#80% biodiversity

[ometochtli2rabbit]

[reasonsforhope]

"At nearly 150 acres, the Jardim Gramacho landfill in Rio de Janeiro was one of the largest and most infamous in all of Latin America. Now it’s a mangrove forest teeming with life.

Decommissioned 11 years ago, between 1970 and 2012 the dump, bordering Rio’s famous Guanabara Bay, received 80 million metric tonnes of trash from the area’s Gramacho neighborhood.

Now, a public-private partnership led by the Rio Municipal Cleaning Company has returned the area to nature, specifically mangroves, one of the most valuable of all ecosystems.

Planting 24 acres of mangroves at a time, today the forest stretches out more than 120 acres and is the largest mangrove area of the bay.

“Before, we polluted the bay and the rivers. Now, it’s the bay and the rivers that pollute us,” a lead official on the project told Africa News. “Today, the mangrove has completely recovered.”

Other organizations have taken action to restore mangroves along the bay as well. The non-profit Ocean Pact funded the Green Guanabara Bay Project which successfully restored 12.5 hectares or around 25 acres of mangroves.

According to some estimates, 1 acre of mangrove forests can store more carbon in roots and soil than 4 acres of even the most biodiverse rainforest, making them paramount to any world climate mitigation strategy.

Furthermore, their impressive lattice work of roots and insane durability means that storm surges impacting mangroves lose about 66% of their kinetic energy without even destroying the trees.

Lastly, coastal fishing communities, in [four] words, cannot exist without mangroves. They act as nurseries and perfect habitat for all kinds of fish and crustaceans that small-scale fishermen rely on for their daily bread."

-via Good News Network, 7/31/23

-video via Africanews, July 26, 2023

[fatehbaz]

Despite its green image, Ireland has surprisingly little forest. [...] [M]ore than 80% of the island of Ireland was [once] covered in trees. [...] [O]f that 11% of the Republic of Ireland that is [now] forested, the vast majority (9% of the country) is planted with [non-native] spruces like the Sitka spruce [in commercial plantations], a fast growing conifer originally from Alaska which can be harvested after just 15 years. Just 2% of Ireland is covered with native broadleaf trees.

Text by: Martha O’Hagan Luff. “Ireland has lost almost all of its native forests - here’s how to bring them back.” The Conversation. 24 February 2023. [Emphasis added.]

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[I]ndustrial [...] oil palm plantations [...] have proliferated in tropical regions in many parts of the world, often built at the expense of mangrove and humid forest lands, with the aim to transform them from 'worthless swamp' to agro-industrial complexes [...]. Another clear case [...] comes from the southernmost area in the Colombian Pacific [...]. Here, since the early 1980s, the forest has been destroyed and communities displaced to give way to oil palm plantations. Inexistent in the 1970s, by the mid-1990s they had expanded to over 30,000 hectares. The monotony of the plantation - row after row of palm as far as you can see, a green desert of sorts - replaced the diverse, heterogenous and entangled world of forest and communities.

Text by: Arturo Escobar. "Thinking-Feeling with the Earth: Territorial Struggles and the Ontological Dimension of the Epistemologies of the South." Revista de Antropologia Iberoamericana Volume 11 Issue 1. 2016. [Emphasis added.]

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But efforts to increase global tree cover to limit climate change have skewed towards erecting plantations of fast-growing trees [...] [because] planting trees can demonstrate results a lot quicker than natural forest restoration. [...] [But] ill-advised tree planting can unleash invasive species [...]. [In India] [t]o maximize how much timber these forests yielded, British foresters planted pines from Europe and North America in extensive plantations in the Himalayan region [...] and introduced acacia trees from Australia [...]. One of these species, wattle (Acacia mearnsii) [...] was planted in [...] the Western Ghats. This area is what scientists all a biodiversity hotspot – a globally rare ecosystem replete with species. Wattle has since become invasive and taken over much of the region’s mountainous grasslands. Similarly, pine has spread over much of the Himalayas and displaced native oak trees while teak has replaced sal, a native hardwood, in central India. Both oak and sal are valued for [...] fertiliser, medicine and oil. Their loss [...] impoverished many [local and Indigenous people]. [...]

