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Tag: environmental conservation

  • You can give old batteries a new life by safely recycling them

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    NEW YORK — When household batteries die, it’s hard to know what to do with them. So they get shoved into a junk drawer or sheepishly thrown into the trash.

    But dead batteries aren’t quite finished. They can leak heavy metals like cadmium and nickel into soil and water once they reach the landfill. Some of them can also overheat and cause fires in garbage trucks and recycling centers.

    The good news is, safely disposing of your batteries takes just a few steps. They’ll get shipped to recycling centers that break down their contents to make new things.

    Battery recycling processes could use some fine-tuning, but it’s still a simple and responsible way to get rid of them.

    Recycling old batteries “keeps you safe, keeps the waste industry safe, keeps the first responders safe and responsibly sees that battery reach a proper end of life,” said Michael Hoffman, president of the National Waste and Recycling Association.

    Batteries keep things running in our homes, powering everything from alarm clocks and TV remotes to gaming controllers. Millions are bought and used every year in the U.S., according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

    They leave their stamp on the environment at nearly every stage of their life span.

    Many of the materials used to make batteries — elements like lithium and nickel — are mined. Over half the world’s cobalt reserves are in Congo.

    Once mined, those materials are shipped around to be refined, fashioned into a battery and packaged for sale. All the ships, trucks and planes moving them add to batteries’ carbon footprint. Making the batteries can release carbon emissions and pollution into the air and atmosphere, too.

    Though household batteries are far smaller than the big ones that power EVs and electric bicycles, there are a lot more of them and it’s worth figuring out how to get rid of them.

    “One person’s single battery is not necessarily a lot,” said environmental scientist Jennifer Sun with Harvard University. “But everyone uses many batteries.”

    To begin, wrangle your old batteries and figure out what kind they are. Batteries “come in all shapes and sizes, but what’s inside differs,” said materials scientist Matthew Bergschneider of the University of Texas at Dallas.

    Alkaline and zinc-carbon batteries are generally single-use and come in AA, AAA and more. These can be safely thrown in the household trash in most places, but the EPA still recommends recycling them so that their materials can be made into something new.

    Lithium-ion batteries — commonly found in things like power tools and cordless vacuums — are a risk to cause fires and leak toxic gases in garbage trucks and landfills. A lot of rechargeable batteries are lithium-ion, but more single-use batteries are being made this way too.

    Be sure to look up battery disposal laws for your area: Places like New York, Vermont and Washington, D.C. have special rules about throwing away household or rechargeable batteries.

    Once you’ve corralled your batteries, tape their ends or put them in plastic bags to avoid the possibility of sparking. Then, take them to a drop-off location. How easy or hard this is depends on where you live.

    Many hardware and office supplies stores accept old batteries. Look into city and state drop-off programs or search by ZIP code using The Battery Network, a nonprofit geared toward safe battery recycling.

    Have a location in your home to collect the batteries over time and then “at some point, hopefully among all the other things that we all have in our lives, you can find a convenient drop-off location,” said Todd Ellis of The Battery Network.

    If your batteries look swollen, cracked or are leaking, don’t drop them off. You’ll need to get in touch with your local hazardous waste removal agency to figure out how to turn them in.

    Once batteries are dropped off at a collection site, they’re sorted by type and taken to a recycling facility where they’re broken down into their essential components — like cobalt, nickel or aluminum. Some bits can be used to make new batteries or other things. Nickel, for example, can be used to make stainless steel products and alkaline batteries can be turned into sunscreen.

    Safely recycling a battery doesn’t cancel out the environmental cost of making it. But it does give the battery’s components their best chance at becoming something new.

    “You continue to recycle and you don’t have to go back to the Earth to mine,” said public health expert Oladele Ogunseitan, who studies electronic waste at the University of California, Irvine.

    Good battery habits are also good for us. It protects against old or damaged batteries leaking toxic compounds into our cabinets and junk drawers.

    “I think it’s one of the simplest and most controllable actions that we can take to reduce our impact,” said Sun, the Harvard scientist.

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    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • As reefs vanish, assisted coral fertilization offers hope in the Dominican Republic

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    BAYAHIBE, Dominican Republic — Oxygen tank strapped to his back, Michael del Rosario moves his fins delicately as he glides along an underwater nursery just off the Dominican Republic coast, proudly showing off the “coral babies” growing on metal structures that look like large spiders. The conservationist enthusiastically points a finger to trace around the largest corals, just starting to reveal their vibrant colors.

    Del Rosario helped plant these tiny animals in the nursery after they were conceived in an assisted reproduction laboratory run by the marine conservation organization Fundemar. In a process something like in vitro fertilization, coral egg and sperm are joined to form a new individual.

    It’s a technique that’s gaining momentum in the Caribbean to counter the drastic loss of corals due to climate change, which is killing them by heating up oceans and making it more difficult for those that survive to reproduce naturally.

    “We live on an island. We depend entirely on coral reefs, and seeing them all disappear is really depressing,” del Rosario said once back on the surface, his words flowing like bubbles underwater. “But seeing our coral babies growing, alive, in the sea gives us hope, which is what we were losing.”

    The state of corals around the Dominican Republic, as in the rest of the world, is not encouraging. Fundemar’s latest monitoring last year found that 70% of the Dominican Republic’s reefs have less than 5% coral coverage. Healthy colonies are so far apart that the probability of one coral’s eggs meeting another’s sperm during the spawning season is decreasing.

    “That’s why assisted reproduction programs are so important now, because what used to be normal in coral reefs is probably no longer possible for many species,” biologist Andreina Valdez, operations manager at Fundemar, said at the organization’s new marine research center. “So that’s where we come in to help a little bit.”

    Though many people may think corals are plants, they are animals. They spawn once a year, a few days after the full moon and at dusk, when they release millions of eggs and sperm in a spectacle that turns the sea around them into a kind of Milky Way. Fundemar monitors spawning periods, collects eggs and sperm, performs assisted fertilization in the laboratory, and cares for the larvae until they are strong enough to be taken to the reef.

    In the laboratory, Ariel Álvarez examines one of the star-shaped pieces on which the corals are growing through a microscope. They’re so tiny they can hardly be seen with the naked eye. Álvarez switches off the lights, turns on an ultraviolet light, and the coral’s rounded, fractal shapes appear through a camera on the microscope projected onto a screen.

    One research center room holds dozens of fish tanks, each with hundreds of tiny corals awaiting return to the reef. Del Rosario said the lab produces more than 2.5 million coral embryos per year. Only 1% will survive in the ocean, yet that figure is better than the rate with natural fertilization on these degraded reefs now, he said.

    In the past, Fundemar and other conservation organizations focused on asexual reproduction. That meant cutting a small piece of healthy coral and transplanting it to another location so that a new one would grow. The method can produce corals faster than assisted fertilization.

    The problem, Andreina Valdez said, is that it clones the same individual, meaning all those coral share the same disease vulnerabilities. In contrast, assisted sexual reproduction creates genetically different individuals, reducing the chance that a single illness could strike them all down.

    Australia pioneered assisted coral fertilization. It’s expanding in the Caribbean, with leading projects at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the Carmabi Foundation in Curaçao, and it’s being adopted in Puerto Rico, Cuba and Jamaica, Valdez said.

    “You can’t conserve something if you don’t have it. So (these programs) are helping to expand the population that’s out there,” said Mark Eakin, corresponding secretary for the International Coral Reef Society and retired chief of the Coral Reef Watch program of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

    But the world must still tackle “the 800-pound gorilla of climate change,” Eakin said, or a lot of the restoration work “is just going to be wiped out.”

    Burning fossil fuels such as oil, gas, and coal produces greenhouse gases that trap heat in the atmosphere, driving up temperatures both on Earth’s surface and in its seas. Oceans are warming at twice the rate of 20 years ago, according to UNESCO’s most recent State of the Ocean Report last year.

    And that’s devastating for corals. Rising heat causes them to feel sick and expel the algae that live in their tissue and provide them both their striking colors and their food. The process is known as bleaching because it exposes the coral’s white skeleton. The corals may survive, but they are weakened and vulnerable to disease and death if temperatures don’t drop.

    Half the world’s reefs have been lost since 1950, according to research by the University of British Columbia published in the journal One Earth.

    For countries such as the Dominican Republic, in the so-called “hurricane corridor,” preserving reefs is particularly important. Coral skeletons help absorb wave energy, creating a natural barrier against stronger waves.

    “What do we sell in the Dominican Republic? Beaches,” del Rosario said. “If we don’t have corals, we lose coastal protection, we lose the sand on our beaches, and we lose tourism.”

    Corals also are home to more than 25% of marine life, making them crucial for the millions of people around the world who make a living from fishing.

    Alido Luis Báez knows this well.

    It’s not yet dawn in Bayahibe when he climbs into a boat to fish with his father, who at 65 still goes to sea every week. The engine roars as they travel mile after mile until the coastline fades into the horizon. To catch tuna, dorado, or marlin, Luis Báez sails up to 50 miles offshore.

    “We didn’t have to go so far before,” he said. “But because of overfishing, habitat loss, and climate change, now you have to go a little further every day.”

    Things were very different when his father, also named Alido Luis, started fishing in the 1970s. Back then, they went out in a sailboat, and the coral reefs were so healthy they found plenty of fish close to the coast.

    “I used to be a diver, and I caught a lot of lobster and queen conch,” he said in a voice weakened by the passage of time. “In a short time, I would catch 50 or 60 pounds of fish. But now, to catch two or three fish, they spend the whole day out there.”

