered in the Amazon, at particularly high risk.
- Yet despite the economic fallout from the pandemic, the financial market keeps ignoring this risk and supporting the beef companies most exposed to deforestation in the Amazon.
For European chemical giants, Brazil is an open market for toxic pesticides banned at home
- In 2018, Brazil used more than 60,000 tonnes of highly hazardous pesticides banned in the European Union.
- Three Europe-based multibillion-dollar companies control 54% of the world market.
- They include German agrochemical giants BASF and Bayer, as well as Swiss company Syngenta, one of whose pesticides still being sold in Brazil has been banned in its home country for more than 30 years.
Communities, conservation, and development in the age of COVID: Time for rethinking approaches (commentary)
- In this commentary, Michael Brown of Satya Development International, Beth Allgood of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, and a number of co-authors (see the full list at bottom) argue that the Covid-19 pandemic affords an opportunity for conservation to evolve away from underperforming business-as-usual approaches.
- Such a shift, they write, should “focus on careful situational analysis and addressing underlying causes, rather than proposing reactionary solutions that are oversimplified, overgeneralized, and infeasible.”
- For example, they argue that an overzealous focus on crime can exacerbate existing social inequities and undermine conservation outcomes. “The ongoing reckoning in the United States on systemic racism is especially pertinent for conservation given its uncomfortable history embedded in systems of colonialism and oppression,” they write. “In parallel with the environmental justice and intersectional environmental movement, conservation must also recognize that achieving sustainability will require centering frontline communities as equal and meaningful leaders in developing and implementing conservation actions.”
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
‘Our life is plasticized’: New research shows microplastics in our food, water, air
- Microplastics, plastic pieces smaller than 5 millimeters, have become increasingly prevalent in the natural world, and a suite of studies published in the last three years, including several from 2020, shows that they’ve contaminated not only the ocean and pristine wildernesses, but the air, our food, and even our bodies.
- Past research has indicated that 5.25 trillion plastic pieces are floating in the ocean, but a new study says that there are 2.5 to 10 times more microplastics in the ocean than previously thought, while another recent study found that microplastic “hotspots” could hold 1.9 million pieces per square meter.
- Other emerging research suggests that 136,000 tons of microplastics in the ocean are being ejected into the atmosphere each year, and blowing back onto land with the sea breeze, posing a risk to human health.
- Microplastics are also present in drinking water, and edible fruits and vegetables, according to new research, which means that humans are ingesting microplastics every day.
‘In the plantations there is hunger and loneliness’: The cultural dimensions of food insecurity in Papua (commentary)
- Sophie Chao is an anthropologist who has spent years studying the Marind people of southern Papua.
- As palm oil companies take over their land, the Marind, she writes, are struggling to feed themselves.
- Photographs in this article feature Marind, Mandobo and Auyu tribespeople in southern Papua and were taken by Albertus Vembrianto.
COVID-19 and rainforest fires set up potential public health crisis
- Peaking fires in the world’s rainforests combined with the global COVID-19 pandemic threaten to create a devastating public health crisis, experts warn.
- The fires typically follow recent deforestation, as farmers and ranchers burn brush and trees to make way for crops and livestock.
- Soot from the fires causes severe respiratory problems and exacerbates existing conditions, health researchers say. The uptick in the need for treatment could overwhelm already-strained hospitals in the Amazon and Southeast Asia.
- Researchers say that solutions exist, involving government enforcement, consumer demand for deforestation-free products, and company commitments to halt the destruction of forests. Now what’s needed is political will.
Amazon poor go hungry as Brazil slashes social safety net, cuts forests: Study
- Living along the rivers of the Amazon rainforest, many imagine, would make for a sustainable diet packed full of freshwater fish. But a recent study finds this is not the case. A combination of interacting factors is now causing many poor families in riverine communities to go hungry.
- Researchers found that Amazon fish catch rates are naturally 73% lower in the highwater season. In the past, this lull was supplemented by hunting. But Brazilian deforestation, increased under former Pres. Michel Temer and now under Pres. Jair Bolsonaro, has replaced biodiverse forests with soy and other kinds of plantations.