India’s national forest policy [...] aims for trees on 33% of the country’s area. Schemes under this policy include plantations consisting of a single species such as eucalyptus or bamboo which grow fast and can increase tree cover quickly, demonstrating success according to this dubious measure. Sometimes these trees are planted in grasslands and other ecosystems where tree cover is naturally low. [...] The success of forest restoration efforts cannot be measured by tree cover alone. The Indian government’s definition of “forest” still encompasses plantations of a single tree species, orchards and even bamboo, which actually belongs to the grass family. This means that biennial forest surveys cannot quantify how much natural forest has been restored, or convey the consequences of displacing native trees with competitive plantation species or identify if these exotic trees have invaded natural grasslands which have then been falsely recorded as restored forests. [...] Planting trees does not necessarily mean a forest is being restored. And reviving ecosystems in which trees are scarce is important too.

Text by: Dhanapal Govindarajulu. "India was a tree planting laboratory for 200 years - here are the results." The Conversation. 10 August 2023. [Emphasis added.]

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Nations and companies are competing to appropriate the last piece of available “untapped” forest that can provide the most amount of “environmental services.” [...] When British Empire forestry was first established as a disciplinary practice in India, [...] it proscribed private interests and initiated a new system of forest management based on a logic of utilitarian [extraction] [...]. Rather than the actual survival of plants or animals, the goal of this forestry was focused on preventing the exhaustion of resource extraction. [...]

Text by: Daniel Fernandez and Alon Schwabe. "The Offsetted." e-flux Architecture (Positions). November 2013. [Emphasis added.]

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At first glance, the statistics tell a hopeful story: Chile’s forests are expanding. […] On the ground, however, a different scene plays out: monocultures have replaced diverse natural forests [...]. At the crux of these [...] narratives is the definition of a single word: “forest.” [...] Pinochet’s wave of [...] [laws] included Forest Ordinance 701, passed in 1974, which subsidized the expansion of tree plantations [...] and gave the National Forestry Corporation control of Mapuche lands. This law set in motion an enormous expansion in fiber-farms, which are vast expanses of monoculture plantations Pinus radiata and Eucalyptus species grown for paper manufacturing and timber. [T]hese new plantations replaced native forests […]. According to a recent study in Landscape and Urban Planning, timber plantations expanded by a factor of ten from 1975 to 2007, and now occupy 43 percent of the South-central Chilean landscape. [...] While the confusion surrounding the definition of “forest” may appear to be an issue of semantics, Dr. Francis Putz [...] warns otherwise in a recent review published in Biotropica. […] Monoculture plantations are optimized for a single product, whereas native forests offer [...] water regulation, hosting biodiversity, and building soil fertility. [...][A]ccording to Putz, the distinction between plantations and native forests needs to be made clear. “[...] [A]nd the point that plantations are NOT forests needs to be made repeatedly [...]."

Text by: Julian Moll-Rocek. “When forests aren’t really forests: the high cost of Chile’s tree plantations.” Mongabay. 18 August 2014. [Emphasis added.]

[headspace-hotel]

I've been reading a lot of articles trying to understand how the ranges of various plants expanded and contracted throughout the glacial and interglacial periods,

and it sucks, it SUCKS that we just cannot know about ecosystems in the distant past with the same amount of detail as today's ecosystems!!!!!!!!!!! I NEED TO KNOW WHAT KENTUCKY WAS LIKE IN THE UPPER MIOCENE. BITING CLAWING KILLING DYING

I've been reading about palynology which is the STUDY of POLLEN, so different plants have very different looking pollen grains so if you get some mud from a sediment layer from 11,000 years ago and look at it under a microscope you can see what plants were dominant in the area and therefore how the ecosystem was different

ONE PROBLEM: Only the especially numerous plants will be easily detected this way, and it is rare for insect-pollinated plants to have detectable records in sediments like this, because pollen made to be carried by insects, doesn't blow away in the air and end up in mud the way wind-pollinated plant pollen does.

TWO PROBLEM, ACTUALLY: Pollen grains aren't that different between individual species, you could only say "This is an oak" or "This is a ragweed" and probably can't detect which kind specifically.