    Del Rosario said there’s still time to halt the decline of the reefs.

    “More needs to be done, of course … but we are investing a lot of effort and time to preserve what we love so much,” he said. “And we trust and believe that many people around the world are doing the same.”

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    Follow Teresa de Miguel on X at @tdemigueles

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    Read more of AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment

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    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Columbus Zoo welcomes second Asian elephant calf this year

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    POWELL, Ohio — POWELL, Ohio (AP) — The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium has welcomed its second baby elephant in a single calendar year for the first time in its nearly 100-year history, a milestone that the Ohio attraction is touting as a win for conservation.

    Thirty-eight-year-old Phoebe gave birth to the male Asian elephant calf at 10:41 p.m. Tuesday. The 222-pound (100-kilogram) offspring is not yet on view to the public. That’s so the pair gets uninterrupted bonding time and the zoo’s animal care and conservation medicine team can provide round-the-clock monitoring as the baby begins to stand, nurse and explore his surroundings.

    The calf’s father, Sabu, lives at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden. They were paired through a national zoo initiative that aims to support healthy, genetically-diverse populations of threatened and endangered species in professional care.

    Although there have been recent signs of hope for Asian elephants in the wild, habitat degradation and the challenges of maintaining genetic diversity are among reasons they remain endangered.

    The baby joins Phoebe’s already large family, which includes another male and two female offspring. Her daughter Sunny, who is 16, gave birth to a female calf named Rita Jean four months ago.

    The zoo said it will continue to share updates on public viewing opportunities, naming plans and other baby milestones.

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  • Arctic seals and more than half of bird species are in trouble on latest list of threatened species

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    Arctic seals are being pushed closer to extinction by climate change and more than half of bird species around the world are declining under pressure from deforestation and agricultural expansion, according to an annual assessment from the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

    One bright spot is green sea turtles, which have recovered substantially thanks to decades of conservation efforts, the IUCN said Friday as it released its latest Red List of Threatened Species.

    While many animals are increasingly at risk of disappearing forever, the updated list shows how species can come back from the brink with dedicated effort, Rima Jabado, deputy chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission, told The Associated Press.

    “Hope and concern go hand in hand in this work,” Jabado wrote by email. “The same persistence that brought back the green sea turtle can be mirrored in small, everyday actions — supporting sustainable choices, backing conservation initiatives, and urging leaders to follow through on their environmental promises.”

    The list is updated every year by teams of scientists assessing data on creatures around the world. The scope of the work is enormous and important for science, said Andrew Farnsworth, a visiting scientist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology who studies bird migration and wasn’t involved with the IUCN report.

    “Every time one is done and every time there’s revision, there’s more information, and there’s more ability to answer questions” on species, some of which are still largely a mystery to researchers, Farnsworth said.

    Because all the marine mammals native to the Arctic — seals, whales and polar bears — rely on the habitat provided by sea ice, they’re all at risk as it diminishes because of human-caused climate change, said Kit Kovacs, co-chair of IUCN’s Species Survival Commission Pinniped Specialist Group, which focuses on seals.

    The three species highlighted in the latest IUCN report — harp, hooded and bearded seals — have been moved up to a designation of greater concern in the latest update, indicating they are increasingly threatened by extinction, Kovacs said.

    The same melting of glaciers and sea ice destroying seal habitats also “generally will bring escalation in extreme weather events, which are already impacting people around the globe,” wrote Kovacs.

    “Acting to help seals is acting to help humanity when it comes to climate change,” Kovacs said.

    The update also highlighted Madagascar, West Africa and Central America, where Schlegel’s asity, the black-casqued hornbill and the tail-bobbing northern nightingale-wren were all moved to near-threatened status. Those are three specific birds in trouble, but numbers are dropping for around three-fifths of birds globally.

    Deforestation of tropical forests is one of a “depressing litany of threats” to birds, a list that includes agricultural expansion and intensification, competition from invasive species and climate change, said Stuart Butchart, chief scientist at BirdLife International.

    “The fact that 61% of the world’s birds are declining is an alarm bell that we can’t afford to ignore,” Butchart said.

    The annual U.N. climate summit will be held in November in Belem, Brazil, with much attention on the Amazon and the value of tropical forests to humans and animals. But Farnsworth, of Cornell, said he was “not so confident” that world’s leaders would take decisive action to protect imperiled bird species.

    “I would like to think things like birds are nonpartisan, and you can find common ground,” he said. “But it’s not easy.”

    One success story is the rebound of green sea turtles in many parts of the world’s oceans. Experts see that as a bright spot because it shows how effective human interventions, like legal protections and conservation programs, can be.

    Still, “it’s important to note that conservation efforts of sea turtles can take decades before you realize the fruits of that labor,” said Justin Perrault, vice president of research at Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach, Florida, who wasn’t involved with the IUCN report.

    The overall success with green sea turtles should be celebrated and used as an example with other species, some of which, like hawksbills and leatherbacks, aren’t doing nearly as well, said Nicolas Pilcher, executive director of the Marine Research Foundation.

    And even for green sea turtles, areas still remain where climate change and other factors like erosion are damaging habitats, Pilcher said, and some of those are poorer communities that receive less conservation funding.

    But in the places where they have recovered, it’s “a great story of, actually, we can do something about this,” Pilcher said. “We can. We can make a difference.”

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    Follow Melina Walling on X at @MelinaWalling and on Bluesky at @melinawalling.bsky.social.

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    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Goodall’s influence spread far and wide. Those who felt it are pledging to continue her work

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    In her 91 years, Jane Goodall transformed science and humanity’s understanding of our closest living relatives on the planet — chimpanzees and other great apes. Her patient fieldwork and tireless advocacy for conservation inspired generations of future researchers and activists, especially women and young people, around the world.

    Her death on Wednesday set off a torrent of tributes for the famed primate researcher, with many people sharing stories of how Goodall and her work inspired their own careers. The tributes also included pledges to honor Goodall’s memory by redoubling efforts to safeguard a planet that sorely needs it.

    “Jane Goodall is an icon – because she was the start of so much,” said Catherine Crockford, a primatologist at the CNRS Institute for Cognitive Sciences in France.

    She recalled how many years ago Goodall answered a letter from a young aspiring researcher. “I wrote her a letter asking how to become a primatologist. She sent back a handwritten letter and told me it will be hard, but I should try,” Crockford said. “For me, she gave me my career.”

    Goodall was one of three pioneering young women studying great apes in the 1960s and 1970s who began to revolutionize the way people understood just what was — and wasn’t — unique about our own species. Sometimes called the “Tri-mates,” Goodall, Dian Fossey and Biruté Galdikas spent years documenting the intimate lives of chimpanzees in Tanzania, mountain gorillas in Rwanda, and orangutans in Indonesia, respectively.

    The projects they began have produced some of the longest-running studies about animal behavior in the world that are crucial to understanding such long-lived species. “These animals are like us, slow to mature and reproduce, and living for decades. We are still learning new things about them,” said Tara Stoinski, a primatologist and president of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund. “Jane and Dian knew each other and learned from each other, and the scientists who continued their work continue to collaborate today.”

    Goodall studied chimpanzees — as a species and as individuals. And she named them: David Greybeard, Flo, Fifi, Goliath. That was highly unconventional at the time, but Goodall’s attention to individuals created space for scientists to observe and record differences in individual behaviors, preferences and even emotions.

    Catherine Hobaiter, a primatologist at St. Andrews University who was inspired by Goodall, recalled how Goodall carefully combined empathy and objectivity. Goodall liked to use a particular phrase, “If they were human, we would describe them as happy,” or “If they were human, we would describe them as friends –- these two individuals together,” Hobaiter said. Goodall didn’t project precise feelings onto the chimpanzees, but nor did she deny the capacity of animals besides humans to have emotional lives.

    Goodall and her frequent collaborator, evolutionary biologist Marc Bekoff, had just finished the text of a forthcoming children’s book, called “Every Elephant Has a Name,” which will be published around early 2027.

    From the late 1980s until her death, Goodall spent less time in the field and more time on the road talking to students, teachers, diplomats, park rangers, presidents and many others around the world. She inspired countless others through her books. Her mission was to inspire action to protect the natural world.

    In 1991, she founded an organization called Roots & Shoots that grew to include chapters of young people in dozens of countries.

    Stuart Pimm, a Duke University ecologist and founder of the nonprofit Saving Nature, recalled when he and Goodall were invited to speak to a congressional hearing about deforestation and extinction. Down the marble halls of the government building, “there was a huge line of teenage girls and their mothers just waiting to get inside the room to hear Jane speak,” Pimm said Thursday. “She was mobbed everywhere she went — she was just this incredible inspiration to people in general, particularly to young women.”

    Goodall wanted everyone to find their voice, no matter their age or station, said Zanagee Artis, co-founder of the youth climate movement Zero Hour. “I really appreciated how much Jane valued young people being in the room — she really fostered intergenerational movement building,” said Artis, who now works for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

    And she did it around the world. Roots & Shoots has a chapter in China, which Goodall visited multiple times.

    “My sense was that Jane Goodall was highly respected in China and that her organization was successful in China because it focused on topics like environmental and conservation education for youth that had broad appeal without touching on political sensitivities,” said Alex Wang, a University of California, Los Angeles expert on China and the environment, who previously worked in Beijing.

    What is left now that Goodall is gone is her unending hope, perhaps her greatest legacy.