- Add to this Bolsonaro’s and Temer’s rapid deconstruction of internationally-lauded social welfare programs, implemented by Presidents Lula and Rousseff and their Workers’ Party, which fed many riverine families when fish catches dropped.
- Figure in climate change too: its deep droughts harm forest and river diversity, while extreme floods keep stream levels high and fish catches low, and for longer. Now, COVID-19 has come to the Amazon, with food shopping trips made from rural riverine settlements to cities now requiring a serious element of risk.
As COVID-19 pandemic deepens, global wildlife treaty faces an identity crisis
- The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) is a global environmental agreement of great consequence: it regulates the global trade in some of the most threatened species on Earth.
- While many conservation groups jumped at the chance the COVID-19 pandemic offered to highlight the link between pandemics and wildlife exploitation, the CITES Secretariat appeared to distance itself from the crisis, drawing criticism and scrutiny.
- The treaty, one of the few binding environmental conventions, should be part of the solution, many believe, but it would need to expanded and strengthened to respond to new challenges like COVID-19.
- Doing this and tackling larger issues of biodiversity and habitat loss would require leadership from the countries that are party to this and similar conventions, experts say.
Jane Goodall: COVID-19 is a product of our unhealthy relationship with animals and the environment (commentary)
- Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, is the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and a U.N. Messenger of Peace.
- In this commentary Goodall argues that our exploitation of animals and the environment has contributed to pandemics, including the current COVID-19 crisis.
- Goodall says that wildlife trafficking, the production of animal-based medicines, factory farming, and the destruction of critical habitats all can create enabling conditions for viruses to spill over from their animal hosts into humans.
- This post is a commentary and does not necessarily reflect the views of Mongabay.
From writing to VR, finding ways to connect to nature during isolation
- Therapists, scientists and creative workers are finding ways to tap into the positive mental health benefits of being in green spaces.
- From mindful bird listening to virtual reality interactions, they’re showing that staying in doesn’t have to mean shutting off.
Madagascar’s president promotes unproven herbal cure for COVID-19
- Madagascar’s president, Andry Rajoelina, unveiled an unproven cure for COVID-19 that is derived from a plant, Artemisia annua.
- His comments at a launch of the herbal remedy on April 20 suggested that the remedy, called COVID-ORGANICS, would act both as a cure and a vaccine.
- No evidence from any clinical trials was shared to back up the claims.
- The World Health Organization did not respond to Mongabay’s questions about COVID-ORGANICS, but the agency has warned against the spread of misinformation and purported miracle cures.
Decade after BP Deepwater Horizon spill, oil drilling is as dangerous as ever
- Ten years ago, the BP Deepwater Horizon exploratory rig exploded, killing 11 people and initiating the largest oil spill in the history of the United States.
- Nearly 5 million barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico, causing catastrophic damage to the ecosystem and economy of the region.
- A newly published report by the nonprofit Oceana looks back at how this spill happened, the resulting ecological and economic impacts, and if this catastrophe has changed government or oil industry approaches to offshore drilling.
- Poor government oversight and inadequate safety culture paved the way for the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion. Now, a decade later, it appears these conditions, the prerequisites for disaster, have not improved.
How to prevent the next COVID-19? Conservationists weigh in
- As the death toll from COVID-19 crosses 140,000 and cases surpass the 2 million mark there are growing calls for a permanent ban on trade in wild animals for human consumption.
- The available evidence suggests that a wet market in Wuhan, China, where live animals were bought and sold, was the site where the novel coronavirus jumped to human hosts from animals.
- Conservationists, however, are urging for a broader examination of the factors that led to the emergence of COVID-19 and a careful evaluation of measures that could prevent the next zoonotic pandemic.
- One Health, the idea that the well-being of humans is inextricably linked to the health of the planet, is gaining currency and could emerge as the guiding principle for international agencies and national governments in their fight to avert another COVID-19-like crisis.
Will the next coronavirus come from Amazonia? Deforestation and the risk of infectious diseases (commentary)
- Many “new” human diseases originate from pathogens transferred from wild animals, as occurred with the COVID-19 coronavirus. Amazonia contains a vast number of animal species and their associated pathogens with the potential to be transferred to humans.
