EGYPT: Sahara Sandscapes

This is an impression of our Squiver Photo Tour to Egypt. It will take you to the magical Western Desert and White Desert of Egypt, with hauntingly beautiful landscapes, incredible rock formations, endless views and high mountains.

Take a Gap Year to Learn about Yourself and the Environment

Gap years are on the rise. More and more, young adults are being encouraged to defer their acceptance to college to take a break from the grind of school, mature, and learn more about themselves. For some, taking a gap year serves as an introduction to living away from home. For others, a gap year provides work experience, and the opportunity to make extra cash to pay for college and other expenses. Articles and opinion pieces are frequently being published, attesting to a gap year’s ability to provide crucial preparation for college.

But gap years can serve a purpose other than bettering oneself. Some gap year programs have been created with the goal of fostering a generation of environmentally aware young adults. These programs have an eco-focus, encouraging their participants to live socially and environmentally conscious lifestyles.

International School for Earth Studies

The Cushing family runs the International School for Earth Studies in Southern Alberta. According to Co-Founder, CEO, and Director of Operations Geoffrey Cushing, he and his family were, and remain, “Eco-tourism pioneers.” The International School for Earth Studies run programs that educate and connect people to the environment. They accepted their first gap year student in 2005, and they have maintained a vibrant program ever since.

At the core of their gap year program are four pillars:

1. Environmental Literacy

2. Self Defense

3. (Non Motorized) Outdoor Recreation

4. Animal connection

The International School for Earth Studies runs two sessions of gap year programs: an Autumn and a Winter session. In addition to living and learning on the institution’s immense property that includes a private lake, diverse animals, and a stable, participants travel to other important places such as the Great Lakes, and the largest concentration of power plants in North America. The gap year students will learn from knowledgeable and experienced staff and speakers, including first nation biologists.

Geoffrey explained that students experience an “immersion into an outdoor lifestyle,” as students spend six to eight hours a day working outdoors. A typical day is split up into morning, afternoon, and evening sessions. In the morning and afternoon, participants will learn how to work and connect with animals, or develop outdoor survival techniques. Evening sessions are more discussion based. Sometimes, participants will stargaze. Other times, a participant will lead a discussion. Geoffrey said that the discussions can get particularly deep and emotional.

Geoffrey hopes that participants will leave this program as more educated global citizens, and will feel the urgency of Earth’s environmental situation. “We feel that the world is in crisis environmentally,” Geoffrey said. “We try to use animals, the voiceless, as the platform for our students to realize how desperate the situation is.”

Eco-Gap at EcoVillage at Ithaca

Ecovillage at Ithaca, NY is comprised of three neighborhoods organized as housing cooperatives. Learn@ecovillage’s gap year program is brand new, they just initiated their first cohort last year.

Liz Walker, Director and Co-Founder of EcoVillage explained that Eco-Gap is unique, as it is set in the Ecovillage, a community that is completely environmentally oriented. Participants live with families in the communities.

There are two opportunities for gap year students:

1. The Eco-Gap immersion program

2. The Eco-Gap internship program

The Eco-Gap immersion program is an eight-week structured program in the fall, for a small cohort of eight participants. Liz outlined the major, and varied, components of the Eco-Gap immersion program:

1. Agriculture: local food and farming. Participants will work on the Ecovillage’s four organic farms, and learn to prepare food for themselves and for the needy.

2. Health and Wellness: Participants will learn yoga and meditation skills, as well as tap into their own artistic creativity,

3. Building Skills: Participants will learn about green building, and learn carpentry skills to build their own small shed.

4. Living and leadership skills: Participants will learn how to express themselves fully, and how to deal with conflict through non-violence.

For those that want more work experience, or a more flexible timeline, the Eco-Gap internship program offers individual mentoring.

Through Eco-Gap’s programming, Liz aims to teach from a “context of environmental and social sustainability and social justice.”  Her goal is that her participants “obtain practical skills for transforming oneself and the world.”

These are just two examples of environmentally focused gap year programs. There are more out there, all around the world. Additionally, gap year students can volunteer for the environment independently, without an organized program.

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Eliana Doft

Eliana Doft loves to write, travel, and volunteer. She is especially excited by opportunities to combine these three passions through writing about social action travel experiences. She is an avid reader, a licensed scuba diver, and a self-proclaimed cold brew connoisseur. 

The Abandoned Whaling Station Nature Reclaimed

Rusty boats and barrels dot the shore of the British Island of South Georgia. They’re relics of a whaling station known as Grytviken that ceased operation in 1966 after the whale population had been nearly depleted by hunting. Today, the remote island, which sits 1,500 miles from the foot of Argentina, is home to millions of penguins and as well as seals. What was once the scene of one of the worst wildlife massacres in history is now a space that nature itself has reclaimed.

Only Local Amazonians Can Bring True Sustainable Development to Their Forest

The Brazilian government has earmarked a vast tract of Amazonian land for mining. The so-called “Renca” reserve sits in the last great wilderness area in the eastern Amazon and contains lots of unique rainforest wildlife. The controversial decision to allow mining has since been rewritten to clarify that development cannot take place on indigenous lands that lie within the “Renca”, and then put on hold by a federal judge, pending support from congress.

Protected areas such as the Renca are under threat right across the Amazon, and many have already been downsized or downgraded. Conservation is undermined by chronic underfunding of the national environmental protection agencies, the devolving of environmental enforcement to regional states that cannot cope, and by rural violence so severe that Brazil leads the world in assassinations of environmentalists.

The result of all this is an Amazon where 90% of logging is illegal and deforestation is increasing, where unprecedented wildfires burn each summer, and where large vertebrates are now going extinct for the first time since the Pleistocene.

Brazil says mining and logging will boost national economic growth. Yet people in the Amazon remain some of the poorest and most marginalised in South America, and there is little evidence this kind of development has enhanced their quality of life. For example, the municipalities of Eldorado dos Carajás, Marabá, and Paraupebas, all of which surround large mining operations, have a human development index lower than that of Libya, a country stricken by civil war. And the construction of the controversial Belo Monte dam resulted in the regional capital of Altamira attaining the highest per capita homicide rate in all of Brazil, equivalent to 25 murders a day if scaled to a city the size of London.

