‘Remove’, ‘sequester’, ‘lock-up’. Call it how you like, but to stabilise our climate and surpass the Paris Agreement, we really need to be thinking about storing hundreds of billions of tonnes of carbon. I don’t think anybody on Earth can visualise what numbers like these really look like. Yet, our future depends on us lowering the quantity of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to safe levels before, so-called self-amplifying feedbacks take over – if they haven’t already.

There is a clue emerging as to how we might accomplish such a feat – in the image of the Blue Marble NASA image of Earth. Namely that over 70 percent of the planet is ocean and the fate of life on Earth is intrinsically tied to that of the oceans.

Currently – and it is no secret – the oceans are in a terminal decline, acidifying, heating, losing their biomass and, the worse bit, flipping from carbon sink to carbon source. Fish stocks are also depleted, as ocean ecosystems fall under the sad blanket of degradation. But what if, by a process of biomimicry, we could reverse these processes and restore the life in the oceans?

Nick Breeze (NB): In the context of climate change and carbon sinks, can we talk a little bit about the role the oceans play in photosynthesis?

Russ George (RG): This blue planet is 28 percent land, of which half is rock and ice. So 14 percent of this planet has soil that might sustain green plants, but 72 percent of this planet is the ocean, all of which can sustain green photosynthesis.

So the green photosynthetic productivity in the ocean is down by 40-50 percent. That is the conservative data backed numbers for the collapse of phytoplankton in the worlds ocean. We are terrestrial beings so we think about forests. So everybody on the planet knows about the plight of the Amazon rainforest, and it is a global cause celeb. Tens of millions of dollars are being focussed on trying to save the remaining rainforests because 20 percent of the rainforest has been cut down. 

But in every five year period of time since 1950, there has been a loss of green plant life equal to an entire Amazon in the worlds oceans. So here we are. A dozen Amazons have gone missing from the world. 

NB: That is absolutely enormous in terms of scale. What state are they in, I mean how much of this impact can they absorb?

RG: Well, we know that since 1950 if we have lost 12 entire Amazon’s worth of biomass in the oceans, if we merely restore it to that state, we’ll capture that much sustainable living biomass in the oceans. 

That is more forestry potential than exists than in all the lands on the planet. So we can grow plants in the ocean that will harvest many times the amount of CO2 than if we were to reforest all available land on the planet.

NB: The oceans have recently been described as a vast desert. Are you talking about turning them into a rich biodiverse environment?

RG: I describe the oceans as being a vast oceanscape, like a landscape. Scattered around on that oceanscape are pastures that come and go, like pastures on land. So the ocean pastures of the world come into being when the necessary nutrients arrive. The most critical nutrient for photosynthesis is iron. It is the rarest substance in the ocean. 

The background level of iron in the open ocean, far from land, is only 3 parts per trillion. So when iron arrives, say in a dust fall from the Gobi Desert, or from the Sahara, the concentration of iron in the surface water rises from 3 parts per trillion to, say, 100 parts per trillion, or 1 part per billion. 

When it does that, the ocean turns from blue to green immediately because iron empowers photosynthesis. So the potential is there to restore the ocean pastures of the planet. The ocean is not one single pasture; it is a collection of pastures.

NB: Can we talk about your method for doing this and its connection to the Earth’s method for doing the same thing?

RG: John Martin worked out, back in the 1970’s and 80’s that when dust falls in the ocean, the ocean blooms. He looked at the ice ages and the sedimentary records in the ocean. He concluded that if we look at what the condition was just before the ice age, we see in the sedimentary record, a sudden arrival of a lot of dust. The planet got dry and dusty, the dust blew in the wind and landed in the ocean, and we see in the sedimentary record, blooms of plankton.

As soon as the plankton bloomed, we observe that the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere declines. It repurposes the CO2 into ocean life which pulled the greenhouse gas blanket off the Earth. The Earth got cold and went into an ice age.

Martin said “How much dust would be required?” He did the science and said, “a mere ship load of iron dust would be more than sufficient to restore the ocean to its historic most abundant productive state of life.” 