So there could have been all sorts of crazy herbs and trees that we would NEVER KNOW about because they were not very numerous, they were insect pollinated (80% of plant species are insect pollinated!) or they are closely related enough to a species we DO know, that the pollen is indistinguishable.

The quality of data on actual plant fossil records in Southeastern USA is kinda shit for some reason. I've read papers about it where the scientists are trying to make sense of the data and they're like "This paper from 1979 says this species of walnut was found in Tennessee, but we think it's full of shit because the fossil was just a tiny chip of bark" or something like that.

Compared with the rest of North America, we know next to nothing about the prehistory and the Pleistocene environment of the Southeast, I guess because it's so warm, humid and wet, everything rots away super quick.

Which is PAINFUL because the Southeast is the most biodiverse part of North America, and the ranges occupied by various plants suggest some wEIRD SHIT was happening.

There are ~100 genera that have one species that lives in SE USA and a sister species that lives in SE Asia,

and furthermore, there are several species that are found in SE USA but ALSO found high up in the cloud forests of Central America, in a totally different habitat that just happens to be hospitable temperature wise.

There are tons of plant species found EXCLUSIVELY in Florida and nowhere else on Earth. There are also loads of plant species found only in the highest peaks of the Appalachian Mountains. And there's a bunch of species that are found only in random speckle-like patches in various places, like how did it get HERE and then all the way over THERE 200 miles away with none in between?!?!

[dailyanarchistposts]

The way most people talk about climate change we are led to believe we all have an equal part in creating the capitalist nightmare we live in, but that’s a lie. The unsustainable and extractive nature of capitalism grew directly from the ideological and material foundations of European colonization. We cannot hold the entire human species responsible for that. It’s victim blaming.

The vast majority of waste is produced by the same people and institutions who hold power. Fighting for our planet, the health of our land, our food, our homes, our communities, is where the fight against capitalism and white supremacy collide. Any fight for environmental justice must also be a fight for racial justice because BI&POC are the ones who disproportionately bear the weight of climate change.

White Settler Colonialism Is Destroying the Planet, Not Poor BI&POC

Don’t believe the Malthusian and eco-fascist myth that there are too many people on the planet to care for. This is a lie peddled by capitalists, eugenicists, and people who advocate for genocide. We know that every landbase has its limit for how much life it can support (indigenous peoples have been saying this for hundreds of years), but “overpopulation” rhetoric is overwhelmingly used as a means to enforce colonial hierarchies where wealthy white people can maintain lives of access and privilege while poor BI&POC barely survive.

Instead of telling poor BI&POC to have less children or to stop wanting better lives, we should build a movement to fight climate change which centers racial justice, abolishes capitalism, and forces wealthy, predominately white populations to stop hoarding resources.

Here are some Earth Day facts for tomorrow so you don’t fall for the lies:

Just 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions. (Source: the Guardian)

Black communities are exposed to 56% more pollution than is caused by their consumption. For Latinx communities, it is 63%. (Source: American Journal of Public Health)

97% of waste produced in the United States is corporate waste. 80% of businesses are owned & operated by white people. (Source: “The Story of Stuff” & US News)

Indigenous peoples make up less than 5% of the planet’s human population, yet they are protecting 80% of its biodiversity. (Source: National Geographic)

The world’s richest 10% produce half of carbon emissions while the poorest half contribute only 10%. (Source: Oxfam)

The world’s wealthiest 16% use 80% of the planet’s natural resources. (Source: CNN)

We are not all equally “responsible.” White settler colonialism and capitalism are destroying the planet, not poor BI&POC.

[iatrophilosophos]

Like. Fucking. Hell. Electricity can be a legitimately useful resource but we For Real do not need this much of it

There are so many ways of producing electricity that are dependent on like either damage that has already been done (hey fun fact didja know solar fields decommission panels after a certain number of years? they hit like 80-90% of their original efficency and get rotated out even tho they're still very much capable of working fine!) or are just actually pretty reasonable at SMALL scales (hydro with a little water wheel from a small pond on a big creek -> can even increase biodiversity so long as ur like, paying attention and not fucking migrations with how you build things, diverting small amounts of flow from an already downhill stream for a few dozen yards can be basically fine, there's also gravity pumps uphill catchment tiny water towers etc; these systems just work with magnets and rotation, it's municipal generation and larger scale dams that get Bad)

None Of These will power millions of peoples home microwaves and electric kettles and cars and lighting and industry and all that bullshit. But there's many many years worth of reclaiming all the toxic extracted shit to power like, medical equipment. Eventually these things will fall off too, break for the last time and not be able to be fixed generations from now, but that's a lot fucking better bet for ur gr8 gr8 grandkids than no complex life on earth!