Why has development failed Amazonians?

First, the companies driving the change are generally big multinationals based either in and around Rio and São Paulo (1,700 miles away) or abroad. Despite some municipal taxes, only a tiny portion of the profits remain locally.

Carajás Mine, the largest iron ore mine in the world, is found within the Carajás National Forest (pictured above). T photography / Shutterstock

Development, as currently practised, also favours the wealthy over the poor. When protected areas are downgraded the chief beneficiaries are landholders who are able to log or mine their territory. Other social groups aren’t so lucky. Some are even actively attacked – either directly, as occurred in the assassination of ten landless movement squatters in a large Amazonian farm, or through legal changes, such as the downgrading of the rights of quilombolas, historical communities descended from African slaves, and indigenous peoples.

Brazil’s ongoing “car wash” corruption scandal has led to allegations of worrying links between large development projects in the Amazon, such as the Belo Monte dam, and the diversion of state funds to political parties. If the purpose of development is political gain, there can be little hope for regional citizens.

Are there alternative ways forward?

Both Amazonian people and forests would benefit if we stopped evaluating development schemes solely in terms of the profits they could generate. This sort of narrow, economic assessment cannot truly capture the value of the Amazon’s forests: how do you put a price on conserving unique species, or mitigating global climate change?

The Guianan Cock-of-the-rock (Rupicola rupicola) is one of northern Amazonia’s more spectacular inhabitants. Alexander Lees, Author provided

The forests of the Renca are some of the most dense and slow-growing in the Amazon basin. Even deforesting just 30% of the area would effectively emit more than four billion tonnes of CO₂ into the atmosphere – equivalent to Brazil’s entire fossil fuel emissions over the past ten years. Unless climate change forms part of the decision making process in the region, Brazil will fail to meet its international commitments such as the Paris agreement.

Development must also secure constitutional rights for everyone, not just those of the elites. Brazil currently has so called “differentiated citizenship”, where in practice there is a gradation of rights among citizens, depending on their race, social class or region.

Munduruku people map out their territory along the River Tapajos in Pará state. Larissa Saud, Author provided

Local action is often the only defence against the expansion of mining or dams. Recent examples of a grassroots success include the Munduruku indigenous people, who are forcing various concessions by resisting megadams on the middle Tapajós River. Another example is the practice of “counter-mapping” among indigenous peoples which entails them mapping their own territorial boundaries to defend their land from industrial agriculture, mining, dams and logging.   These alternative approaches are the best way forward in the Renca too. Instead of opening up the area for mining multinationals, Brazil should recognise the rights of local people and empower them to lead decision-making. Brazil nut harvesting is already big in the local economy and, along with ecotourism and carbon-payments (being effectively paid to not chop down a forest), could deliver sustainable development, while leaving the minerals in the ground.

JOS BARLOW is a Professor of Conservation Science at Lancaster University.

ALEXANDER C. LEES is a lecturer in tropical ecology at Manchester Metropolitan University.

ERIKA BERENGUER is a Senior Research Associate at University of Oxford.

JAMES A. FRASER is a Lecturer in Political Ecology at Lancaster University.

JOICE FERREIRA is a researcher in Ecology at Federal University of Pará.

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON THE CONVERSATION

CHILE: Patagonia

Torres del Paine National Park is in Chile’s Patagonia region and known for its beautiful mountain ranges, icebergs and glaciers, and golden pampas, which are the grasslands that shelter wildlife such as guanacos. Some of its most iconic sites are the 3 granite towers from which the park takes its name and the horn-shaped peaks called Cuernos del Paine.

Restoring Tropical Forests Isn’t Meaningful if Those Forests Only Stand For 10 or 20 years

Tropical forests globally are being lost at a rate of 61,000 square miles a year. And despite conservation efforts, the global rate of loss is accelerating. In 2016 it reached a 15-year high, with 114,000 square miles cleared.

At the same time, many countries are pledging to restore large swaths of forests. The Bonn Challenge, a global initiative launched in 2011, calls for national commitments to restore 580,000 square miles of the world’s deforested and degraded land by 2020. In 2014 the New York Declaration on Forests increased this goal to 1.35 million square miles, an area about twice the size of Alaska, by 2030.

Ecological restoration is a process of helping damaged ecosystems recover. It produces many benefits for both wildlife and people – for example, better habitat, erosion control, cleaner drinking water and jobs.

That’s why the Bonn Challenge is so exciting for geographers and ecologists like us. It brings restoration into the center of global discussions about combating climate change, preventing species extinctions and improve farmers’ lives. It connects governments, organizations, companies and communities, and is catalyzing substantial investments in forest restoration.

However, a closer look shows that a struggle remains to fully realize the Bonn Challenge vision. Some reforestation efforts provide only limited benefits, and studies have shown that maintaining these forests for decades is critical to maximize the economic and ecological benefits of establishing them.

Reforestation project in northern Costa Rica: a plantation of native trees with valuable wood. Matthew Fagan, CC BY-ND

Putting trees back on the land

So far, 48 nations and 10 states and companies have made Bonn Challenge commitments to restore 363,000 square miles by 2020 and another 294,000 square miles by 2030. The United States and a Pakistani province have already fulfilled their commitments, restoring a total of 67,000 square miles.

Restoring forests poses political and economic challenges for national governments. Letting forests grow back inevitably means pulling land out of farming. Natural forest regeneration mainly occurs where farmers have abandoned poor quality land, or where governments discourage poor farming practices – for example, near wetlands or on steep slopes. Opportunities for natural regeneration elsewhere are limited.

As a result, much forest landscape restoration under the Bonn Challenge focuses on improving existing landscapes using trees. Restoration activities may include creating timber or fruit plantations; agroforestry, or planting rows of trees in and around agricultural fields; and silviculture, or improving the condition of degraded forests.

The U.N. Decade of Ecosystem Restoration seeks to restore some 5 billion acres of deforested and degraded landscapes and seascapes between 2021 and 2030.

One early success, the “Billion Tree Tsunami” in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has exceeded its 350,000-hectare pledge through a combination of protecting forest regeneration and planting trees. Similarly, Rwanda has restored 700,000 of the 2 million hectares it pledged, primarily through agroforestry and reforesting erosion-prone areas, and created thousands of green jobs.