- Deforestation both brings humans into close proximity to wildlife and is associated with consumption of bushmeat from hunted animals.
- Amazonian deforestation is being promoted by the governments of Brazil and other countries both through actions that encourage clearing and by lack of actions to halt forest loss. The potential for releasing “new” diseases adds one more impact that should make these governments rethink their policies.
- The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
Tax exemptions on pesticides in Brazil add up to US$ 2.2 billion per year
- Aside from saving from generous discounts or total exemptions on taxes, multinational giants in the pesticides sector also receive millions in public resources to fund research through the BNDES [Brazil’s National Development Bank]
- The amount that the Brazilian government fails to collect because of tax exemptions on pesticides is nearly four times as much as the Ministry of the Environment’s total budget this year (US$ 600 million) and more than double what the nation’s national health system [SUS] spent to treat cancer patients in 2017 (US$ 1 billion).
- Tax exemptions related to pesticides are upheld by laws passed decades ago, which view these products as fundamental for the nation’s development and that, because of this, need stimulus—like what happens with the national cesta básica [basket of basics] food distribution program.
- The scenario that benefits pesticide companies could change, as the Federal Supreme Court [STF] is expected to soon judge a Direct Action of Unconstitutionality comparing pesticides to categories like cigarettes, harmful to health and which generate costs that are paid by the entire population—and for which reason are subject to extra taxes instead of tax breaks.
Chinese government reportedly recommending bear bile injections to treat coronavirus
- The London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) reported today that a list of recommended treatments for the novel coronavirus disease COVID-19 published by the Chinese government earlier this month includes injections of a traditional medicine called “Tan Re Qing,” which contains bear bile.
- Last month, China adopted a comprehensive ban on trade and consumption of wildlife in response to the growing COVID-19 outbreak, which scientists believe originated in a market in the Chinese city of Wuhan where wild animals and bushmeat are sold. But the ban does not prohibit the use of wildlife products in traditional Chinese medicine or as ornamental items.
- EIA wildlife campaigner and China specialist Aron White noted the irony in the country recommending a treatment that relies on trade in wildlife in response to a global disease pandemic born from the wildlife trade.
Response to one pandemic, COVID-19, has helped ease another: Air pollution
- Air pollution has significantly decreased over China amid the economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, signaling unanticipated implications for human health.
- It is estimated that air pollution caused an extra 8.8 million premature deaths globally in 2015 alone, representing an average of a three-year shortening of life expectancy across the human population, and shortening lives on a scale greater than malaria, war and violence, HIV/AIDS, and smoking.
- The two-month drop in pollution may have saved the lives of 4,000 children under the age of 5 and 73,000 adults over the age of 70 in China, according to environmental resource economist Marshall Burke — significantly more than the global death toll from the COVID-19 virus at the time of calculation.
- Burke says we should not think of this as a “silver lining” or a “benefit” of the pandemic, given that COVID-19’s impact on public health and the broader disruption it is causing — lost incomes, inability to receive care for non-COVID-19 illnesses and injuries, etc. — could have far-reaching implications.
Healthy ecosystems, healthy humans: ‘One Health’ broadens its scope
- At an Oct. 25 conference in Berlin, conservation and public health leaders issued 10 principles aimed at encouraging cross-disciplinary research and efforts to address both human health and environmental problems.
- The principles, part of the One Health movement, grew out of the Manhattan Principles introduced in 2004.
- The declaration acknowledges that the world’s poor often suffer the most as a result of environmental degradation.
- However, the conference organizers point out that climate change has global reach and must be addressed from both the environmental and health perspectives.
Malaria surges in deforested parts of the Amazon, study finds
- A recent study found that deforestation significantly increases the transmission of malaria, about three times more than previously thought.
- The analysis showed that a 10 percent increase in deforestation caused a 3.3 percent rise in malaria cases.
- The study’s authors analyzed more than a decade of data showing the occurrences of malaria in nearly 800 villages, towns and cities across the Brazilian Amazon.