    “She believed hope was not simply a feeling, but a tool,” Rhett Butler, founder of the nonprofit conservation-news site Mongabay, wrote in his Substack newsletter. “Hope, she would tell me, creates agency.”

    Goodall’s legacy and life’s work will continue through her family, scientists, her institute and legions of young people around the globe who are working to bridge conservation and humanitarian needs in their own communities, her longtime assistant said Thursday.

    That includes Goodall’s son and three grandchildren, who are an important part of the work of the Jane Goodall Institute and in their own endeavors, said Mary Lewis, a vice president at the institute who began working with the famed primatologist in 1990.

    Goodall’s son, Hugo van Lawick, works on sustainable housing. He is currently in Rwanda. Grandson Merlin and granddaughter Angelo work with the institute, while grandson Nick is a photographer and filmmaker, Lewis said. “She has her own family legacy as well as the legacy through her institutes around the world,” said Lewis.

    In addition to her famed research center in Tanzania and chimpanzee sanctuaries in other countries, including the Republic of Congo and South Africa, a new cultural center is expected to open in Tanzania late next year. There also are Jane Goodall Institutes in 26 countries, and communities are leading conservation projects in several countries, including an effort in Senegal to save critically endangered Western chimpanzees.

    But it is the institute’s youth-led education program called Roots & Shoots that Goodall regarded as her enduring legacy because it is “empowering new generations,” Lewis said.

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    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. AP’s climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • A raptor with no qualms about eating its opponents wins New Zealand’s annual bird election

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    WELLINGTON, New Zealand — WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand ’s annual bird election is contested by cheeky parrots, sweet songbirds and cute, puffball robins. This year’s winner was a mysterious falcon that wouldn’t think twice about eating them.

    Kārearea, the Indigenous Māori name for the New Zealand falcon, was crowned Bird of the Year on Monday. But the annual poll, run by conservation group Forest & Bird, is no ordinary online vote.

    The fiercely fought election sees volunteer (human) campaign managers apply to stump for their favorite bird. Feathers fly as avian enthusiasts seek to sway the public through meme battles, trash-talking poster campaigns and dance routines performed in bird costumes.

    “Bird of the Year has grown from a simple email poll in 2005 to a hotly contested cultural moment,” said Forest & Bird Chief Executive Nicola Toki. “Behind the memes and mayhem is a serious message.”

    The contest draws attention to New Zealand’s native bird species, with 80% designated as being in trouble to some degree. But it attracts passionate fandom because New Zealanders are bird-obsessed.

    In a country with no native land mammals except for two species of bat, birds reign supreme. They appear in art, on jewelry, in schoolchildren’s songs, and in the name New Zealanders are known by abroad, “kiwis.”

    Beloved birds include alpine parrots that harass tourists and pigeons which get so drunk on berries that they sometimes fall out of trees.

    “This is not a land of lions, tigers and bears,” said Toki. “The birds here are weird and wonderful and not what you would expect to see perhaps in other countries.”

    The first contest two decades ago attracted fewer than 900 votes. More than 75,000 people in the country of 5 million cast ballots this year.

    It was the highest-ever voter turnout apart from an episode when Last Week Tonight host John Oliver volunteered as a campaign manager in 2023, prompting mostly joking accusations from New Zealanders of American interference. Perhaps inevitably, Oliver’s bird, the pūteketeke or Australasian crested grebe, won in a 290,000-vote landslide.

    Other controversies have struck the poll. In 2021, there was mild uproar when a bat won the title, despite not being a bird.

    The vote was ruffled by a foreign influence scandal in 2018 when self-styled comedians in Australia cast hundreds of fraudulent votes for a bird that shares its name with an Antipodean slang term for sex. Voters must now verify the email addresses used to cast their votes.

    Forest & Bird said 87% of the votes in this year’s poll came from New Zealand. The falcon’s more than 14,500 votes appeared to have been won fair and square.

    The majestic kārearea can fly at speeds of more than 200 km (124 miles) per hour and swoops to capture its prey, often smaller birds. The endemic species is threatened in New Zealand, vulnerable to electrocution on wires and loss of their forest habitats.

    “They’re a mysterious bird and that’s partly because they’re cryptic, they’re often well-hidden,” said Phil Bradfield, a trustee of Kārearea Falcon Trust in Marlborough, on New Zealand’s South Island.

    Official figures suggest between 5,000 and 8,000 New Zealand falcons remaining, although the true number is unknown. Bradfield said the “fast and sneaky and very special” raptor was a deserving Bird of the Year winner.

    Other campaigns knew victory on Monday would take a miracle. Birds that are ugly — but not ugly enough to be funny — unknown or perceived as boring face an uphill slog.

    That doesn’t deter bird lovers. The year 2025 was the first that all 73 bird competitors attracted campaign managers, with some electing to stump for contenders they knew would lose.

    One was Marc Daalder whose scrappy, grassroots campaign for the tākapu, or Australasian gannet, drew 962 votes — about a 15th of the falcon’s.

    “Running a campaign for one of the less popular birds is a more satisfying experience because you know the votes your bird received are a result of your hard work,” said Daalder, who is a (human) political journalist and three-time (bird) campaign manager.

    Despite the near-record voter turnout, Toki from Forest & Bird said she feared New Zealanders would give up on some of the most threatened species as they grew more costly to protect, particularly from predators such as cats, rats and stoats.

    “Successive governments in New Zealand have cumulatively reduced investment in conservation, which is the cornerstone of New Zealand’s economic prosperity,” she said, referring to tourism campaigns promoting the country’s scenic landscapes.

    “People come here to see our native birds and the places they live in,” she said. “They’re not coming here to see shopping malls.”

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  • UNESCO designates 26 new biosphere reserves amid biodiversity challenges and climate change

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    An Indonesian archipelago that’s home to three-fourths of Earth’s coral species, a stretch of Icelandic coast with 70% of the country’s plant life and an area along Angola’s Atlantic coast featuring savannahs, forests and estuaries are among 26 new UNESCO-designated biosphere reserves.

    The United Nations cultural agency says the reserves — 785 sites in 142 countries, designated since 1971 — are home to some of the planet’s richest and most fragile ecosystems. But biosphere reserves encompass more than strictly protected nature reserves; they’re expanded to include areas where people live and work, and the designation requires that scientists, residents and government officials work together to balance conservation and research with local economic and cultural needs.

    “The concept of biosphere reserves is that biodiversity conservation is a pillar of socioeconomic development” and can contribute to the economy, said António Abreu, head of the program, adding that conflict and misunderstanding can result if local communities are left out of decision-making and planning.

    The new reserves, in 21 countries, were announced Saturday in Hangzhou, China, where the program adopted a 10-year strategic action plan that includes studying the effects of climate change, Abreu said.

    The new reserves include a 52,000-square-mile (135,000-square-kilometer) area in the Indonesian archipelago, Raja Ampat, home to over 75% of earth’s coral species as well as rainforests and rare endangered sea turtles. The economy depends on fishing, aquaculture, small-scale agriculture and tourism, UNESCO said.

    On Iceland’s west coast, the Snæfellsnes Biosphere Reserve’s landscape includes volcanic peaks, lava fields, wetlands, grasslands and the Snæfellsjökull glacier. The 1,460-square-kilometer (564 square-mile) reserve is an important sanctuary for seabirds, seals and over 70% of Iceland’s plant life — including 330 species of wildflowers and ferns. Its population of more than 4,000 people relies on fishing, sheep farming and tourism.

    And in Angola, the new Quiçama Biosphere Reserve, along 206 kilometers (128 miles) of Atlantic coast is a “sanctuary for biodiversity” within its savannahs, forests, flood plains, estuaries and islands, according to UNESCO. It’s home to elephants, manatees, sea turtles and more than 200 bird species. Residents’ livelihoods include livestock herding, farming, fishing, honey production.

    Residents are important partners in protecting biodiversity within the reserves, and even have helped identify new species, said Abreu, the program’s leader. Meanwhile, scientists also are helping to restore ecosystems to benefit the local economy, he said.

    For example, in the Philippines, the coral reefs around Pangatalan Island were severely damaged because local fishermen used dynamite to find depleted fish populations. Scientists helped design a structure to help coral reefs regrow and taught fishermen to raise fish through aquaculture so the reefs could recover.

    “They have food and they have also fish to sell in the markets,” said Abreu.

    In the African nation of São Tomé and Príncipe, a biosphere reserve on Príncipe Island led to restoration of mangroves, which help buffer against storm surges and provide important habitat, Abreu said.

    Ecotourism also has become an important industry, with biosphere trails and guided bird-watching tours. A new species of owl was identified there in recent years.

    This year, a biosphere reserve was added for the island of São Tomé, making the country the first entirely within a reserve.

    At least 60% of the UNESCO biosphere reserves have been affected by extreme weather tied to climate change, which is caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and gas, including extreme heat and drought and sea-level rise, Abreu said.

    The agency is using satellite imagery and computer modeling to monitor changes in coastal zones and other areas, and is digitizing its historical databases, Abreu said. The information will be used to help determine how best to preserve and manage the reserves.

    Some biosphere reserves also are under pressure from environmental degradation.

    In Nigeria, for example, habitat for a dwindling population of critically endangered African forest elephants is under threat as cocoa farmers expand into Omo Forest Reserve, a protected rainforest and one of Africa’s oldest and largest UNESCO Biosphere Reserves. The forest is also important to help combat climate change.