Green deserts

However, these “restored forests” are often poor replacements for natural habitat. For animals dwelling in tropical forests, agroforestry and tree plantations can look more like green deserts than forests.

Many tropical forest wildlife species are only found in mature tropical forests and cannot survive in open agroforests, monoculture tree plantations or young natural regeneration. Truly restoring tropical forest habitat takes a diversity of forest species, and time.

Nonetheless, these working “forests” do have ecological value for some species, and can spare remaining natural forests from axes, fire and plows. In addition, scientists have estimated that restored forests could sequester up to 16 percent of the carbon needed to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, while generating some US$84 billion in assets such as timber and erosion control.

Restored, but for how long?

Benefits for wildlife and Earth’s climate from forest restoration accrue over decades. However, many forests are unlikely to remain protected for this long.

In a 2018 study we showed that forests that naturally regenerated in Costa Rica between 1947 and 2014 had only a 50 percent chance of enduring for 20 years. Most places where forests regrew were subsequently re-cleared for farming. Twenty years represents about a quarter of the time needed for forest carbon stocks to fully recover, and less than one-fifth of the time required for many forest-dwelling plants and animals to return.

Unfortunately, 20 years may be more than most new forests get. Studies in Brazil and Peru show that regenerating forests there are re-cleared even faster, often after just a few years.

This problem is not limited to natural forests. Agroforests worldwide are under pressure. For example, until recent decades, coffee and cocoa farmers in the tropics raised their crops in agroforests under a shady canopy of trees, which mimicked the way these plants grow in nature and maximized their health. Today, however, many of them grow their crops in the sun. This method can improve yield, but requires pesticides and fertilizer to compensate for added stress on the plants.

And although timber plantations sequester additional carbon with every harvest and replanting, their replanting is dependent on shifting market demand for wood. Once they are harvested after six to 14 years of growth, tropical timber plantations can be abandoned as a bad investment and replaced with higher-yielding row crops or pasture.

Solid foundations for recovery

If the Bonn Challenge is to achieve its goals, nations will have to find ways of converting short-term restoration pledges into long-term ecosystem recovery. This may require tightening the rules.

Some countries have pledged to protect unrealistically large areas. For example, Rwanda committed to restore 77 percent of its national territory, and Costa Rica and Nicaragua pledged to restore 20 percent of their territories apiece. Another flaw is that the Bonn Challenge does not prevent countries from deforesting some areas even as they are restoring others.

It will be impossible to track overall progress without an international commitment to monitor and sustain restoration successes. International organizations need to invest in satellite and local monitoring networks. We also believe they should consider how large international investmentsin sectors such as agriculture, mining and infrastructure drive forest loss and regrowth.

Countries like Indonesia that may be considering a Bonn Challenge pledge should be encouraged to focus on long-term impacts. Instead of restoring 10,000 square miles of one-year-old forest by 2020, why not restore 5,000 square miles of 100-year-old forest by 2120? Countries like Costa Rica that have already pledged can lock in those gains by protecting regrown forests.

The U.N. General Assembly recently approved a resolution designating 2021 to 2030 as the U.N. Decade of Ecosystem Restoration. We hope this step will help motivate nations to keep their promises and invest in restoring Earth’s deforested and degraded ecosystems.

MATTHEW FAGAN is an assistant Professor of Geography and Environmental Systems at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

LEIGHTON REID is a faculty associate at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

MARGARET BUCK HOLLAND is an associate Professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON THE CONVERSATION

Development and Deforestation Threatens Peru’s Indigenous Tribes

When we think of civilization, we think in Western terms: skyscrapers, factories, and automobiles.  But as we progress, there is a growing need to live in tune with the natural world. While our affinity for the environments may seem relatively new, some civilizations have lived in such a  way for centuries. The forests of Peru are home to 15 “uncontacted” tribes, groups who live in voluntary isolation and reject all connections to the outside world. However, the reverse is not true. Industrialization and deforestation threaten to take large pieces of territory from these indigenous peoples.

In December of 2017, the Congress of the Republic of Peru approved the construction of a road that would run along 172 miles of Peru’s eastern border with Brazil before connecting with the Interoceanic Highway, a 1600 mile stretch that links the two countries. The road was pitched as a way to jumpstart the economy in an area of Peru that was cut off from tourism and trade, but activists are worried. Clearing a way for the road would decimate 4 national parks and violate 5 protected areas belonging to the indigenous tribes.  Activists also predict that the road will be a catalyst for more development, both legal and illegal. Drug traffickers are always looking for new opportunities to expand, and a road through the Amazon would provide just that.

Some smaller encounters are equally devastating to relations between the outside world and the indigenous tribes of the Peruvian forest.  In April 2018, Sebastian Woodroffe, a Canadian scientist who traveled to Peru to study hallucinogenic medicine, was killed in an apparent lynching after he was accused of killing  81-year-old Olivia Arévalo, a local shaman to the tribal village of Victoria Gracia. Authorities launched an investigation after videos surfaced on social media of Woodroffe being dragged along the jungle floor by assailants. They later exhumed Woodroffe’s body from an unmarked grave. The incident has proven to be disastrous to public perception of the tribes.

When asked why they choose to remain isolated, members of these tribes often point to encounters their people had with colonists in the past and the violence and disease that resulted. Today, history seems to be repeating itself as modern society reaches further into an untouched and irreplaceable ecosystem.

JONATHAN ROBINSON is an intern at CATALYST. He is a travel enthusiast always adding new people, places, experiences to his story. He hopes to use writing as a means to connect with others like himself. 

Amazon Deforestation, Already Rising, May Spike Under Bolsonaro

Over the past 25 years that I have been conducting environmental research in the Amazon, I have witnessed the the ongoing destruction of the world’s biggest rainforest. Twenty percent of it has been deforested by now – an area larger than Texas.

I therefore grew hopeful when environmental policies began to take effect at the turn of the millennium, and the rate of deforestation dropped from nearly 11,000 square miles per year to less than 2,000over the decade following 2004.

But a new political climate in Brazil, which set in even before President Jair Bolsonaro took office in January 2019, has led to a recent increase in the pace of rainforest felling. And Bolsonaro, a former army officer, made Amazonian development a core campaign pledge.