Do not fall for the trap of collapsing imperial core luxury into needs. It's unhelpful and makes you look like a callous, whiny fool. Differentiate what you need from what youve become accustomed to demanding. The world is fucking chockablock with materials that shouldn't have been made in the first place but fucking exist now, we cant compost trillions of miles of copper power lines. Municipal scales kill. Your toaster oven is not a ventilator.

[amnhnyc]

Sometimes “rizz” (charisma) just isn’t enough. To attract a mate, a male Lady Amherst’s Pheasant (Chrysolophus amherstiae) will engage in an elaborate courtship dance. What's more? He has dazzling plumage to add to his appeal, along with tail feathers that can reach an impressive 31.5 inches (80 cm) long! While this bird prefers to stay on the ground, it occasionally takes flight to escape from foes or to reach treetop roosts. One might spot this species in parts of Asia, such as southwestern China, where it inhabits bamboo forests. Photo: Henry Koh, CC BY 2.0, flickr #birds #birdsofinstagram #wildlife #biodiversity #nature https://www.instagram.com/p/CoIsMKPvrKN/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Odd question but - I'm looking to study in the UK this fall, and I'm trying to get to grips with the grading system. Could you explain the grading boundaries to me please? It's different from the US, as far as I can see!

I found this handy table which you might find useful - I don't really understand the US system either lol.

Here's what I will say though - I have many times before seen Americans online seeing the percentages for the UK grade boundaries and immediately wax lyrical about how EASY and SIMPLE it must be to do well in the UK because OH MY GOD I could tooootally get 70%!!! In the US that's barely a C!!! Wow education must be soooo simple in the UK -

And uh. I have seen very few Americans in those discussions stop and ask themselves how much harder it might be to hit 70% in the UK. Which, as the international academic office in every university will tell you, is the crucial question you absolutely should be asking. Does an American 70% look the same as a UK 70%?

(It Does Not.)

So don't be fooled by that! Over here, at undergrad the pass mark is 40%. 40-49% gets you a third; 50-59% gets you what's varyingly known as a lower second (formally), a 2:2 (most commonly), or a Desmond (by sad people. It's a reference to Desmond Tutu - two two). A 2:2 is also the most commonly awarded degree classification over here.

60-69% is a 2:1, or upper second class honours. And then the top level is the first - 70% and up. The vast majority of firsts are earned by students who got 70-79%. Exceptional work pushes into the 80s. It is incredibly rare that you ever see a mark in the 90s, and when you do, it's almost always on maths papers where there are right or wrong answers and that's it.

I can't remember how the US's summa cum laude etc stuff maps onto that, though you could probably find that on Google as well. But as a rule of thumb, think first = excellent, 2:1 = good, 2:2 = fair, and third = you need to be careful and see what you can do to improve (although that is still a pass at university and that is not to be sniffed at).

Ooh, as a final point, though, there's also how assessment works, which again, I know is very different over here (again I don't really understand it in the US). Your lecturer cannot set random work here and there to count as summative assessment. Every module is different in how it's set up, but let's give an example:

Module: Coastal and Marine Conservation Two assessments, each worth 50% of the final grade. Assessment 1: A report on the biodiversity of Ramsey Island in the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. Explore the cause of the lower biodiversity there than nearby Skomer/Skokholm; how was this challenged/rectified? How have species recovered since? What should be done into the future? Assessment 2: A two-hour closed book exam. Half of this exam (50 marks) will be a mix of short and medium length questions; things like "Define these five terms (two marks each)", or "Describe the process of longshore drift and its impact on sedimentation patterns (15 marks)" or what have you. The second half is a 50 mark essay - pick one of three essay questions offered, and off you go. (Essay questions are a staple feature of exams over here, and multiple choice questions are extremely rare and generally frowned on as being Not Sufficiently Academic.)