    The Trump administration in July announced that the U.S. would withdraw from UNESCO as of December 2026, just as it did during his first administration, saying U.S. involvement is not in the national interest. The U.S. has 47 biosphere reserves, most in federal protected areas.

    ___

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Western states seek to end long-running water dispute over dwindling Rio Grande

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    ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A simmering feud over management of one of North America’s longest rivers reached a boiling point when the U.S. Supreme Court sent western states and the federal government back to the negotiating table last year.

    Now the battle over waters of the Rio Grande could be nearing resolution as New Mexico, Texas and Colorado announced fresh settlement proposals Friday designed to rein in groundwater pumping along the river in New Mexico and ensure enough river water reliably makes it to Texas.

    New Mexico officials say the agreements allow water conservation decisions to be made locally while avoiding a doomsday scenario of billion-dollar payouts on water shortfalls.

    Farmers in southern New Mexico increasingly have turned to groundwater as hotter and drier conditions reduced river flows and storage. That pumping is what prompted Texas to sue, claiming the practice was cutting into water deliveries.

    It will be up to the special master overseeing the case to make a recommendation to the Supreme Court.

    If endorsed by the court, the combined settlements promise to restore order to an elaborate system of storing and sharing water between two vast, adjacent irrigation districts in southern New Mexico and western Texas.

    Still, tough decisions await New Mexico under its new obligations.

    In 1939, when New Mexico was a young, sparsely populated state, it ratified a compact with Texas and Colorado for sharing the waters of the Rio Grande. The agreement defined credits and debits and set parameters for when water could be stored upstream.

    From the San Luis Valley in Colorado to below Elephant Butte Reservoir in New Mexico, the compact called for gages to monitor the river, ensuring downstream obligations were met.

    Meeting the nearly century-old metrics has become harder as snowpacks shrink in the mountains that feed the Rio Grande. Thirsty soil soaks up more snowmelt and runoff before it reaches tributaries, warmer temperatures fuel evaporation, and summer rainy seasons that once boosted flows and recharged reservoirs are more erratic.

    The equation is further complicated by growing populations. The Rio Grande provides drinking water for about 6 million people and helps to irrigate millions of acres of cropland in the U.S. and in Mexico.

    While the Colorado River gets all the headlines, experts say the situation along the Rio Grande is just as dire.

    The proposed settlements would provide a detailed accounting system for sharing water with Texas.

    New Mexico could rely on credits and debits from year to year to navigate through drought and wet periods, though it could be responsible for additional water-sharing obligations if deliveries are deferred too long.

    The international group Sustainable Waters is wrapping up an extensive study on how the river’s water is being used.

    Brian Richter, the group’s president, said that over the last couple of decades, New Mexico has lost more than 70% of its reservoir storage along the river while groundwater has been extracted faster than it can be replenished. Add to that New Mexico has fallen behind in its water deliveries to Texas.

    Richter called it a triple whammy.

    “We’re definitely in a precarious situation and it’s going to become more challenging going forward,” he said. “So I think it’s going to require sort of a major reenvisioning of what we want New Mexico’s water future to look like.”

    The parties in the case say the proposed agreements will facilitate investments and innovation in water conservation.

    “The whole settlement package really provides for the long-term vitality, economic vitality, for the communities in both New Mexico and Texas,” said Hannah Riseley-White, director of the Interstate Stream Commission.

    New Mexico would have two years to adopt a plan to manage and share water along its southernmost stretch of the Rio Grande. The state can still pump some groundwater while monitoring aquifer levels.

    “The burden is on New Mexico,” said Stuart Somach, lead attorney for Texas in the Rio Grande dispute.

    In Albuquerque, it looks grim.

    It’s common to have stretches of the Rio Grande go dry farther south, but not in New Mexico’s largest city. Prior to 2022, it had been four decades since Albuquerque had seen the muddy waters reduced to isolated puddles and lengthy sandbars.

    Aside from a changing climate, water managers say the inability to store water in upstream reservoirs due to compact obligations exacerbates the problem.

    Many of the intricacies of managing the Rio Grande are as invisible to residents as the water itself.

    Sisters Zoe and Phoebe Hughes set out to take photos during a recent evening, anticipating at least a sliver of water like usual. Instead they found deep sand and patchwork of cracked, curled beds of clay.

    “It’s so dystopian. It’s sad,” Phoebe Hughes said, adding that the river isn’t so grand now.

    Looking for a silver lining, the two collected pieces of riverbed clay, hoping they could fashion it into something. Other curious visitors played in the sand and walked dogs.

    Downstream, Elephant Butte stands at less than 4% of capacity. The reservoir is an irrigation lifeline for farmers, fuels a hydropower station and serves as a popular recreation spot.

    The settlements call for reducing groundwater depletions to a rate of 18,200 acre-feet per year. While that’s about one-sixth of the drinking water supplied to New York City each day, for the arid West, it’s a monumental amount.

    New Mexico officials expect to achieve most of those reductions from buying water rights from willing sellers, meaning more than 14 square miles (36 square kilometers) of farmland would be retired.

    Many details — and the price tag — have yet to be worked out, the general counsel for the New Mexico state engineer’s office told state lawmakers this month. The Legislature in 2023 set aside $65 million toward the settlements and related infrastructure projects, and the state is tapping additional federal dollars. But it will still need more funds, experts say.

    Riseley-White said it will take a combination of efforts, including long-term fallowing programs, water conservation and more efficient irrigation infrastructure.

    “There isn’t one answer. It’s going to be necessarily an all-of-the-above approach,” she said, acknowledging that there will be less water in the future.

    Attorney Sam Barncastle, who worked for years on behalf of irrigators, worries small farming operations and backyard gardeners could ultimately be pushed out.

    “Farmland does not come back once it’s gone,” she said.

    The overall idea is to avoid abruptly curtailing water for users, but farmers in southern New Mexico have concerns about how much water will be available and who will be able to use it.

    New Mexico is the nation’s No. 2 pecan producer, and the sprawling orchards would die without consistent water. The state also is home to world-renowned chilies — a signature crop tightly woven into New Mexico’s cultural identity.

    Ben Etcheverry, a board member of the New Mexico Chile Association, said farmers have transitioned to drip irrigation to save water and energy but are continually told they have to do more with even less water and pay higher rates.

    “It just becomes a game of whack-a-mole while we try to do better,” he said. “Every time we do better, it seems they turn it into a punishment.”

    ___

    Lee reported from Santa Fe.

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  • At U.N. summit, historic agreement to give Indigenous groups voice on nature conservation decisions

    At U.N. summit, historic agreement to give Indigenous groups voice on nature conservation decisions

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    CALI, Colombia — After two weeks of negotiations, delegates on Saturday agreed at the United Nations conference on biodiversity to establish a subsidiary body that will include Indigenous peoples in future decisions on nature conservation, a development that builds on a growing movement to recognize the role of the descendants of some regions’ original inhabitants in protecting land and combating climate change.

    The delegates also agreed to oblige major corporations to share the financial benefits of research when using natural genetic resources.

    Indigenous delegations erupted into cheers and tears after the historic decision to create the subidiary body was annouced. It recognizes and protects the traditional knowledge systems of Indigenous peoples and local communities for the benefit of global and national biodiversity management, said Sushil Raj, Executive Director of the Rights and Communities Global Program at the Wildlife Conservation Society.

    “It strengthens representation, coordination, inclusive decision making, and creates a space for dialogue with parties to the COP,” Raj told The Associated Press, referring to the formal name of the gathering, Conference of Parties.

    Negotiators had struggled to find common ground on some key issues in the final week but came to a consensus after talks went late into Friday.

    The COP16 summit, hosted in Cali, Colombia, followed the historic 2022 accord in Montreal, which included 23 measures to save Earth’s plant and animal life, including putting 30% of the planet and 30% of degraded ecosystems under protection by 2030.

    A measure to recognize the importance of the role of people of African descent in the protection of nature was also adopted in Cali.

    The Indigenous body will be formed by two co-chairs elected by COP: one nominated by U.N. parties of the regional group, and the other nominated by representatives of Indigenous peoples and local communities, according to the final document, which was reviewed by the AP.

    At least one of the co-chairs will be selected from a developing country, taking into account gender balance, the document said.

    “With this decision, the value of the traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants and local communities is recognized, and a 26-year-old historical debt in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is settled,” Susana Muhamad, Colombia’s environment minister and COP16 president, posted on social media platform X shortly after the announcement.

    Who owns nature’s DNA was one of the most contentious and fiercely negotiated topics at the summit as tensions spiked between poorer and developed countries over digital sequence information on genetic resources (DSI).

    However, negotiators consented on Saturday morning to bind big companies to share benefits when using resources from animals, plants or microorganisms in biotechnologies.

    “Many of the life-saving medicines we use today come from the rainforest. It is therefore right that a portion of the income companies generate from this information goes back to protect nature,” said Toerris Jaeger, executive director of Rainforest Foundation Norway. “This is the absolute highlight from COP16.”

    Delegations agreed on a genetic information fee of 0.1% of companies’ revenues from products derived from such information. That money will be directed into a new fund, with 50% reaching Indigenous communities.

    “This will enable these communities, including women and youth to finally share in the profits,” said Ginette Hemley, senior vice president for wildlife at the World Wildlife Fund.

    Also adopted was an agreement to protect human health from Earth’s increasing biodiversity issues. Ecosystem degradation and loss of ecological integrity directly threaten human and animal health, environmental groups say.