The Tapajos River, downstream from where a dam could be built. Robert T. Walker, CC BY-SA

Damming the Tapajós

At stake is what becomes of the region around the Tapajós River, one of the Amazon’s largest tributaries and home to about 14,000 Munduruku tribal people. The Munduruku have until now successfully slowed down and seemingly halted many efforts to turn the Tapajós into the “Mississippi of Brazil.”

The Tapajós River is the Amazon’s last undammed clearwater tributary. The basin that surrounds it is roughly equal to 15 percent of the Brazilian Amazon region and about the size of France. This remote area has a great deal of biodiversity, and its trees store large quantities of carbon.

Because the Amazon rainforest absorbs a lot of the carbon emitted through the burning of fossil fuels, climate scientists consider its preservation key to preventing an uptick in the pace of global warming.

Brazil is planning to build a series of big new hydroelectric dams and webs of waterways, rail lines, ports and roads that can overcome logistical obstacles standing in the way of exporting commodities and other goods.

The government did suspend plans to build an 8,000-megawatt dam at the heart of this sprawling project in 2016. At the time, it cited the “unviability of the project given the indigenous component” and stated it would stop building big dams in 2018, before Bolsanaro took office.

Yet many observers remain very concerned about how Bolsonaro’s presidency will affect the Munduruku and the rainforest they protect. Groups like International Rivers – a nonprofit dedicated to the “protection of rivers and the rights of communities that depend on them” – are not about to declare victory.

South American gambit

Brazil’s Amazon development plans are part of a broader gambit that includes all the South American nations. First conceived in 2000, the Initiative for the Integration of the Regional Infrastructure of South America is designed to build a continental economy through new infrastructure that provides electricity for industrialization and facilitates trade and transportation.

Known widely by its Spanish and Portuguese abbreviations as IIRSA, this initiative is turning the Amazon, 60 percent of which is located on Brazilian territory, into a source of hydropower and a transportation hub connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It will become easier to ship Brazilian soybeans to global markets, and manufacturing will expand, stimulating population growth in the Amazon.

The blueprint for this bid to develop the Amazon, which also includes portions of Peru, Bolivia and six other countries, calls for building more than 600 dams, 12,400 miles of waterways, about 1.2 million miles of roads, a transcontinental railway and a system of ports, much of it in the tropical wilderness.

New wave of development

Bolsonaro has not yet confronted the Munduruku or taken concrete actions to keep his promises about developing the Amazon. But he has taken steps that point in this direction with the officials he has selected for key posts. He has also transferred responsibilities for demarcating indigenous lands from the Ministry of Justice to the Ministry of Agriculture, which an agricultural lobbyist is running.

The new Brazilian president’s plans for the Amazon come on the heels of decades of deforestation following the construction of roads and hydropower facilities during the 1960s and 1970s. This initial wave of construction opened the sparsely populated region to an influx of newcomers, and contributed to the destruction of about a fifth of the forest over four decades.

A complex of dams, roads and commercial waterways could turn the remote Tapajos River basin into a South American trading hub in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. Michael P. Waylen/University of Florida, CC BY-SA

Then came a wave of stronger environmental policies – such as the stricter enforcement of logging laws, the expansion of protected areas and the voluntary decision by soybean farmers to refrain from clearing the forest – which lowered Brazil’s Amazon deforestation rate after 2000. It seemed to me and others that a new era of Amazonian conservation had dawned.

But that was before I understood the full implications of the Initiative for the Integration of the Regional Infrastructure of South America.

This plan is far more ambitious than earlier infrastructure projects which were completed by the end of the 1970s, and I believe that it could wreak even more destruction.

Should all of its components be built, the new transportation and energy infrastructure would be likely to spark a new wave of deforestation that I fear could have disastrous impacts on the indigenous communities living in the region. The new projects need only to repeat what the earlier projects did. This would bring total deforestation to 40 percent.

Climate scientists such as Carlos Nobre worry that this magnitude of forest loss would push the Amazon to a “tipping point” and undermine the process of rainfall recycling, which replenishes the Amazon’s supply of water. The outcome would be a drier climate in the Amazon, which has already begun to experience droughts, and the transformation of the forest into savanna. Indigenous people would suffer, and the Amazon’s biodiversity would disappear.

A massive increase in the pace of Amazonian deforestation could bring about climatic changes in both South and North America. Scientists predict that precipitation would decline in many areas of the Americas, including the southeastern part of South America and the Mississippi River Valley. The whole world would suffer from reduced agricultural production in these two regions, which are important global suppliers of agricultural commodities like corn and soybeans.

Attacking the Amazon

To be sure, some of this construction is already underway in Brazil, particularly for hydropower. So far, 140 dams have either been built or are under construction, notably the Belo Monte Dam on the Xingu River and the Santo Antônio and Jirau dams on the Madeira Rivers. And Bolsonaro’s predecessors had downsized some of the Amazon’s protected areas to facilitate development.

These protected tracts of land cover 43 percent of the Brazilian Amazon and are essential to maintaining biodiversity and sequestering carbon.

When Bolsonaro addressed world leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland for the first time, he promised to protect the environment in his country – which he called “a paradise.”

I remain skeptical, however, given that he seems to be staffing his government in preparation for construction projects that could devastate the Amazon, reducing its biodiversity and destroying its ecological and cultural treasures.

ROBERT T. WALKER is the Professor of Latin American Studies at the University of Florida.

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON THE CONVERSATION

Can Genetic Engineering Save Disappearing Forests?

Compared to gene-edited babies in China and ambitious projects to rescue woolly mammoths from extinction, biotech trees might sound pretty tame.

But releasing genetically engineered trees into forests to counter threats to forest health represents a new frontier in biotechnology. Even as the techniques of molecular biology have advanced, humans have not yet released a genetically engineered plant that is intended to spread and persist in an unmanaged environment. Biotech trees – genetically engineered or gene-edited – offer just that possibility.

One thing is clear: The threats facing our forests are many, and the health of these ecosystems is getting worse. A 2012 assessment by the U.S. Forest Service estimated that nearly 7 percent of forests nationwide are in danger of losing at least a quarter of their tree vegetation by 2027. This estimate may not sound too worrisome, but it is 40 percent higher than the previous estimate made just six years earlier.