Now, in the case of this module, these are the only two assessment points. Both the report brief and the exam paper are registered with the academic office in the summer before the academic year even starts, and both are triple verified - by the lecturer who writes/sets them, by an internal verifier in the department, and an external verifier from another university. This is part of quality control.

If, for some reason, you fail one of these, or cannot submit them by their due date, or what have you, you still have to do them. If you claim for Extenuating Circumstances (e.g. "I was made homeless and my cat blew up, so I couldn't do it in time") then you get an extension on it; as long as you submit by the end of the academic period, you're fine. If you don't, you need to resit it. This normally means over the summer after the main term ends.

But, in the UK system what we can't do is go "Okay never mind, how about you submit a write-up of the volunteering you're currently doing with SeaLife instead and we'll count that?" The reason being, under the UK system that is not a quality-controlled solution. That has not been checked and verified as an equivalent assessment to what the rest of the class has done; so if you do that and get a 2:1, there is no assurance that you are actually of the same academic quality as one of your peers who got a 2:1 for that research report on Ramsey's biodiversity.

Which... don't let it scare you! As I say, there are a LOT of systems that can help you if things start going wrong (always, always, always keep Student Support and your lecturers in the loop). But that is a different system from what I understand you might be used to, so heads up on that.

(I am not arguing that one is better than the other, by the way. Last time I explained a difference in the UK university system I got a very hostile and aggressive American in the notes throwing a right strop over how terrible the UK system clearly is because XYZ, right up until I had to actually say "I am literally just describing how it's different, not claiming superiority," and then they went mysteriously quiet and stopped replying. So to forestall that, I am only describing the differences. There are advantages and disadvantages to each.

The UK system is certainly more inflexible. But it does, incidentally, at least free you from the tyranny I see reported so often by US students of the dreaded Tenured Professor who deliberately as a matter of pride sets impossible exams that everyone fails. Over here, that shit Does Not Fly. So there's that.)

Anyway - hopefully that answers your question! Any others, hit me up. Good luck, and enjoy your studies!

[probablyasocialecologist]

Biodiversity loss in agriculture is a pressing threat to global food systems, reducing our ability to cope with climate change, environmental degradation, and nutritional challenges. Over the past century, about 75% of plant genetic diversity has been lost as farmers have shifted toward high-yielding, genetically uniform crops. Today, just nine plant species account for 66% of global crop production, with rice, wheat, and maize alone providing more than 50% of the world’s plant-derived calories. This reliance on a narrow set of crops undermines food system resilience, leaving us vulnerable to pests, diseases, and climate extremes. It has also created a monocultural vulnerability reminiscent of the Irish potato famine of the 1840s, when reliance on a single, genetically uniform crop led to catastrophic losses due to disease. Genetic diversity within and among species acts as a natural buffer against environmental changes. Different crop varieties respond differently to stressors, providing farmers with options to manage risks. When one crop fails, others can compensate, helping to safeguard harvests and livelihoods. However, as the diversity on our farms diminishes, farmers have fewer tools to adapt to the growing volatility brought on by climate change. Extreme weather events such as droughts, floods, and heat waves are becoming more severe, and monocultures are ill-equipped to withstand these shocks. The environmental impact of current agricultural practices further exacerbates biodiversity loss. Agriculture is responsible for about 90% of global deforestation and contributes substantially to habitat destruction, driving the extinction of countless species. Excessive use of inorganic fertilizers and pesticides pollutes soils and waterways, disrupting ecosystems and degrading essential natural services such as pollination and soil fertility. Soil degradation now affects one-third of the world’s soils. In sub-Saharan Africa, agriculture is responsible for 80% of soil degradation on farmland, leading to reduced plant diversity because only the few species that can tolerate poor soil conditions survive. Moreover, the heavy use of nitrogen fertilizers and livestock manure, particularly in regions such as Asia and Latin America, has disrupted natural nitrogen cycles, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions such as nitrous oxide and methane. These emissions not only drive climate change but also accelerate biodiversity loss by reducing the resilience and health of ecosystems. The decline of agricultural biodiversity also impacts human health. Diets worldwide have become increasingly homogeneous, dominated by a few staple crops that are energy-rich but nutrient-poor. Less than 200 species currently contribute to global food supplies, and this lack of variety has serious health consequences. Low dietary diversity is now a leading driver of diet-related deaths, with about 11 million premature deaths annually linked to unhealthy diets. The decline in biodiversity means that fewer nutrient-rich foods such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds are available, exacerbating malnutrition in all its forms, from undernutrition to obesity.