    Many argued that the overall conference fell short, in particular when it came to financial commitments.

    Pledges made by countries during the two weeks were far short of the billions needed to tackle plummeting global biodiversity. Just $163 million in new pledges were made at COP16.

    “The pledges made … were way off where they need to be,” said Nicola Sorsby, a researcher at the International Institute for Environment and Development. “This is only 0.5% of the target we need to reach within the next 6 years.”

    The modest pledges don’t bode well for the next U.N. climate talks, COP29, to take place in Azerbaijan beginning later this month. The focus of COP29 is expected to focus on how to generate trillions of dollars needed for the world to transition to clean energies like solar, wind and geothermal. Raising that money will require major committments by nations, companies and philanthropies.

    “Unfortunately, too many countries and U.N. officials came to Cali without the urgency and level of ambition needed to secure outcomes at COP16 to address our species’ most urgent existential issue,” said Brian O’Donnell, director of Campaign for Nature.

    In Montreal’s biodiversity summit, wealthy nations pledged to raise $20 billion in annual conservation financing for developing nations by 2025, with that number rising to $30 billion annually by 2030.

    Global wildlife populations have plunged on average by 73% in 50 years, according to the World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society of London biennial Living Planet report in October.

    ___

    Follow Steven Grattan on X: @sjgrattan

    ___

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • A new deal to provide more opportunity for students at Bowie State University – WTOP News

    A new deal to provide more opportunity for students at Bowie State University – WTOP News

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    Bowie State University reached an agreement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that will create more environmental conservation opportunities for students.

    President Aminta H. Breaux during an MOU signing with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service between Bowie State University, Alabama A&M and Bethune-Cookman University, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024.
    (Courtesy Bowie State University)

    Courtesy Bowie State University

    Students interact with Red, an 18-year-old screech owl, during an MOU signing with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service between Bowie State University, Alabama A&M and Bethune-Cookman University, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (Courtesy Bowie State University)
    Students interact with Red, an 18-year-old screech owl, during an MOU signing with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service between Bowie State University, Alabama A&M and Bethune-Cookman University, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024.
    (Courtesy Bowie State University)

    Courtesy Bowie State University

    Students interact with Red, an 18-year-old screech owl, during an MOU signing with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service between Bowie State University, Alabama A&M and Bethune-Cookman University, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (Courtesy Bowie State University)
    Students interact with Red, an 18-year-old screech owl, during an MOU signing with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service between Bowie State University, Alabama A&M and Bethune-Cookman University, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024.
    (Courtesy Bowie State University)

    Courtesy Bowie State University

    Students present their research at an MOU signing with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service between Bowie State University, Alabama A&M and Bethune-Cookman University, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (Courtesy Bowie State University)

    Students present their research at an MOU signing with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service between Bowie State University, Alabama A&M and Bethune-Cookman University, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024.

    (Courtesy Bowie State University)

    Courtesy Bowie State University

    Students interact with Red, an 18-year-old screech owl, during an MOU signing with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service between Bowie State University, Alabama A&M and Bethune-Cookman University, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (Courtesy Bowie State University)
    Students interact with Red, an 18-year-old screech owl, during an MOU signing with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service between Bowie State University, Alabama A&M and Bethune-Cookman University, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024.
    (Courtesy Bowie State University)

    Courtesy Bowie State University

    For Bowie State University students interested in environmental conservation, a new doorway is opening. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has signed an agreement with the Maryland university to expand its recruiting efforts there as part of an effort aimed at historically Black colleges and universities.

    “We are a government agency. We work on behalf of all Americans. Our mission is to work with others to protect, enhance, conserve plants and animals for all Americans. We cannot do our work if our agency doesn’t represent and look like the Americans that we serve,” said Siva Sundaresan, deputy director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

    The agency is also signing agreements with two other HBCUs, Bethune-Cookman University, in Florida, and Alabama A&M University.

    Bowie students won’t have far to travel to take advantage of this new opportunity to study nature.

    “We have a National Wildlife Refuge that’s adjacent to Bowie State University … so it’s an incredible opportunity for students to get classroom experience and classroom knowledge, and then be able to get out into the field, out on the ground, and so it captures their mind and their hearts,” said Wendi Weber, northeast regional director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

    Representatives from the federal agency and the schools signed an agreement Friday aimed at increasing the agency’s racial diversity.

    “I want to applaud the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for partnering in this endeavor … the ultimate goal is to introduce green jobs and a workforce to underrepresented populations that our HBCUs are serving,” said Bowie State University President Aminta Breaux.

    The agreement is in line with an executive order signed by President Joe Biden to advance diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility in the federal workforce.

    Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.

    © 2024 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

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    Dick Uliano

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  • The number of rhinos is slightly up but poaching has increased too

    The number of rhinos is slightly up but poaching has increased too

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    NAIROBI, Kenya — The rhino population across the world has increased slightly but so have the killings, mostly in South Africa, as poaching fed by huge demand for rhino horns remains a top threat, conservationists said in a new report.

    The number of white rhinos increased from 15,942 in 2022 to 17,464 in 2023, but the black and greater one-horned rhino stayed the same, according to the report published by the International Rhino Foundation ahead of Sunday’s World Rhino Day.

    Another subspecies, the northern white rhino, is technically extinct with only two females being kept in a secure private conservancy in Kenya, known as Ol Pejeta. A trial is ongoing to develop embryos in the lab from an egg and sperm previously collected from white rhinos and transferring it into a surrogate female black rhino.

    A total of 586 rhinos were killed in Africa in 2023, most of them in South Africa — which has the highest population of rhinos at an estimated 16,056. The killings increased from 551 reported in 2022, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

    With all five subspecies combined, there are just under 28,000 rhinos left in the world, from 500,000 at the beginning of the 20th century.

    Rhinos face various environmental threats like habitat loss due to development and climate change but poaching, based on the belief that their horns have medicinal uses, remains the top threat.

    Philip Muruthi, the vice president for species conservation at the Africa Wildlife Foundation, said protection has played a big role in increasing rhino population. In Kenya, their numbers rose from 380 in 1986 to 1,000 last year, he said. “Why has that happened? Because the rhinos were brought into sanctuaries and were protected.”

    Muruthi advocates for a campaign that will end the demand for rhino horn as well as adoption of new technology in tracking and monitoring rhinos for their protection while also educating communities where they live on the benefits of rhinos to the ecosystem and the economy.

    Known as mega herbivores that mow the parks and create inroads for other herbivores, rhinos are also good for establishing forests by ingesting seeds and spreading them across the parks in their dung.

    Murithi lamented that the northern white rhino — whose only two females are left in the world — should have never gotten so close to the brink of extinction.

    “Don’t get the numbers to where it’s very expensive to recover and we are not even sure that it will happen,” he said.

    The body of the last male northern white rhino – named Sudan – that died in 2018 has been preserved and displayed at the Museums of Kenya in Nairobi.

    A research scientist and curator of mammals at the museum, Bernard Agwanda, said preserving Sudan will tell the story of how the species lived among humans and why conservation is important.

    “So we expect that the northern white rhino behind us here is going to live for one or two centuries to be able to tell its story for generations to come,” he said.

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  • He once poached the wild animals of Zimbabwe. Now he preaches against it

    He once poached the wild animals of Zimbabwe. Now he preaches against it

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    CHIREDZI, Zimbabwe — Tembanechako Mastick and a group of men scanned bushes near their village in southeast Zimbabwe, on the hunt for the den of hyenas that had recently attacked livestock. Scattered fragments of goat bones showed the way, and Mastick peeped cautiously into a deep hole in the earth.

    “They are probably gone from here, but not far because they see plenty of food in this area,” Mastick said. Some of his companions suggested sealing the hole, while others argued for trying to burn out any animals inside.

    In the past, Mastick, 47, might have been willing. He grew up hunting in his community’s tradition, and though he grew crops and raised livestock in later years, turned to poaching when recurring droughts made farming less viable. But then he was caught late last year taking small game in the nearby Save Valley Conservancy, one of the largest private game reserves in Africa, and spent nearly three months in jail, where he said a program aimed at turning poachers into conservationists changed his outlook.

    At the hyena den, Mastick warned the others against killing animals, whether for meat or revenge. It’s a message he’s been giving since he was freed, urging his fellow villagers to rely on crops and livestock instead for food and income.

    “I began to realize that animals are for the benefit of the entire community, so poaching is a selfish act,” Mastick said in an interview. “I can kill a zebra today and eat it or sell the meat, but I am the only one who benefits. But if tourists come to view that same zebra, it is the entire community that benefits from the income.”

    It’s not an easy message to give. Across the southern African country, conflicts between humans and animals are increasing as wildlife habitat gets squeezed by repeated droughts, illegal hunting and tree-cutting, and conversion of forested areas into farmland.

    In response, elephants raid and graze vegetable gardens irrigated from scarce well water. Lions, hyenas, wild dogs and jackals target cattle and goats — people’s only safeguard against hunger and extreme poverty after an El Nino-induced drought that withered corn and sorghum crops. Donkeys that are crucial for labor and public transport aren’t safe from attacks, either.

    Fencing for livestock is rudimentary, typically made from tree branches or sometimes thorny bushes. Villagers try to ward off animals by banging pots, beating drums or burning old tires or a foul-smelling “cake” made from dried cow dung, ground chiles and used oil.