In 2018, at the request of several U.S. federal agencies and the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine formed a committee to “examine the potential use of biotechnology to mitigate threats to forest tree health.” Experts, including me, a social scientist focused on emerging biotechnologies, were asked to “identify the ecological, ethical, and social implications of deploying biotechnology in forests, and develop a research agenda to address knowledge gaps.”

Our committee members came from universities, federal agencies and NGOs and represented a range of disciplines: molecular biology, economics, forest ecology, law, tree breeding, ethics, population genetics and sociology. All of these perspectives were important for considering the many aspects and challenges of using biotechnology to improve forest health.

More than 80 million acres are at risk of losing at least 25 percent of tree vegetation between 2013 and 2027 due to insects and diseases. Krist et al. (2014), CC BY-SA

A Crisis in US forests

Climate change is just the tip of the iceberg. Forests face higher temperatures and droughts and more pests. As goods and people move around the globe, even more insects and pathogens hitchhike into our forests.

The emerald ash borer is destroying ash trees in 31 states. Herman Wong HM/Shutterstock.com

The emerald ash borer feeds on ash trees, damaging and eventually killing them. K Steve Cope/Shutterstock.com

We focused on four case studies to illustrate the breadth of forest threats. The emerald ash borer arrived from Asia and causes severe mortality in five species of ash trees. First detected on U.S. soil in 2002, it had spread to 31 states as of May 2018. Whitebark pine, a keystone and foundational species in high elevations of the U.S. and Canada, is under attack by the native mountain pine beetle and an introduced fungus. Over half of whitebark pine in the northern U.S. and Canada have died.

Poplar trees are important to riparian ecosystems as well as for the forest products industry. A native fungal pathogen, Septoria musiva, has begun moving west, attacking natural populations of black cottonwood in Pacific Northwest forests and intensively cultivated hybrid poplar in Ontario. And the infamous chestnut blight, a fungus accidentally introduced from Asia to North America in the late 1800s, wiped out billions of American chestnut trees.

Can biotech come to the rescue? Should it?

It’s complicated

Although there are many potential applications of biotechnology in forests, such as genetically engineering insect pests to suppress their populations, we focused specifically on biotech trees that could resist pests and pathogens. Through genetic engineering, for example, researchers could insert genes, from a similar or unrelated species, that help a tree tolerate or fight an insect or fungus.

It’s tempting to assume that the buzz and enthusiasm for gene editing will guarantee quick, easy and cheap solutions to these problems. But making a biotech tree will not be easy. Trees are large and long-lived, which means that research to test the durability and stability of an introduced trait will be expensive and take decades or longer. We also don’t know nearly as much about the complex and enormous genomes of trees, compared to lab favorites such as fruit flies and the mustard plant, Arabidopsis.

In addition, because trees need to survive over time and adapt to changing environments, it is essential to preserve and incorporate their existing genetic diversity into any “new” tree. Through evolutionary processes, tree populations already have many important adaptations to varied threats, and losing those could be disastrous. So even the fanciest biotech tree will ultimately depend on a thoughtful and deliberate breeding program to ensure long-term survival. For these reasons, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committee recommends increasing investment not just in biotechnology research, but also in tree breeding, forest ecology and population genetics.

Oversight challenges

The committee found that the U.S. Coordinated Framework for the Regulation of Biotechnology, which distributes federal oversight of biotechnology products among agencies such as EPA, USDA and FDA, is not fully prepared to consider the introduction of a biotech tree to improve forest health.

Most obviously, regulators have always required containment of pollen and seeds during biotech field trials to avoid the escape of genetic material. For example, the biotech chestnut was not allowed to flower to ensure that transgenic pollen wouldn’t blow across the landscape during field trials. But if biotech trees are intended to spread their new traits, via seeds and pollen, to introduce pest resistance across landscapes, then studies of wild reproduction will be necessary. These are not currently allowed until a biotech tree is fully deregulated.

The family of James and Caroline Shelton poses by a large dead chestnut tree in Tremont Falls, Tennessee, circa 1920. Great Smoky Mountains National Park Library, CC BY-SA

Another shortcoming of the current framework is that some biotech trees may not require any special review at all. The USDA, for example, was asked to consider a loblolly pine that was genetically engineered for greater wood density. But because USDA’s regulatory authority stems from its oversight of plant pest risks, it decided that it did not have any regulatory authority over that biotech tree. Similar questions remain regarding organisms whose genes are edited using new tools such as CRISPR.

The committee noted that U.S. regulations fail to promote a comprehensive consideration of forest health. Although the National Environmental Policy Act sometimes helps, some risks and many potential benefits are unlikely to be evaluated. This is the case for biotech trees as well as other tools to counter pests and pathogens, such as tree breeding, pesticides and site management practices.

How do you measure the value of a forest?

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report suggests an “ecosystem services” framework for considering the various ways that trees and forests provide value to humans. These range from extraction of forest products to the use of forests for recreation to the ecological services a forest provides – water purification, species protection and carbon storage.

The committee also acknowledged that some ways of valuing the forest do not fit into the ecosystem services framework. For example, if forests are seen by some to have “intrinsic value,” then they have value in and of themselves, apart from the way humans value them and perhaps implying a kind of moral obligation to protect and respect them. Issues of “wildness” and “naturalness” also surface.

Chestnuts lying on the ground in autumn near a chestnut tree. Peter Wollinga/Shutterstock.com

Wild nature?

Paradoxically, a biotech tree could increase and decrease wildness. If wildness depends upon a lack of human intervention, then a biotech tree will reduce the wildness of a forest. But perhaps so would a conventionally bred, hybrid tree that was deliberately introduced into an ecosystem.

Which would reduce wildness more – the introduction of a biotech tree or the eradication of an important tree species? There are no right or wrong answers to these questions, but they remind us of the complexity of decisions to use technology to enhance “nature.”

This complexity points to a key recommendation of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report: dialogue among experts, stakeholders and communities about how to value forests, assess the risks and potential benefits of biotech, and understand complex public responses to any potential interventions, including those involving biotechnology. These processes need to be respectful, deliberative, transparent and inclusive.