- They also controlled for the “feedback” from malaria, by which a rise in the incidence of the disease actually slows deforestation down.
Decolonizing trees in a tropical city to nurture multi-cultural identity
- The survey found that 73 percent of trees in Georgetown were cultivated for their edible fruits.
- The random distribution of trees suggests social cohesion, fostered by a sharing of food traditions, and could provide a blueprint for other multicultural cities.
- But climate change and economic growth mean tree preservation and planting are needed to mitigate social and environmental impacts.
Slight warming could be enough to heighten risk of malaria: Study
- New research has found that malaria parasites need less time to develop at lower temperatures than previously thought.
- Earlier research postulated that malaria transmission in cooler areas was unlikely because parasites took longer to mature than the lifespans of their mosquito hosts.
- The researchers found that the parasites needed between 31 and 37 days to develop at 18 degrees Celsius (64 degrees Fahrenheit) — substantially lower than the 56 days postulated by previous research and well within the lifespan of female mosquitoes.
National parks: Serving humanity’s well-being as much as nature’s
- A new study finds that living near a protected area in the developing world decreases poverty and increases childhood health.
- Parks with tourism or multi-use were the best at delivering benefits to local populations.
- There is an untold part of this story: conflict with wildlife was not incorporated into the study.
Congo’s hidden crisis: Snakebites and envenomation
- Sub-Saharan and Central Africa are key case study areas for a health crisis now receiving international attention from health authorities.
- Lack of funding for an issue that isn’t immediately perceivable means relevant and potentially life-saving anti-venom programs aren’t present in vulnerable communities.
- Existing medical infrastructure and local health care teams could potentially be deployed to dispense anti-venoms. However, rural isolation and lack of funding for expensive and specialized anti-venoms are the two main factors that have created a crisis.
- The travel for this story was funded by the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting.
Conservation groups concerned as WHO recognizes traditional Chinese medicine
- The World Health Organization (WHO) will include traditional Chinese medicine in the revision of its influential International Classification of Diseases for the first time.
- The move concerns wildlife scientists and conservationists who say the WHO’s formal backing of traditional Chinese medicine could legitimize the hunting of wild animals for their parts, which are used in some remedies and treatments.
- The WHO has responded by saying that the inclusion of the practice in the volume doesn’t imply that the organization condones the contravention of international law aimed at protecting species like rhinos and tigers.
Audio: Saving forests and biodiversity by providing affordable healthcare
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we speak with Kinari Webb, founder of Health in Harmony, an organization using healthcare for humans to save rainforests and their wildlife inhabitants.
- In the decade since Heath in Harmony launched its healthcare-for-conservation program in Indonesia’s Gunung Palung National Park, infant deaths in local communities have been reduced by more than two-thirds, the number of illegal logging households in the park has gone down by nearly 90 percent, the loss of forest has stabilized, 20,000 hectares of forest are being replanted, and habitat for 2,500 endangered Bornean Orangutans has been protected.
- Webb talks about radical listening, the tremendous impacts for rainforests and orangutans of providing affordable healthcare to local communities, and her plans to expand Health in Harmony’s efforts outside of Indonesia on this episode of the Newscast.
‘Plastic Soup:’ Photos and Q&A with author of new book documenting plastic pollution and solutions
- Earth’s oceans are drowning in plastic. Humans created 311 million metric tons of the stuff in 2014, and it is expected that we’ll be making four times as much by 2050 — yet only about 5 percent of plastic is currently recycled. It’s been estimated that 8 million metric tons of the plastic that goes to waste is dumped into our oceans every year — which is equivalent to a full garbage truck of plastic being dumped into the oceans every minute.
- In a series of stunning photos and informative graphics, new book Plastic Soup: An Atlas of Ocean Pollution documents the plastic pollution crisis engulfing Earth’s seas, the impacts of that pollution on wildlife and people, and initiatives that have been created to tackle the problem.
- The book, set to be published tomorrow by Island Press, was written by Michiel Roscam Abbing, a political scientist who reports on the latest scientific research around plastics for the Plastic Soup Foundation. Mongabay spoke with Abbing via email to get a sneak peek at what’s in the book, including a handful of its most compelling images and graphics.