    The country’s parks agency said it has gotten between 3,000 and 4,000 distress calls from communities battling nuisance animals in the past three years, which works out to an annual average that’s up from 900 calls in 2018. The conflicts are likely to intensify as the country heads toward drier months ahead, said Tinashe Farawo, a spokesman for the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority.

    It hasn’t always been like this.

    Mastick recalls good times — bountiful harvests of corn, millet and cotton putting money in the pocket. Wild animals stayed in the forests.

    “The only animals we encountered were the ones we hunted for meat. I grew up a hunter, I would set up a snare and in no time I would be collecting,” he recalled, holding the skull of a donkey in his hand, the only body part hyenas left behind after eating the animal.

    He said problems started when the country embarked on a haphazard land reform program in 2000 that saw people settling in wildlife territory, including setting up farming plots inside the conservancy. Save Valley Conservancy, named for the river it borders, says it has lost more than 30 percent of the wildlife habitat on its 750,000 acres (303,514 hectares). Meanwhile, droughts devastated the grasslands and forests around Mastick’s village.

    “Before that we barely had altercations with lions. It was taboo because wildlife was abundant. But due to the famine, lions began targeting our livestock. Elephants also became a problem, hyenas too,” he said.

    Grazing land for livestock became inadequate. People from neighboring villages now routinely cross the shallow and largely sandy bed of the once-roaring Save River with donkey-drawn carts carrying wood illegally logged from the conservancy, further depleting wildlife habitat.

    Dingani Masuku, the community liaison manager for Save Valley Conservancy said “there is a link” with climate change, noting that the area is one of the country’s driest and hardest-hit regions.

    “All resources are scarce. So we have to compete (with animals) for those resources. We are competing for everything actually,” he said. “The resources are getting leaner and leaner … the animals have to get where there are people and they look for survival in there.”

    In Chiredzi, a semi-arid area about 500 kilometers from the capital of Harare, Mastick often has to calm infuriated villagers.

    Mastick understands the pain of losing livestock. He starts each day by counting his own cattle, goats and donkeys. He once had 45 goats; now he has only 10, the rest eaten by wild animals. Some of his surviving animals bear the marks of attacks. Mastick does, too — his body is riddled with animal bites, including lacerations from a leopard attack he encountered while on an illegal hunt.

    “Without crop harvests we have to turn to livestock to raise money for school fees, food and other necessities so people are justified to be angry,” he said at his homestead – a few mud houses whose grass thatching is falling off. “But I help them understand that killing the animals is not a solution.”

    Part of his message is that jail is difficult. Mastick said his family suffered greatly while he was behind bars since he was the only breadwinner; some of his 20 children stopped going to school.

    But he learned new skills while in jail, including carpentry, which now provides his living. At his workshop, he uses tree branches and dry palm tree leaves to make chairs and tables that are a hit with tourists and locals. The workshop is often a hive of activity with men milling around, some learning the trade so they can try to eke out their own living. Mastick uses the platform to spread awareness. He also speaks at village gatherings such as funerals and community meetings.

    There’s no hard data on poaching in the region, but Mastick said the number of men poaching from his village has fallen since he began his efforts.

    Masuku said Mastick’s past gives him credibility.

    “People know that he has been through it, he has been there and that poaching does not pay and that is why he is reforming,” Masuku said. “His new line of work as a carpenter is also helping inspire others that they can lean on something other than poaching to survive.”

    ___

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Tahiti’s rahui tradition has helped revive ecosystems — including near the Olympics surfing venue

    Tahiti’s rahui tradition has helped revive ecosystems — including near the Olympics surfing venue

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    TIAHURA, Tahiti — During their days on Tahiti’s turquoise ocean some years ago, fishers noticed their catches — and the fish inside — were getting smaller.

    With fishing being a vital part of the ways of Polynesian life, local leader Dominique Tehei, 51, and his fellow community members knew they needed to find a way to restore the ecosystem. They decided there was a customary Polynesian practice that could help them do it: creating a rahui.

    The traditional conservation method of regulating human activity to help replenish and protect maritime ecosystems resources is being revived and showing results in Tahiti, including the area near the Paris Olympics surfing venue. While local communities and leaders acknowledge that rahui aren’t a one-stop solution to all environmental issues, they’re working with researchers and scientists to help strengthen the ground-up, community-based approach.

    For centuries, rahui have been implemented in the French Polynesian islands, Hawaii and New Zealand, temporarily banning or restricting the harvesting of natural resources in designated areas, said Hunter Lenihan, an ecologist and co-director of the Rahui Forum and Resource Center headquartered in Moorea, Tahiti.

    “(The practice) was squashed by colonizers,” said Lenihan, “but … is going through a revival that began intensively about a decade ago.”

    While the most common form of rahui is a no-fishing zone placed in a lagoon or offshore — like a marine reserve — rahui have also been established in local creeks and rivers in the form of planting taro crops to capture sediment from agriculture or other development before it flows into the ocean and harmfully settles onto reefs.

    Even in the no-fishing zones, rules can vary based on the area’s needs. Sometimes, fishing is only permitted during a certain season. Other times, only certain methods like line or spear fishing are permitted, forbidding the use of nets or cages. In some rahui, fishing and swimming is prohibited entirely, protecting some areas from tourism overdevelopment.

    Decisions on where, how and when to establish a rahui are made and managed by community leaders.

    In the years leading up to the 2019 establishment of the rahui in Teva I Uta, where Tehei lives, Tehei said he and other conservationists initially had a hard time convincing villagers that a rahui would be a good idea.

    “Fishing is what provides resource money and food,” said Tehei. “They were afraid of not being able to access it when they were in the most need. So of course they were a little nervous about that.”

    Going home to home, Tehei said they were able to convince villagers to allow certain sections of the reef and surrounding areas to be closed for two years at a time, leaving other sections still open for fishing activities.

    Tehei hasn’t been alone in his advocacy efforts for establishing rahui across Tahiti.

    Members from the Rahui Forum and Resource Center visit and discuss with communities across Tahiti to help learn why they want to establish a rahui, then connect them with local nongovernmental organizations and community leaders who can help with the establishment process.

    “The system is built from ground up,” said Lenihan.

    Community leaders and government officials have also led information campaigns, with billboards and posters about rahui being posted across church, schools and town halls across Tahiti.

    There are now dozens of rahui across Tahiti, including in Teahupo’o, where surfers went head-to-head in the Paris Olympics surfing competition.

    Signs mark their presence, informing visitors of regulations and penalties for violating them. Locals relaxing on the beach or working in tourism can point out buoys in the water marking the rahui zones while explaining how important they are for the community’s conservation efforts.

    Acceptance of rahui has blossomed as well: A 2019 study by the Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy Project found that 90% of inhabitants in French Polynesia support rahui, much higher than the support for other legal conservation methods like protected marine areas. Rahui have been legally recognized in the French Polynesia environmental code since 2016.

    But Tehei acknowledged the rahui system isn’t perfect: Sometimes, it’s hard to monitor the entire area, especially during new moons when it’s darker outside. Other times, they’ve had to open a rahui before the ecosystem had a chance to fully recover, as part of their timeline promises to fishers. A lack of management during the opening of one rahui led to overfishing, he said.

    “We didn’t have an eye on who was going on the reef and unfortunately I would say within three weeks after the reopening … the whole island came. We had 30 boats fishing,” he said. “It was a total disaster.”

    Tehei said despite the setbacks, they’re still continuing to promote and monitor different ways to improve their rahui practices, including working with the local government to help create a fishing registration system that would catalog how much each fisher catches.

    But, Tehei said, rahui have helped change the mentality some Tahitians have towards taking care of the ocean and its ecosystems.

    “For Tahitian people, the ocean is everything,” he said. “People want to keep it healthy and prosperous.”

    ___

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

    ___

    For more coverage of the 2024 Olympics, visit https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games.

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  • Endangered turtle species found in Ipswich River

    Endangered turtle species found in Ipswich River

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    IPSWICH — An endangered species of turtle was caught and released back into the Ipswich River last week after being spotted sitting on the rocks directly below the Ipswich Mills Dam.

    Ipswich River Watershed Association staff and MassWildlife investigated the reported sighting to discover a male Northern red-bellied cooter. The seemingly lonesome turtle was then brought into MassWildlife for further assessment and to be microchipped with a VHF radio transmitter so its movements can be monitored over the remainder of the summer.

    There was no data to suggest the turtle came from known populations in southeastern Massachusetts. So, MassWildlife and U.S. Fish and Wildlife decided to release him back into the Ipswich River — above the dam, as its behavior suggested it was attempting to move upstream, and it is a freshwater species that’s less suitable for tidal habitats.

    “We could not conclusively determine that the male from the dam had originated in southeastern Massachusetts, so it was not clearly the best management decision to release the turtle in that area,” MassWildlife Herpetologist Mike Jones said.

    “And because the animal found near Peatfield landing and reported last year was clearly different from the male found at the dam, we would like to better understand the extent and size of this occurrence.”

    The cooter sighting was the second ever recorded in the Ipswich River, and the first to be microchipped.

    Last year, as the Ipswich Mills Dam removal pursued permitting approval, the Ipswich River Watershed Association submitted photos for review, which happened to capture images of another red-bellied cooter. The discovery is not expected to delay the planned dam removal.

    Although the nearest known population of the species is far away in Plymouth, archaeological evidence suggests they inhabited the Ipswich River 1,000 years ago, making this the first confirmed sighting in modern times.

    “We’re very excited to be working with MassWildlife to learn more about the red-bellied cooter and what their place in the Ipswich River might be,” IRWA Restoration Program Director Neil Shea said.