Such processes, such as a 2018 stakeholder workshop on the biotech chestnut, will not erase conflict or even guarantee consensus, but they have the potential to create insight and understanding that can feed into democratic decisions that are informed by expert knowledge and public values.

JASON A DELBORNE is an Associate Professor of Science, Policy, and Society in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, North Carolina State University

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON THE CONVERSATION

The Magical Rainbow Mountains of Peru

Deep within the Peruvian Andes, next to the Ausangate Mountain, is home to one of the most magnificent geologic features in the world, The Rainbow Mountains of Peru. While viewing the Rainbow Mountains, you are seeing millions of years of history and all the complexities that are associated with geologic weathering & erosion. The peak of the Rainbow Mountains stands at 16,520 feet.

Each color within the mountain represents a different mineral that is present within the soil & rock. National Geographic ranked the Rainbow Mountains as one of the 100 areas you must visit before you die. Our guides were from Flashpacker Connect.

Ireland Becomes the First Country to Divest from Fossil Fuels

Executive Director of Trócaire calls the bill “both substantive and symbolic.”

Sunset in Skerries, Ireland. Giuseppe Milo. CC BY 2.0

Last July, Ireland moved to take public funds out of fossil fuels. While many universities, organizations, and even cities have made similar commitments, Ireland will be the first country to do so. According to the New York Times, Ireland’s action represents the most substantial advance for divestment in the world.

The bill commiting to divestment was passed with all party support by the lower house of Parliament and necessitates that money from the sovereign fund (8.9 billion euros) be taken out of fossil fuels. According to a statement, the change will be made, “as soon as practicable.” (The phrase likely refers to changes made to the bill: originally it called for divestment within five years, but was altered to give the government more flexibility.)

According to the Guardian, the bill defines a fossil fuel company as one that receives 20% or more of its income from the “exploration, extraction or refinement of fossil fuels.”

The divestment bill will move on to the Senate which has the ability to delay, but not overturn it. According to the aid of Thomas Pringle, the parliament member who introduced the bill, it has the support of Prime Minister Leo Varadkar and is thus almost guaranteed to become law. Varadkar’s support is expected, as he has professed hopes that Ireland will become a “leader in climate action.”

According to Pringle himself, the “movement is highlighting the need to stop investing in the expansion of a global industry which must be brought into managed decline if catastrophic climate change is to be averted. Ireland by divesting is sending a clear message that the Irish public and the international community are ready to think and act beyond narrow short term vested interests.”

Eamonn Meehan, director of Trócaire, the environmental organization that advocated for the bill, told the New York Times that the bill, “will stop public money being invested against the public interest, and it sends a clear signal nationally and globally that action on the climate crisis needs to be accelerated urgently, starting with the phase-out of fossil fuels.”

Currently, Ireland has over 300 million euros in fossil fuel investments, according to the Guardian. The country's decision to divest is so momentous in part because of its reputation as slacker in fighting climate change. According to a survey by Climate Action Network, conducted a month before the decision, Ireland was was ranked second to last in the category of climate action, followed by Poland. The country’s decision to divest promises a greener future for Ireland.

Now, Ireland hopes that other countries will follow its lead. According to Gerry Liston of the Global Legal Action Network, and drafter of the bill, “governments will not meet their obligations under the Paris agreement on climate change if they continue to financially sustain the fossil fuel industry. Countries the world over must now urgently follow Ireland’s lead and divest from fossil fuels.”

EMMA BRUCE is an undergraduate student studying English and marketing at Emerson College in Boston. While not writing she explores the nearest museums, reads poetry, and takes classes at her local dance studio. She is passionate about sustainable travel and can't wait to see where life will take her. 

Conservationists Hope to Help Jaguar Populations Claw Their Way Back from Near Extinction

Last month, at the Convention for Biological Diversity in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Panthera, and government officials from several Latin American countries came together to announce the designation of November 29th as International Jaguar Day, and also to unveil the The Jaguar 2030 Conservation Roadmap for the Americas, a plan for increasing wild jaguar populations. Once widespread throughout the Americas, the jaguar has seen its numbers decline over the last few decades. By increasing international awareness and funding programs that can protect jaguars, conservationists hope to help the animal restore its population numbers.

The jaguar, or Pathera Onca, is the third largest cat in the world, behind the tiger and lion, respectively. While these animals are typically found in South America, sightings have occurred as far north as Los Angeles. Jaguars are often confused with two other spotted big cats, the cheetah and leopard, but they are easily distinguished when one inspects their coats. Cheetahs are covered in singular, dot-like spots while leopards have ringed markings called rosettes. Jaguars have large rosettes with singular spots in the center, a combination of the two smaller cats’ markings. All three cats were hunted extensively for their fur, or to keep them from preying on livestock at local farms. In the 1960s the wild jaguar population stood at around 400,000. Hunters killed 18,000 jaguars each year and today, estimates place the total population at around 15,000. The jaguar has been listed as a “near threatened species” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, meaning that there is a high risk that it could become endangered or even extinct in near future.

There is some good news, however. Thanks to conservation programs enacted in 2005, Mexico saw its jaguar population increase by 20 percent over the last 8 years. Last year, the Arizona Game and Fish Department released footage of a female jaguar prowling through southern Arizona, the first female sighted there since the 1960s. Instances such as these give conservationists hope that the big cats can make a comeback. The Jaguar 2030 Conservation Roadmap for the Americas aims to bolster Jaguar conservation in an area between Mexico and Argentina known as “The Jaguar Corridor”. The organizers hope to create 30 jaguar conservation sites in this area and to stimulate programs that mitigate hunting and promote ecotourism, thus creating a more peaceful coexistence to between the animals and the people they share space with. It’s a huge undertaking, but if it succeeds, we can look forward to seeing more spotted cats in the coming years.

JONATHAN ROBINSON is an intern at CATALYST. He is a travel enthusiast always adding new people, places, experiences to his story. He hopes to use writing as a means to connect with others like himself. 

THE KINGDOM | A Conservation Story

A love letter to conservation, our changing climate, and the difference one person can make in a great big world. This is the quiet story of Sonam Phuntsho, a forest caretaker in the Kingdom of Bhutan, who has spent the last 60 years planting over 100,000 trees by hand.