Stunting, loss of earning potential linked to Indonesia’s 1997 wildfires
- Fires raged out of control in Indonesia in 1997, spreading across 110,000 square kilometers (42,500 square miles) of forest.
- Researchers have found that people who were prenatal or 6 months old at the time did not grow to the expected average height by the time they were 17.
- Relative height has been found to have an impact on a person’s ability to earn an income, providing a new glimpse into the intergenerational cost of exposure to fire and haze.
Research finds humans across the globe have microplastics in their stool
- Researchers from the Medical University of Vienna and the Environment Agency Austria monitored eight people in eight different countries and found that every single stool sample collected tested positive for the presence of microplastics.
- Food processing and plastic food packaging are major sources of microplastics in human diets. Microplastics can also enter the human food chain via marine animals that people consume — significant amounts of microplastics have been found in lobster, shrimp, and tuna, for instance.
- The researchers found 9 different types of plastic in the human stools they tested — shipped to Vienna in plastic-free containers to be screened at the Environment Agency Austria — with an average of 20 microplastic particles ranging in size from 50 to 500 micrometres found in every 10 grams of stool.
The bioethics of wildlife intervention (commentary)
- As health care professionals, veterinarians are uniquely positioned to address complex ethical issues involving human, animal, and ecosystem health — a concept aptly known as “One Health.” This initiative governs the core of conservation medicine and reflects the interrelationship and transdisciplinary approach needed to ultimately ensure the wellbeing of all.
- Veterinarians regularly wrestle with whether their actions are restorative or destructive, and reflect on a track record of gratifying wins and unsavory losses to learn from.
- Given our substantial roles in the fate of conservation, it is imperative to debate the significance of interventional efforts and whether they can be rationalized.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
How a better understanding of psychopathology in captive primates can aid in conservation efforts
- Maya Kummrow, a doctor of veterinary medicine, writes in a paper recently published in the Journal of Zoo and Wildlife Medicine that non-human primates have been used as models of human psychopathology — the study of mental illness — for decades. But, she notes, “the acquired knowledge has only hesitantly been applied to primates themselves.”
- In the paper, Kummrow states that she is seeking to raise awareness among her fellow veterinarians about the wealth of information on NHP psychopathology that is available in human medicine and anthropology literature and calls for “mental health assessments and professionally structured treatment approaches” in NHP medicine, as well.
- In this Q&A, Mongabay spoke with Kummrow about how her review of the literature on NHP psychopathology and treatment might apply to primate conservation efforts.
Nature retention, not just protection, crucial to maintaining biodiversity and ecosystems: Scientists
- In a paper published last week in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, a team of Australian researchers argue that we need to shift conservation goals to focus on diverse and ambitious “nature retention targets” if we’re to truly safeguard the environment, biodiversity, and humanity.
- The researchers, who are affiliated with Australia’s University of Queensland (UQ) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), make a distinction between targets aimed at retaining natural systems and the current model that seeks to achieve targets for setting aside land as protected areas.
- Rather than simply setting a certain amount of the planet’s land and seas aside, nature retention targets would establish the baseline levels of natural system functions that we need to preserve in order to ensure the health of ecosystems and the services they provide.
Audio: Amazon tribe’s traditional medicine encyclopedia gets an update, and conservation effectiveness in Madagascar examined
- On today’s episode, we’ll get an update on an ambitious effort to document traditional indigenous healing and medicinal practices in the Amazon and speak with the reporter behind Mongabay’s popular new series on conservation efforts in Madagascar.
- Our first guest on today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast is Christopher Herndon, who, as co-founder and president of the group Acaté Amazon Conservation, has supported the Matsés people in planting healing gardens, which are basically living pharmacies as well as classrooms, and to document their traditional healing and plant knowledge in an encyclopedia.
- Our second guest is Mongabay contributor Rowan Moore Gerety, the writer behind our recent series on the effectiveness of conservation interventions in Madagascar.