That would be sufficient to pull all of humanities anthropogenic CO2 out of the atmosphere and repurpose it into new ocean life, and the ocean has the capacity to do that.

NB: We are talking about between 600 billion and 1 trillion tonnes of CO2?

RG: Yeah, yesterday’s CO2 that is in the atmosphere; I use the term a trillion tonnes. All of the CO2 that has been emitted and caused to be emitted into the air in the industrial age, is about a trillion tonnes. Demonstrably, that is a lethal dose for life on the planet, as we know and like it.

NB: There are claims that we are overfishing the mean but you are implying something different?

RG: I am a terrestrial plant ecologist by profession and on land we have been doing pasture management for 10,000 years. Nobody questions that if the pasture is healthy you can have a large herd of livestock and when the pasture has turned to a desert, you can’t sustain a herd of livestock.

But in the ocean people say the condition of the pasture has nothing to do with the amount of livestock on the pasture. It is all about the harvest. This is just a preposterous idea that overfishing  is the singular issue in the ocean when we clearly have a far more devastating problem in the collapse of ocean pastures into clear blue desert.

So if there is nothing for the fish to eat, you cannot sustain the school of fish.

NB: Can you talk about the now infamous ocean pasture restoration work that you did with the Haida People of British Columbia?

RG: They had come to me from a village of less than 800 people, who said that in all of history, they have known themselves as the People of the Salmon. But the salmon had disappeared and so in 2007, they’d come to me and they said, “can you please try it in our ocean to see if it will bring our salmon back, because today our people cannot catch enough salmon to survive!”

I worked for years with the village and we were funded by the Canadian Federal Government. Every 90 days we wrote a report, and ultimately in 2012, with the support of the Canadian National Research Foundation, who was paying for 50% of the science costs, the village had managed to raise over $2 million from their village trust fund money. 

We set out to sea, myself and a crew of eleven people. We loaded by hand, four thousand 50lb bags of iron dust material onto the ship. We went into the Haida Ocean. The Haida nation is recognised as a sovereign nation that lives as a protectorate within Canada, with all the rights of being Canadians. But they do have absolute sovereignty over their lands and their ocean. 

So the Haida nation passed within their national laws the legislation to approve the project. It was vetted by the Canadian Federal Government every step of the way. The project was all lined up to be monitored and verified and certified as a result.

We dusted a 100 by 100 kilometre patch of ocean in the summer of 2012. The reason we chose the patch of ocean is that there is a gigantic ocean eddy that forms off the Haida Islands, called the Haida Eddy, which is legendary in ocean science. 

We decided we add the dust to the Haida Eddy which is also the nursery pasture for the baby salmon that go to sea. So the hypothesis was: if we can restore this nursery pasture to historic health and abundance, the baby fish when they swim out to sea, instead of mostly starving, will be treated to a feast and survive.

So we did that and the ocean immediately turned from blue to green. We had a lot of scientific hardware aboard, including two Slocum Glider’s, which are state of the art ocean robots, that autonomously swim in the ocean for 3 weeks at a time, surfacing every 2 hours and sending satellite reports back as to what they have seen.

So we collected 164 thousand electronic datapoint from the gliders and data points that we lowered over the side and more than 10 thousand wet ocean plankton samples to measure it. The goal was to bring the fish back.

The village came to me and said “how should we do this?” I said we should create a company to do this under so that we can apply for research grants and funding from different groups. So the company was called the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation. So the goal from the beginning was to restore the salmon.

It worked. The ocean turned from blue to green. We had the data analysis but the real data that we were hoping and praying would come, would be the fish. The species of salmon that we were targeting was the pink salmon, which is the most abundant of all the Pacific Salmon, that has a 2 year life cycle. 

We knew that, in 2012, the baby salmon would have swam out to sea that Spring, and were either going to live or die based on what they could find to eat. In a year and a half they would come back and by the numbers of fish and the condition of the fish we would know our success: whether we had brought the Haida Salmon back.