10 October 2024

[ningauinerd]

Wonderful news from the Cyclops Mountains of West Papua today with the rediscovery of Attenborough's long-beaked echidna (Zaglossus attenboroughi)!

(Image credit: Expedition Cyclops)

Previously known a single specimen collected in 1961, Attenborough's long-beaked echidna has long been one of the world's most elusive mammals. Recognised as a distinct species in 1998, an expedition to the Cyclops Mountains in 2007 failed to observe the echidna but found evidence of recent diggings and foraging activity which, alongside local knowledge, implied that the species still survived in those remote mountain forests.

Finally, just a few months ago, a new expedition into its remote mountain home by Expedition Cyclops caught the first ever footage of Attenborough's long-beaked echidna in the wild, which is also the first time it has been seen by scientists in over 60 years. In a remarkable stroke of luck, the echidna was captured on the last of over 80 camera traps on the final day of the trip!

Attenborough's long-beaked echidna is the most distinctive of the three species of long-beaked echidna thanks to its smaller size, shorter, straighter beak and reddish-brown fur. Its habits are virtually unknown, but its differently shaped beak may suggest that it differs in diet and feeding habits from the other two long-beaked echidna species. It appears to be endemic to the highest elevations of the Cyclops Mountains, which are steep, extremely rainy and treacherous to explore, hence why it remained hidden for so long.

(Image credit: Expedition Cyclops)

There are only five species of monotreme alive today, the sole living custodians of a lineage stretching back some 200 million years, and this makes each species extraordinarily valuable. Unfortunately, all three species of long-beaked echidna are threatened with extinction, with Attenborough's long-beaked echidna being classed as critically endangered. Losing any species is a tragedy, but for a group as small and precious as monotremes, any extinction would be especially disastrous.

Alongside the rediscovery of the echidna, Expedition Cyclops also made the first record of Mayr's honeyeater (Ptiloprora mayri) in 16 years and discovered dozens of new species of insects, arachnids, shrimp and frogs. Their work documenting the hidden biodiversity of the Cyclops Mountains is ongoing, so if you'd like to follow and support the expedition make sure to visit their website! https://www.expeditioncyclops.org/

[histsciart]

Beautiful Butterflies

These beautiful butterflies are from Plate 54��in Histoire Naturelle des Lépidoptères Exotiques (1835) by Pierre-Hippolyte Lucas (17 January 1814 – 5 July 1899). Lucas was a French entomologist, who worked at the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle.

Histoire Naturelle des Lépidoptères Exotiques was a serial publication in 20 parts that contains 80 hand-colored plates with descriptions and illustrations of non-European butterflies, including many species from South America, Australia, or Asia.

Plate 54 showcases 3 species of butterflies that are likely to be known currently as:

Scarce Bamboo Page, Philaethria dido

Lacewing butterfly, Cethosia lamarckii

Lacewing butterfly, Cethosia leschenaultii

View more beautiful plates from this work in Biodiversity Heritage Library‘s Flickr album. Smithsonian Libraries and Archives digitized this work for BHL and added it to their Flickr collection.