The Trail To Kazbegi

What happens when four like-minded adventurers head into one of the world’s wildest mountain ranges with nothing but their mountain bikes and enough food to survive for 10 days?

The answer? What doesn’t happen? Terrifying lightning storms. Raging-river crossings. Snow-covered glacial pass traverses. Mind-melting descents. Constant fights with vicious dogs. Tense encounters with over-zealous border-patrol guards.

All of the above were just another day following “The Trail to Kazbegi,” a self-supported mountain-bike mission through the highest reaches of the Caucasus Mountains in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. Our four-man team—adventure filmmaker Joey Schusler, Bike magazine editor Brice Minnigh, photographer Ross Measures and mountain man Sam Seward—spent half of June 2015 exploring the crown jewels of the Georgian High Caucasus on a feature assignment for Bike.

The Future of Farming Is Underwater

Beneath the glistening blue waves of the Bay of Noli in the Italian Riviera are biospheres bursting with basil, tomatoes, herbs and other plants. It's all a part of a science experiment known as Nemo's Garden. While growing plants underwater might seem strange, it turns out there are a lot of advantages—protection from pests and extreme weather, a regulated temperature and access to fresh water as seawater evaporates and re-condenses. Co-creator of the project Luca Gamberini hopes that one day Nemo's Garden will revolutionize the future of farming and inspire others to grow crops in places they never thought possible.

How a Game Can Move People From Climate Apathy to Action

The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been called a “deafening” alarm and an “ear-splitting wake-up call” about the need for sweeping climate action. But will one more scientific report move countries to dramatically cut emissions?

Evidence, so far, says no. Countless scientific studies have been published since the 1970s on the dangers of climate change, many offering similar projections. And social science research shows that showing people research doesn’t work. So, if more reports and information don’t spark action, what will?

In a recent study led by the University of Massachusetts Lowell Climate Change Initiative, we identified a promising approach: Playing a game called the World Climate Simulation, originally developed by the nonprofit organization Climate Interactive, in which participants play delegates at international climate change negotiations.

We examined how this experience affected more than 2,000 participants from nine countries, ranging from middle school students to CEOs. Across this diverse population, people who participated in World Climate deepened their understanding of climate change and became emotionally engaged in the issue. They came away believing that it was not too late for meaningful action. These emotional responses were linked to a stronger desire to learn and do more, from reducing their personal carbon footprints to taking political action.

How it works

Participants in World Climate take on the roles of delegates from different countries or regions and are charged with reaching an agreement to limit warming to no more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Each delegation offers policies to manage its own greenhouse gas emissions. They also pledge either to support or request money from the Green Climate Fund, which was created to help developing countries cut their emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Each group’s decisions are entered into C-ROADS, a climate policy model that has been used to support actual negotiations, immediately showing them the expected climate impacts of their choices. First round results usually fall short as participants resist making deep cuts to their own region’s emissions, demand more money from the Green Climate Fund, or assume the pledges they and others have made are enough to meet the global goal. When those pledges are not enough, the simulation shows everyone the harm that could result.

Participants then negotiate again, using C-ROADS to explore the consequences of more ambitious emission cuts. As in the real world, people learn through trial and error until they succeed. But unlike the real world, there is no cost or risk of failure.

For many players, the impact is deep and personal: “I feel like I was a part of something way bigger than myself. I am going to look for ways on campus to get involved,” one undergraduate participant said afterward.

“Since the simulation, I … have been continually thinking about the effects of our consumption and how it affects others,” a high school educator reflected.

The October 2018 IPCC report warns that limiting warming to 1.5 degrees C would require ‘rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented’ cuts to carbon dioxide emissions, beginning within the next 12 years. IPCC

Play together, not just with the ‘usual suspects’

Climate change has become highly politicized in the United States, with political orientation often determining people’s views, rather than science or data. For example, conservatives who oppose international agreements or government action to address the problem often react by denying that climate change is real, or is caused primarily by human actions, or poses a grave threat to our prosperity, security and health.

Overcoming this barrier has proven to be extremely difficult, yet is essential for effective action. We were therefore quite surprised to find that World Climate is effective with Americans who are free-market proponents – a political view linked to denial of human-caused climate change. World Climate also has a bigger impact on people who were less inclined to take action or knew less about climate change before the simulation than those who were already engaged.

While most Americans say that climate change is important to them, they don’t talk about it in their daily lives. World Climate is a richly social experience that breaks down this “spiral of silence.” As participants negotiate, they talk about the issues face to face. They discover shared concerns, which creates an opportunity to move on to the important next step: Doing something about them.

Getting to scale

Mitigating the threat of climate change requires science-based, grassroots action at scale. And as the IPCC report makes clear, there’s no time to waste. However, telling people about the threat doesn’t work. They have to learn for themselves; our research shows that World Climate can help.

Everything people need to run World Climate, including the C-ROADS model, is freely available online. The program is aligned with U.S. national education standards and has also been designated as an official resource for schools in France, Germany and South Korea. It is adaptable and relevant to academic disciplines ranging from physics to ethics.

Since mid-2015 World Climate has been played by more than 46,000 people in 85 countries, including students, community groups, executives, policymakers and military leaders. More than 80 percent said it increased their motivation to combat climate change, regardless of their political orientation or prior engagement with the issue. Our research shows that World Climate acts as a climate change communication tool that enables people to learn and feel for themselves – experiences that together have the potential to motivate action informed by science.

For most of history, experience has been humans’ best teacher, enabling us to understand the world around us while stimulating emotions such as fear, anger, worry and hope that drive us to act. But waiting for experience to show how disastrous the impacts of climate change could be is not a realistic option. Just as pilots train in flight simulators so they can save passengers when real emergencies strike, people can now learn about climate change through simulated experience and become motivated to address it, instead of suffering the real-world consequences of inaction.

JULIETTE N. ROONEY-VARGA is an Associate Professor of Environmental Science at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

Co-authors of the study described in this article included J.D. Sterman, MIT Sloan School; T. Franck, E. Johnston and A.P. Jones, Climate Interactive; E. Fracassi, Instituto Tecnologico de Buenos Aires; F. Kapmeier, Reutlingen University; K. Rath, SageFox Consulting Group; and V. Kurker, UMass Lowell Climate Change Initiative.