To feed a growing population, farms chew away at Madagascar’s forests
- In Madagascar, farmers are cutting down forests and burning them to make way for rice cultivation.
- The practice is traditional but now illegal because of the harm it causes to natural areas. Many species are already threatened with extinction due to forest loss.
- With the country’s population expected to double by 2060, the pressure is likely to intensify.
Deforestation in Cambodia linked to ill health in children
- A new study has found that the loss of dense forest cover in Cambodia is associated with an increased risk of diarrhea, acute respiratory infection and fever in children younger than five years.
- Just a 10 percentage increase in the loss of dense forest around Cambodian households was associated with a 14 percent increase in the rate of diarrhea among children, the researchers found.
- In contrast, a higher coverage of protected areas around the households was linked to a lower incidence of diarrhea and acute respiratory infection in children.
Manmade noise pollution even more prevalent in US protected areas than researchers expected
- About 14 percent of the land mass in the United States has been afforded some kind of legally protected status, and noise pollution is noticeable even in these more remote areas where manmade disturbances are supposed to be kept to a minimum.
- According to a study published this month in the journal Science, the noise pollution from airplanes, highways, industry, and resource extraction is encroaching ever further into U.S. protected areas designed to preserve habitat for biodiversity.
- Using baseline sound levels for each study area established by machine learning algorithms that took into account geospatial features of the area, the researchers determined that anthropogenic noise pollution exceeds three decibels (dB), essentially doubling background sound levels, in 63 percent of the nation’s protected areas.
Paying for healthcare with trees: win-win for orangutans and communities
- In 2016, the Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) was declared Critically Endangered by the IUCN. Orangutan habitat is fast disappearing due to deforestation caused by industrial agriculture, forest fires, slash and burn agriculture, and logging.
- One of the most important remaining P. pygmaeus populations, with roughly 2,000 individuals, is in Indonesia’s Gunung Palung National Park. Alam Sehat Lestari (Healthy Nature Everlasting, or ASRI) is partnering with U.S. NGO Health in Harmony and effectively reducing illegal logging in the park via a unique healthcare offering.
- When communities were asked what was needed to stop them from logging conserved forest, the people answered: affordable healthcare and organic farming. Expensive medical costs were forcing people to log to pay medical bills, while unsustainable agricultural practices depleted the soil, necessitating the use of costly fertilizers.
- The two NGOs opened an affordable health clinic, and later a hospital, offering discounted medical service to communities that stop logging. Forest guardians, recruited in every village, encourage people to curb deforestation. They also monitor illegal activity and reforestation, while offering training in organic farming methods. And the program works!
Forests provide a nutritional boon to some communities, research shows
- The new study, across 24 countries, shows a wide range in the variability of how communities use forests for food.
- The nutrients provided by wild fruits, vegetables, game and fish are critical to the nutritional health of some communities and should play a role in decisions about land usage.
- Land-use decisions should factor in the importance of forest foods to some communities, say the authors.
Thousands hold ‘Global Protest Day’ to support world’s largest mangrove forest
- At more than 10,000 square kilometers, the Sundarbans is the world’s biggest mangrove area and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- It is home to hundreds of species of plants and animals, provides important ecosystem services to human communities, and sequesters millions of tons of carbon.
- A 1,320-megawatt, coal-fired power plant is being built just upriver from the Sundarbans, and critics say it threatens the mangrove as well as human health. UNESCO has urged its cancellation and relocation.
- On Saturday, January 7, an estimated 4,000 people held rallies in cities around the world protesting the power plant and urging increased protection of the Sundarbans.
Nature’s right to exist gets a boost from key organizations
- The more than 1,300 members from over 170 countries of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) signalled their support for nature’s inherent right to exist at the organization’s most recent World Conservation Congress, held in Hawaii last month.
- These actions on the part of the IUCN will in turn help boost the efforts of wildlife conservation conventions such as CITES, which are especially crucial in the midst of skyrocketing illicit trade in endangered species, according to Linda Sheehan, executive director of the California-based Earth Law Center.