[saint-ambrosef]

climate change fatalism is so exhausting. it easily becomes a ecological scapegoat to blame instead of humans taking accountability for how their individual actions affect the environment.

i had a conversation earlier in a fb garden group where a women told me that since desertification was changing her local landscape and making it harder to grow native plants, it was actually okay and even good of her to be planting invasive exotic species that could adapt to the "new normal" climate in her area so that the wildlife would have at least something for shade/shelter/food. in the same message she mentioned trying to eradicate native weeds on their acreage because it had no personal use to her or her non-native livestock.

and i was like. no girl. the desertification in your area has been caused by decades of bad agricultural land management practices, something that is fully reversible. those weeds you are ripping out provide more benefit to wildlife than your nasty exotics, and ranchers removing these "undesirable" natives for decades is why the land has grown barren. planting invasive exotics to replace the artificial loss of biodiversity will only hasten the problem you seek to fix.

but the point of my post isn't this specific woman, it's the general attitude she represents. it's a lot easier to blame the nebulous figure of climate change than to work toward ecological restoration. it's simpler to plant invasive exotics than to reverse decades of poor land management. it's more enjoyable to grow a pretty flowering shrub and pretend it's necessary due to climate change than to allow native ragweed to grow even though the allergies suck because it feeds the birds and pollinators. and it's a helluva lot easier to blame climate change for the worsening of your local environment than to admit that overgrazing your livestock and ripping out native plants just because they have no immediate value to you might have contributed heavily to the decline of your microbiome.

climate change has quickly become this collective responsibility that no one individual is responsible for, because it's so easy to blame the slightest change in environment on it. "we're running out of water because of climate change!" it's because urban landscaping practices channel away water instead of letting it soak into the groundwater wells, and turf lawns use 80% of the city water. "the city is so much hotter now!" yeah because twenty years ago developers planted fast-growing but short-lived/weak trees which have now all died, meaning our roads and neighborhoods have way less shade and foliage to absorb the heat. "the bees are disappearing because of climate change!" sharon it's because there's not a single thing in your yard that a native pollinator would recognize as a food source.

anyways i don't know where exactly i'm going with this. i guess i'm just tired of climate change fatalism because it removes personal incentive to do anything to reverse environmental harm that we could be fixing on an individual level. but "global warming" has become a very convenient excuse for many people, unfortunately.

just makes me wonder how often things blamed on climate change are actually a result of direct human actions that are reversible

[reasonsforhope]

"Discarded shells from restaurants and hotels are being used to restore damaged oyster ecosystems, promote biodiversity and lower pollution in the city’s bays...

Nestled in between the South China Sea and the Pearl River Delta, Hong Kong has been seen historically as an oyster hotspot. “They have been supporting our livelihood since ancient times,” says Anniqa Law Chung-kiu, a project manager at the Nature Conservancy (TNC) in Hong Kong. “Both oysters and their shells are treasures to humans.”

Over the past five decades, however, the city’s sprawling urban development, water pollution, as well as the over-harvesting and frequent seafloor dredging by the lime industry – which uses the crushed shells to make construction material – have destroyed Hong Kong’s oyster habitats and made the waters less hospitable for biodiversity.

The more oyster colonies falter, the worse the problem gets: oysters are filter feeders and purify water by gobbling up impurities. Just one Hong Kong oyster can filter up to 200 litres of water a day, more than any other known oyster species. But decades of rapid industrialisation have largely halted their water-purifying services.

The depletion of Hong Kong’s natural oyster reefs also affects the ability of local farmers to sustainably cultivate their oysters in a healthy environment, denting the reputation of the city’s 700-year oyster farming tradition, designated by Unesco as an “intangible cultural heritage”.

Inhabitants of the coast feel abandoned, says Ken Cheng Wai-kwan, the community leader of Ha Pak Nai on Hong Kong’s Deep Bay, facing the commercial city of Shenzhen in China. “This place is forgotten,” Cheng says. “Oysters have been rooted here for over 400 years. I ask the question: do we want to lose it, or not?”

A group of activists and scientists are taking up the challenge by collecting discarded oyster shells and recycling them to rebuild some of the reefs that have been destroyed and forgotten in the hope the oysters may make a comeback. They’ve selected locations around the island where data they’ve collected suggests ecosystems still have the potential to be rebooted, and there are still enough oyster larvae to recolonise and repopulate reefs. Ideally, this will have a positive effect on local biodiversity as a whole, and farming communities.