    “The opportunity to track this animal and learn more about its behavior is very unique and speaks to the incredible biodiversity that we have throughout the Ipswich River.”

    Northern red-bellied cooters are listed as endangered on both the Massachusetts and Federal Endangered Species Lists. In the 1980s, the estimated total population of cooters in Massachusetts was about 300, with the next-nearest population being 200 miles away in New Jersey.

    Cooters resemble the common Eastern painted turtle, but are significantly larger, weighing up to 12 pounds. The basking turtles have a black to brown upper shell with faint reddish markings, which become more pronounced in males and darker with age.

    MassWildlife’s Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program have released 5,000 “head-started” hatchlings into southeastern Massachusetts’ ponds and waterways since the program began 40 years ago.

    Through the program, turtle hatchlings are removed from the wild and placed in a warm aquarium environment at educational and scientific facilities across the state for eight to nine months before being released back into the wild, accelerating their growth and protecting them from predators during their first year of life when they are most vulnerable.

    MassWildlife and the IRWA will continue to monitor the movements of the released cooter to help determine if there are more than two of the species present in the Ipswich River.

    Paddlers are encouraged to keep an eye out for the species along the river, especially in Topsfield and Ipswich, and share photos by email at nheritage@mass.gov

    Michael McHugh can be contacted at mmchugh@northofboston.com or at 781-799-5202

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    By Michael McHugh | Staff Writer

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  • Endangered turtle species found in Ipswich River

    Endangered turtle species found in Ipswich River

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    IPSWICH — An endangered species of turtle was caught and released back into the Ipswich River last week after being spotted sitting on the rocks directly below the Ipswich Mills Dam.

    Ipswich River Watershed Association (IRWA) staff and MassWildlife investigated the reported sighting to discover a male Northern red-bellied cooter. The seemingly lonesome turtle was then brought into MassWildlife for further assessment and to be microchipped with a VHF radio transmitter so its movements can be monitored over the remainder of the summer.

    There was no data to suggest the turtle came from known populations in southeastern Massachusetts. So, MassWildlife and US Fish and Wildlife decided to release him back into the Ipswich River — above the dam, as its behavior suggested it was attempting to move upstream, and it is a freshwater species that’s less suitable for tidal habitats.

    “We could not conclusively determine that the male from the dam had originated in southeastern Massachusetts, so it was not clearly the best management decision to release the turtle in that area,” MassWildlife Herpetologist Mike Jones said.

    “And because the animal found near Peatfield landing and reported last year was clearly different from the male found at the dam, we would like to better understand the extent and size of this occurrence.”

    The cooter sighting was the second ever recorded in the Ipswich River, and the first to be microchipped.

    Last year, as the Ipswich Mills Dam removal pursued permitting approval, the Ipswich River Watershed Association submitted photos for review, which happened to capture images of another red-bellied cooter. The discovery is not expected to delay the planned dam removal.

    Although the nearest known population of the species is far away in Plymouth, archaeological evidence suggests they inhabited the Ipswich River 1,000 years ago, making this the first confirmed sighting in modern times.

    “We’re very excited to be working with MassWildlife to learn more about the red-bellied cooter and what their place in the Ipswich River might be,” IRWA Restoration Program Director Neil Shea said.

    “The opportunity to track this animal and learn more about its behavior is very unique and speaks to the incredible biodiversity that we have throughout the Ipswich River.”

    Northern red-bellied cooters are listed as endangered on both the Massachusetts and Federal Endangered Species Lists. In the 1980s, the estimated total population of cooters in Massachusetts was about 300, with the next-nearest population being 200 miles away in New Jersey.

    Cooters resemble the common Eastern painted turtle, but are significantly larger, weighing up to 12 pounds. The basking turtles have a black to brown upper shell with faint reddish markings, which become more pronounced in males and darker with age.

    MassWildlife’s Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program have released 5,000 “head-started” hatchlings into southeastern Massachusetts’ ponds and waterways since the program began 40 years ago.

    Through the program, turtle hatchlings are removed from the wild and placed in a warm aquarium environment at educational and scientific facilities across the state for eight to nine months before being released back into the wild, accelerating their growth and protecting them from predators during their first year of life when they are most vulnerable.

    MassWildlife and the IRWA will continue to monitor the movements of the released cooter to help determine if there are more than two of the species currently present in the Ipswich River.

    Paddlers are encouraged to keep an eye out for the species along the river, especially in Topsfield and Ipswich, and share photos by email at nheritage@mass.gov

    Michael McHugh can be contacted at mmchugh@northofboston.com or at 781-799-5202

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    By Michael McHugh | Staff Writer

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  • The winner in China’s panda diplomacy: the pandas themselves

    The winner in China’s panda diplomacy: the pandas themselves

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    WASHINGTON — China’s panda diplomacy may have one true winner: the pandas themselves.

    Decades after Beijing began working with zoos in the U.S. and Europe to protect the species, the number of giant pandas in the wild has risen to 1,900, up from about 1,100 in the 1980s, and they are no longer considered “at risk” of extinction but have been given the safer status of “vulnerable.”

    Americans can take some credit for this accomplishment, because conserving the species is not purely a Chinese undertaking but a global effort where U.S. scientists and researchers have played a critical role.

    “We carry out scientific and research cooperation with San Diego Zoo and the zoo in Washington in the U.S., as well as European countries. They are more advanced in aspects such as veterinary medicine, genetics and vaccination, and we learn from them,” said Zhang Hemin, chief expert at the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in the southwestern Chinese city of Ya’an.

    Zhang spoke to journalists during a recent government-organized media tour at the Ya’an Bifengxia Panda Base, home to 66 pandas that lolled about and chomped on stalks of bamboo in a tranquil setting rich with vegetation.

    China’s giant panda loan program has long been known as a tool of Beijing’s soft-power diplomacy, but its conservation significance could have been an important reason Beijing is renewing its cooperation with U.S. zoos and sending new pairs of pandas at a time of otherwise sour relations.

    A pair of pandas that arrived at the San Diego Zoo in June will debut to the public after several weeks of acclimation. Another pair will c ome to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo later this year, and a third pair will settle in the San Francisco Zoo in the near future.

    Their arrivals herald a new round of giant panda conservation cooperation, after the agreements from the first round — which began around 1998 — ended in recent years. The ongoing difficulties in the U.S.-China relationship fueled worries Beijing was retreating from sending pandas abroad, but President Xi Jinping in November dispelled the worries with an announcement during a U.S. visit last year.

    It is a brilliant move to soften China’s image among Americans but is unlikely to change U.S. policy, said Barbara K. Bodine, a former ambassador who is now a professor in the practice of diplomacy at Georgetown University.

    “If they are to project China not as a big, threatening country, they send several pairs of overstuffed plush toys,” she said. “Pandas are cute, fat and fluffy. They sit all day and eat bamboos, then China is kind of this cuddly and fluffy country. It’s the best signaling.”

    But “it doesn’t change the political discussion one whit,” Bodine said. “Public diplomacy can do only so much. It does not change the geopolitical, economic calculations. People don’t go home after the zoo to be OK for the U.S. to be flooded with cheap EVs (electric vehicles) from the panda land.”

    Conservation, however, is keeping the two sides working together.

    Zhang said there are benefits from sending pandas overseas.

    “Pandas temporarily living abroad raises humans’ awareness of preservation, and promotes attention to our planet and the protection of biodiversity,” Zhang said. “Why isn’t it good?”

    Zhang said pandas sent overseas have been selected for their good genes. “They have very high hereditary values. If they bear offspring, the cubs also will have very high hereditary values,” he said.

    While Western research leads in genetic studies, China excels at feeding and behavioral training, he said. “It’s mutually complementary,” Zhang said. The ultimate goal, researchers say, is to help the bears return to the wild and survive, and a larger captive-bred panda population is the foundation for that effort.

    The first giant pandas sent abroad were more gestures of goodwill than conservation pioneers from a Chinese communist government seeking to normalize its relations with the West. Beijing gave a pair of pandas — Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing — to the U.S. following President Richard Nixon’s historic visit to China in 1972 and then other pandas to other countries, including Japan, France, Britain and Germany, over the next decade.

    When the panda population dwindled in the 1980s, Beijing stopped gifting pandas but turned to more lucrative short-term leasing then longer-term collaboration with foreign zoos on research and breeding.

    Under this kind of new arrangement, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian arrived at the National Zoo in 2000, with the ultimate goal of saving giant pandas in the wild. Over the 23 years Mei Xiang lived in the U.S. capital, she gave birth to four living cubs: Tai Shan in 2005, Bao Bao in 2013, Bei Bei in 2015, and Xiao Qi Ji in 2020. All have been returned to China.

    Bei Bei, sent to China in 2019, walked over to a row of lined-up bamboo shoots last month, picked one up with his teeth and sat down to eat it as a cluster of visitors looked on at the Ya’an Bifengxia Panda Base. Staff described the nearly 9-year-old male as sociable.

    Smithsonian scientists have been working to “unravel the mysteries of panda biology and behavior, gaining crucial insights into their nutritional needs, reproductive habits and genetic diversity,” the National Zoo says in its literature on the panda program.

    Its ecologists have been working with Chinese partners to restore natural habitats for the giant panda, the zoo said.

    Over the years, it has raised tens of millions of dollars to run the zoo’s panda conservation program, including an annual fee of $1 million to the China Wildlife Conservation Association.