- In August, just before IUCN members convened in Hawaii, the UN released a report prepared by 120 experts in economics, education, ethics, law, science, and other disciplines that recommended the rights of nature be included in our governance systems.
Indonesia’s oil palm plantations are rife with spitting cobras
- The Southeast Asian country is the world’s top palm oil producer. It also ranks No. 2 in snakebites globally.
- The species of serpent that has spread in Indonesia’s oil palm and rubber plantations is the Sumatran cobra.
- There is no available antivenom for Sumatran cobra bites. Plantation workers often die from them.
House of Mussels: an artificial reef off the coast of Jakarta
- The underwater sculpture Domus Musculi, or House of Mussels, is “a remembrance of what the Jakarta Bay has been famous for: its mussels, which nowadays are no longer exist due to heavy pollution,” according to the artist Teguh Ostenrik’s website.
- The sculpture uses Biorock technology, a patented artificial reef system that involves coursing electricity into the sculptures’ steel frames.
- Ostenrik has installed other artificial reefs in the waters off Lombok and the Wakatobi islands.
Can helping women achieve financial freedom help the environment, too?
- Conservation organizations across the board are focusing on women with programs that attempt to achieve social and environmental change in one fell swoop.
- A small subset of these organizations uses the prospect of financial freedom to encourage women to participate in projects that benefit the environment.
- But outcomes are difficult to measure and research into whether the approach actually works is hard to come by, leaving experts to rely more on instinct than hard evidence in evaluating them.
US oil and gas production ‘dramatically’ increasing harmful ozone-causing ethane
- Ethane emissions are rising again, according to the study, reversing decades of decline.
- The major source of this rising ethane, the team found, is the increase in oil and natural gas production in the U.S.
- Rising ethane levels in the atmosphere could result in elevated levels of ground-level ozone, particularly in the summers, the study warns.
Conservation and birth control: a controversial mix?
- Some 215 million women in the Global South have an unmet need for modern contraception, with many of them living in remote communities that may lack basic health care services.
- To meet some of this need and reduce pressure on the environment, some conservation groups have started providing health and family-planning services.
- But critics, including some women’s rights advocates, contend that it’s difficult for organizations to ethically mix conservation and family planning.
The impacts of haze on Southeast Asia’s wildlife
- Authorities and researchers are still shockingly ignorant of the ecological impacts of the smoke from Indonesia’s annual fires.
- Some creatures are likely finding it harder to sing, which is often crucial for attracting mates, defending territory and more.
- An orangutan disease called airsacculitis might be more prevalent during the smoky season.
Air pollution causes millions of preventable deaths in East Asia, say scientists
- Research suggests that exposure to air pollution kills more than 3 million people prematurely, especially in South and East Asia.
- Residential stoves and furnaces burning coal and biomass produce most of the pollutants in Asia.
- If “business-as-usual” emissions continue, deaths could double by 2050.
From fires to floods: Indonesia’s disaster agency prepares for rain
- Singapore’s health ministry said it would end a government subsidy scheme for people in need of treatment from haze-related illnesses.
- Environmental pressure groups and NGOs met in Jakarta on Monday to discuss the government’s draft pledge to the UN climate summit.
- Researchers at King’s College London have been awarded a six-month grant by the Natural Environment Research Council.
How much water is in your shirt?
- You’ll probably be surprised at how much water went into making your t-shirt and jeans.
- The world produced nearly 300 million tons of plastic in 2013 alone.
- There are now a billion automobiles on the road worldwide.
New study finds environmental damage globally may cost more than U.S. GDP
A new study published in Global Environmental Change added up all the world’s ecosystem services – from carbon storage and crop pollination, to recreation and flood mitigation – and found, every year, nature provides $145 trillion in benefits. It also indicates that land use changes, most of which has been caused by humans, may be […]
Presence of trees may mitigate cardiovascular and respiratory disease
River and forest landscape in Gooseberry State Park, Minnesota. Photo by: Jeremy Hance. Scientists with the U.S. Forest Service have observed a link between human health and trees, implying that trees may actually mitigate both cardiovascular and lower respiratory disease. Although the researchers do not yet put forward a reason why or how the presence […]
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