Farmers from Ha Pak Nai were among the first to hand over their discarded shells to the TNC team for recycling. Law’s team works with eight oyster farmers from Deep Bay to recycle up to 10 tonnes of shells every year [over 22,000 pounds]. They collect an average of 870kg every week [over 1,900 pounds] from 12 hotels, supermarkets, clubhouses and seafood restaurants in the city, including some of its most fashionable establishments. About 80 tonnes of shells [over 176,000 pounds] have been recycled since the project began in 2020.

Restaurants will soon be further incentivised to recycle the shells when Hong Kong introduces a new fee for waste removal – something that is routine in many countries, but only became law in Hong Kong in July and remains controversial...

Preliminary data shows some of the restored reefs have started to increase the levels of biodiversity, but more research is needed to determine to what extent they are contributing to the filtering of the water, says Law.

Scientists from the City University of Hong Kong are also looking to use oyster shells to increase biodiversity on the city’s concrete seawalls. They hope to provide tiny, wet shelter spots around the seawall in which organisms can find refuge during low tide.

“It’s a form of soft engineering, like a nature-based solution,” says Charlene Lai, a research assistant on the team."

-via The Guardian, December 22, 2023

[mindblowingscience]

More than 80% of global land area needed to maintain human well-being and meet biodiversity targets is at risk of conflict with human development, according to a new study led by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The study, published Jan. 10 in Nature Communications, found that roughly half of global land, excluding Antarctica, provides nearly all current levels of nature's services to people while also conserving biodiversity for 27,000 species of birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians. Of that, only 18% is adequately protected, the study found.

Continue Reading.

[headspace-hotel]

Proposed logging project in the Daniel Boone National Forest (South-Central Kentucky, USA)

I found out about this recently and Ive seen barely any discussion or attention about it in real life or on the internet, so hopefully I can attract more attention

The USA Forest Service is planning to log 10,000 acres of the Daniel Boone National Forest near Jellico Mountain, near the Kentucky-Tennessee border. The plan includes around 1,000 acres of clear cutting.

We need mature forests to remove and store carbon from the atmosphere. This is disastrous from a climate change perspective.

The excuse being given (apart from the obvious economic incentive of logging) is that the tract is mostly "mature forest" and that the forest needs to have a "diversity of age classes" for wildlife. This is total bullshit, since less than 1% of old growth forest in the Eastern USA remains, and an 80-year-old forest is still incredibly young. This type of reasoning is greenwashing.

To make matters worse, the planned logging is on mountain tops, which will cause huge amounts of erosion and possible floods and landslides that endanger the people who live in the valleys below.

Kentucky experienced a deadly flash flood in the eastern mountains that killed 40 people last year. Forests help stop flash flooding by absorbing rainfall in a dense layer of roots and soil, draining it slowly into waterways; without them, mud and rainwater goes rushing straight into narrow mountain gullies rapidly, causing dangerous floods.

Mud and sediment rushing into streams also kills fish and aquatic life that need clear, clean stream water.

Kentucky has one of the most biodiverse freshwater ecosystems in the entire world, with only a couple states next to it having more freshwater species. Kentucky's forest streams have fresh water fish, crustaceans and other species found nowhere else on Earth.

The Southeastern USA has the most diverse freshwater life of any place on Earth, the most salamander diversity of any place on Earth, and the Appalachian Mountains are a global hotspot of biodiversity, considered one of the world's most biodiverse temperate deciduous forest habitats.

It is crucial that we begin building the old-growth forests of the future NOW!

Logging these forest tracts will facilitate invasive species to take over. Mature forests form buffer zones against invasive species. The forest will never grow back the way it was; it will be infected with Kudzu, Autumn Olive, Honeysuckle and other invasives that take advantage of the destruction and prevent the normal process of forest succession from happening as it should.

If you live anywhere near this area, talk to everyone around you about this, send them the links above and encourage them to do the same themselves.

Talk to your friends, your neighbors, people at your church, everyone you are in contact with or speak to in your day to day life. Tell them about the risks of flash flooding and landslides and the importance of preserving mature forest land. Any environmental clubs and organizations you know of, tell them as well.

Most people haven't even heard this is happening, and that's how they get away with it.

Public outrage protects priceless habitats all the time, so TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW. Tell people you don't know, even. Call and email organizations and people that might be interested, until you run into someone who has an idea of what to do. That's how change happens!