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON THE CONVERSATION

Dominican Republic

This video depicts shots of the Dominican Republic, a Caribbean nation that is known for its beaches, resorts and golfing. The video includes shots of the rainforest-covered karst mountains at Los Haitises National Park, one of the most stunning protected areas of the Caribbean. Additionally, Dominican cities and daily life are portrayed, such as cities like Santon Domingo and Santiago de los Caballeros.

The Mystical Boiling River of the Amazon

When Andrés Ruzo was a boy, his grandfather would tell him tales of a mythical city of gold deep in the heart of the Peruvian jungle. Though never believing the stories to be true, the legend of the lost city stuck with him into adulthood. Years later, as a geothermal scientist, Ruzo decided to investigate. To his surprise, he discovered an incredulous river deep in the Amazon, with water hot enough to kill a human. Historically a place of pilgrimage for shamans and sorcerers, the river now faces increasing threats from poachers, loggers and squatters. Now, Ruzo is working hard to protect it.

Botswana

These footages were taken during a trip through Botswana in Africa. The videographer, Erwin Olmos, recalls it being “a tough trip, but at the same time a great experience.” Some places that are featured are Serowe Rhino reserve, Moremi National Park, Chobe River and Chobe National Park, Amazing Okavango Delta and many towns.

Swimming with Whale Sharks in Mexico: Ecotourism or Exploitation?

The water was about 70 degrees. When we jumped in, I had forgotten to pull my snorkel mask down—it was still strapped to my forehead. This was a dead giveaway to the tour guide that I was inexperienced, and he swam over and yanked the mask down over my eyes.  He then guided me and one more novice snorkeler to an open area of the water, away from everyone else. Gently, he pushed our heads beneath the surface, and when I opened my eyes, I was staring at a fish roughly the size of the 38 Geary back home. This was a Whale Shark, the largest fish on the planet, and here in La Paz, the capital city of Baja California and a well-known hub for shark migration, such sights were fairly commonplace. Through Cabo Expeditions, the tour company that organized these trips,anyone with $140 could see these giants up close. There were other companies operating in the area as well, and midway through the trip, our guide directed our attention to a shark in the distance being flanked by another group of tourists. They were patting the animal’s sides while it tried to feed on plankton, and as excitement overcame tact, the patting turned into light slapping. Our guide took a moment to stress the importance of enjoying these animals in a respectful way.  It was the only black mark on an otherwise magical afternoon.

Laz Paz, captial of Baja California. Az81964444. Public Domain

Three years later, while attending UC Berkeley, I stumbled into a showing of "Mexico Pelagico,” a documentary that followed a group of conservationists as they tried to protect various sharks in the Sea of Cortez. It got me thinking about my trip to La Paz. In the film, it was said that 97 million sharks were killed every year, with Mexico ranking 6th among countries participating in the slaughter. While greed and envy were contributing factors to overfishing, the main factor was poverty; For many, shark fishing was the only way to make a decent living. The film went on to examine the recent explosion of Whale Shark ecotourism in Cancun, with tour companies recruiting the very fishermen who killed sharks in the past as tour operators working toward their preservation. It seemed like a practical solution that addressed both the needs of the environment and those of the fishermen. However, thinking back to that poor shark being slapped by those tourists in La Paz still made me uneasy, and I began to wonder what alternatives were available to people who wished to see and learn about these animals.

After graduation, I traveled to China and visited the Chimelong Ocean Kingdom, currently the largest aquarium on Earth. The Ocean Kingdom had the finest display tank I’d ever seen, complete with two juvenile whale sharks. I also flew to Atlanta to visit the Georgia Aquarium, the second largest aquarium on Earth, and currently the only place in the US where one can see captive Whale Sharks. This aquarium had four adult sharks in a tank that was a bit smaller than its Chinese counterpart, but still gave the animals plenty of room to move around. Both aquariums had invested millions into the care of these animals and, as far as I could tell, both were deeply committed to Whale Shark conservation and education, but neither aquarium left the same lasting impression that my trip to La Paz did.  Not only were there more sharks see Mexico, but they also seemed more at ease in their natural environment. For me personally, there was a sense that I as a human being was participating in the local ecosystem, not dominating it or trying to replicate it somewhere else.

A pair of Whale Sharks. Elias Levy. CC BY 2.0

Is snorkeling with Whale Sharks beneficial? Is it exploitative? The evidence suggests it’s a bit of both. A study conducted between 2012 and 2014 on Whale Shark ecotourism in the Philippines revealed that over 95 percent of tourists touched the animals during their encounters with them, even though they knew It was not permitted and penalties included jail time. In Djibouti, scars from boat propellers have been observed on up to 65% of the local Whale Shark population. Now, the good news: In 2013, a group of researchers from the University of British Columbia determined that the annual revenue from shark fishing stood at $630 million and had been declining over the past decade, while the annual revenue from shark ecotourism was $314 million, a figure that was projected to increase to $780 million over the next 20 years.  These numbers suggest an inverse relationship between the rise of ecotourism and the decline of fishing. In the film “Mexico Pelagico,” it was said that Baja's’ fish biomass was projected to increase by 465% over the next 17 years. While there are benefits and drawbacks to snorkeling with Whale sharks, the former seems to outweigh the latter.   

A Whale Shark at the Georgia Aquarium. Zac Wolf. CC BY-SA 2.5.

Whale Shark Ecotourism is a booming business, and some companies are bound to be more or less respectful than others, but overall it seems like a step in the right direction.  If the shark at the mercy of those tourists back in La Paz suffered any discomfort, it was most likely temporary, as the shark was probably free to go about its business once the tourists had left. This is certainly a better fate for a shark than being hooked on a fishing line and chopped into pieces, or being confined to a tank for the rest of its life.  The fact that we are beginning to change our perception of sharks and recognize the importance of their conversation is a sign of progress- our approach can refine itself over time. In the meantime, I’m planning my next trip to La Paz.

JONATHAN ROBINSON is an intern at CATALYST. He is a travel enthusiast always adding new people, places, experiences to his story. He hopes to use writing as a means to connect with others like himself.