    “The purpose of the fund is stated very clearly — it’s scientific and research funds for the preservation of wild giant pandas and their habitats,” Zhang said. “They are very clear about this. It’s not an income of the Chinese government.”

    Pandas born overseas can face a language barrier when they are sent to China, said Li Xiaoyan, the keeper for Bei Bei and two other bears from abroad.

    “Some pandas may adapt very quickly and easily upon return, while others need a long time to adjust to a new environment, especially human factors such as language,” Li said. “Overseas, foreign languages are spoken. In China it’s Chinese that’s used, and even Sichuanese and the Ya’an dialect.”

    ___

    AP video producer Caroline Chen contributed to this report from Ya’an, China.

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  • Mind the mangroves! Some Kenyans combat the threat of logging with hidden beehives

    Mind the mangroves! Some Kenyans combat the threat of logging with hidden beehives

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    MOMBASA, Kenya — Dressed in protective clothing and armed with a smoker, Peter Nyongesa walked through the mangroves to monitor his beehives along the Indian Ocean coastline.

    The 69-year-old Nyongesa recalled how he would plead unsuccessfully with loggers to spare the mangroves or cut only the mature ones while leaving the younger ones intact.

    “But they would retort that the trees do not belong to anyone but God,” he said.

    So he has turned to deterring the loggers with bees, hidden in the mangroves and ready to sting.

    Their hives now dot a section of coastline in Kenya’s main port city of Mombasa in an effort to deter people who chop mangroves for firewood or home construction. It’s part of a local conservation initiative.

    “When people realize that something is beneficial to them, they do not consider the harm that comes with it,” Nyongesa said of the loggers.

    Mangroves, which thrive in salty water, help in preventing erosion and absorbing the impact of severe weather events such as cyclones.

    But more than half of the world’s mangrove ecosystems are at risk of collapse, according to the first global mangrove assessment for the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Ecosystems released in May.

    Mangroves are threatened by illegal logging, climate change and rising seas, pollution and urban development. According to a Kenya environment ministry report in 2018, about 40% of mangroves along the Indian Ocean coast are degraded.

    In Mombasa county, it’s estimated that almost 50% of the total mangrove area there — 1,850 hectares (4,570 acres) — is degraded.

    Such overall degradation has slowed in Kenya, which in 2017 developed a 10-year plan to have community conservation efforts manage mangroves. But the efforts have been incomplete because of inadequate resources.

    Communities are doing what they can. James Kairo, a research scientist at the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute, said initiatives such as beekeeping are helping. Their honey also brings in community income.

    “Mangrove honey is also classified as top quality and medicinal,” he added. “This could be due to the environment that mangroves thrives in” and what they absorb from their surroundings.

    Nyongesa now has 11 beehives and harvests about 8 liters (2 gallons) of honey per hive every three months. Each liter earns him $6, a valuable source of income.

    When Nyongesa started beekeeping 25 years ago, he didn’t know anything about the threat to mangroves or how his bees could help.

    He became involved in 2019, when he joined a local conservation group called Tulinde Mikoko, Swahili for Let’s Protect Mangroves. The group adopted his beekeeping as a community initiative along with mangrove planting. Members also serve as custodians of the mangroves and try to stop loggers.

    The group has concealed beehives in the top branches of mangroves as silent guardians. The bees are meant to attack unsuspecting loggers.

    “We positioned them at the peak where they can’t be spotted with ease,” said Bibiana Nanjilula, the Tulinde Mikoko founder. “As such, when the loggers start cutting down whichever tree, the bees will attack due to the noise.”

    The group hopes the tactic is working but has found it hard to measure its effects in the relatively difficult to access areas.

    The bees also play a crucial role as pollinators. As they forage among the mangrove flowers, they transfer pollen from one flower to another, facilitating plants’ reproduction.

    “The healthier the mangroves are, probably the more productive the honey production will be,” said Jared Bosire, project manager for the UNEP-Nairobi Convention, who said they encourage the integration of livelihoods with conservation. The office is a project of the United Nations Environment Program, based in Nairobi.

    Kenya has 54,430 hectares (134,500 acres) of mangroves remaining, and they contribute $85 million per year to the national economy, according to a report by the Global Mangrove Alliance in 2022.

    Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

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    By Zelipha Kirobi | Associated Press

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  • Newborn white rhino Silverio takes his giant first steps in a Chilean zoo in a boost to his species

    Newborn white rhino Silverio takes his giant first steps in a Chilean zoo in a boost to his species

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    SANTIAGO, Chile — Hannah, a 13-year-old white rhinoceros, has delivered a newborn calf in a rare zoo birth for the almost endangered species.

    The arrival of the male calf, named Silverio, two weeks ago marked the third time that a white rhino had ever been born in South America. The Buin Zoo in Chile’s capital of Santiago unveiled Silverio to the public on Tuesday as he took his first giant-footed steps after 12 days of medical care in confinement.

    The zoo hailed his birth as a “big achievement” for conservationists worldwide. Over the past year, only eight other southern white rhinos have been born.

    The director of Buin Zoo explained that a recent string of failed rhino romances had dashed the hopes of conservationists attempting to breed the species across the continent. But Hannah and Oliver — a pair of southern white rhinos shipped to Santiago all the way from sub-Saharan Africa just over a decade ago — have hit it off, producing three calves in this one zoo.

    “There are several zoos in Latin America that have a rhino pair and did not manage to reproduce,” said zoo director Ignacio Idalsoaga. “We are contributing with a ninth calf to a species that has only a few left in the wild.”

    A team of veterinarians closely monitoring Silverio declared him healthy on Tuesday.

    The success story comes as fewer and fewer white rhinos roam the African plains. Northern white rhinos have effectively gone extinct, although the international scientific community has started to revive the species through assisted reproduction and stem cell research.

    Southern white rhinos, the northern’s close cousin and a more common species, have been classified as “nearly endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the world’s main scientific authority on the status of species. There are just over 10,000 individual southern white rhinos left in the world, the vast majority of them in zoos.

    That’s still a major improvement from the turn of the 19th century, when the species was hunted to near oblivion. Intensive conservation efforts in the last few decades pulled southern white rhinos away from the brink of extinction, a rare example of robust reocovery in the face of peril.

    But that could change, conservationists say, as hunters continue to kill rhinos for their horns and the mammals can struggle to reproduce in captivity, with a gestation period of 18 months and often more than one male needed to stimulate reproduction.

    Humans are the only predators to rhinos, reports the international conservation union, with hunters killing an estimated 1,000 rhinos a year. It says that roughly 17 rhinos are born each year.

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  • The Iberian lynx is back from the brink of extinction, thanks to conservation efforts

    The Iberian lynx is back from the brink of extinction, thanks to conservation efforts

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    MADRID — Things are looking up for the Iberian lynx. Just over two decades ago, the pointy-eared wild cat was on the brink of extinction, but as of Thursday the International Union for Conservation of Nature says it’s no longer an endangered species.

    Successful conservation efforts mean that the animal, native to Spain and Portugal, is now barely a vulnerable species, according to the latest version of the IUCN Red List.

    In 2001, there were only 62 mature Iberian lynx — medium-sized, mottled brown cats with characteristic pointed ears and a pair of beard-like tufts of facial hair — on the Iberian Peninsula. The species’ disappearance was closely linked to that of its main prey, the European rabbit, as well as habitat degradation and human activity.

    Alarms went off and breeding, reintroduction and protection projects were started, as well as efforts to restore habitats like dense woodland, Mediterranean scrublands and pastures. More than two decades later, in 2022, nature reserves in southern Spain and Portugal contained 648 adult specimens. The latest census, from last year, shows that there are more than 2,000 adults and juveniles, the IUCN said.

    “It’s a really huge success, an exponential increase in the population size,” Craig Hilton-Taylor, head of the IUCN Red list unit, told The Associated Press.

    One of the keys to their recovery has been the attention given to the rabbit population, which had been affected by changes in agricultural production. Their recovery has led to a steady increase in the lynx population, Hilton-Taylor said.

    “The greatest recovery of a cat species ever achieved through conservation (…) is the result of committed collaboration between public bodies, scientific institutions, NGOs, private companies, and community members including local landowners, farmers, gamekeepers and hunters,” Francisco Javier Salcedo Ortiz, who coordinates the EU-funded LIFE Lynx-Connect project, said in a statement.

    IUCN has also worked with local communities to raise awareness of the importance of the Iberian lynx in the ecosystem, which helped reduce animal deaths due poaching and roadkill. In addition, farmers receive compensation if the cats kill any of their livestock, Hilton-Taylor said.

    Since 2010, more than 400 Iberian lynx have been reintroduced to parts of Portugal and Spain, and now they occupy at least 3,320 square kilometers, an increase from 449 square kilometers in 2005.

    “We have to consider every single thing before releasing a lynx, and every four years or so we revise the protocols,” said Ramón Pérez de Ayala, the World Wildlife Fund’s Spain species project manager. WWF is one of the NGOs involved in the project.

    While the latest Red List update offers hope for other species in the same situation, the lynx isn’t out of danger just yet, says Hilton-Taylor.

    The biggest uncertainty is what will happens to rabbits, an animal vulnerable to virus outbreaks, as well as other diseases that could be transmitted by domestic animals.

    “We also worried about issues with climate change, how the habitat will respond to climate change, especially the increasing impact of fires, as we’ve seen in the Mediterranean in the last year or two,” said Hilton-Taylor.

    ___

    Brooks reported from Copenhagen, Denmark.

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