So the very next year, 2013, alas in neighbouring Alaska, and we were right on the border with Alaska in Canadian waters, the pink salmon catch was predicted to be 50 million fish. The past year, only 14 million were caught, which is a more normal figure, so 50 million would be a good number.

But by the time the Alaskan pink salmon season finally came to halt in the fall of 2013, 226 million fish had been caught and brought to shore. They only stopped at 226 million because there was no longer any capacity to accept another fish into any other freezing plants or canaries, anywhere in the Pacific north-west. All of the fish handling facilities were just completely over stocked and they had to stop fishing.

We received reports steadily from villages and communities that pink salmon were filling every river and stream, even every rivulet. Probably more than half a billion pink salmon came back. The salmon were the best science result, right?

George’s collected scientific data was destroyed under Canadian federal warrant before the experiment could be completed for review. But despite the raid, the fish had returned to shore, demonstrating that what he, and John Martin before him, had hypothesised was correct. 

NB: Was that the last experiment that you did?

RG: That was the last large experiment that I did. I have been doing small experiments in laboratories, or on small vessels.

NB: Can you now talk about the level of criticism that has been levelled by quite a few others against your method for restoring ocean biomass?

RG: There’s a plethora of criticisms but I am yet to hear one that doesn’t defy the history of ocean science. So people have said, “this is an unnatural event”, or, “It is an intervention by mankind with unnatural products”.

Well absolutely not. Our [collective] intervention is that we have denied the ocean her mineral dust. When the village and I took the the four thousand 50lb bags of mineral dust back to their ocean pasture, their fish came back in the largest numbers in all history. Four times the expected numbers and ten times the average!

We did that in the same location that a few years earlier it had been dusted by an Alaskan volcano, Kasatochi. When the volcano Kasatochi erupted in mid-August 2008, the ash carrying minerals, including iron, landed in the same patch of ocean that we put dust in. Two years later the largest amount of stock-eye salmon landed in the Fraser river.

NB: What about the claims that adding iron to the ocean can cause toxic blooms?

RG: The fact of the matter is that there is 100 years of ocean science studying natural plankton blooms that have resulted from natural upwellings of water. The Galapagos Islands are a source of iron-rich water that produces a bloom known as the Galapagos Bloom. There are hundreds of natural plankton blooms hat have been studied for a hundred years by ocean scientists and never has a report ever surfaced about deleterious effect of plankton in the open ocean. 

Near-shore, there are lots of reports about problems with plankton blooms, but away from shore it is a completely different ecosystem.

The collapse of ocean life due to the high carbon dioxide is today cataclysmic. The fish populations are down to a fraction of their historic numbers. In the north Pacific, the giant blue fin tuna is less than 3% of its historic numbers.

The blame is overfishing but of course that is preposterous because the ocean pastures have died. You could never overfish the last 10% of a population because they are so few and far between you can’t find them! 

So if we restore the ocean pasture of the north pacific the giant blue fin tuna will come back in a matter of 3-5 years. Perhaps in as few as ten years they’ll increase by tenfold or fiftyfold. If we feed them, they’ll come back.

I was in Portugal last year meeting with the Portuguese government talking to them about restoring the sardine pastures off the coast of Portugal, just before they announced there will be a moratorium where they will forbid all sardine fishing for the next 15 years.

The human cry in Portugal says that this will completely destroy the nation because if you go to Portugal you see that sardines are the icon of Portugal. Portugal’s sardines are not dying from overfishing, they are starving to death. 

Can we bring them back? Certainly.

This Author

Nick Breeze blogs at Envisionation and can be followed on Twitter at @NickGBreeze

Russ George will be speaking about restoring ocean pastures on the 24th May as part of Green Culture Week in Montenegro.

Are you hopeful about the future? How do you feel about the state of the world? About two years ago, I posed these questions to my family, friends and colleagues. The responses I received were alarming.

Not one person said they felt hopeful and many spoke about their fear, sadness, despair, anger, guilt and/or grief. Having worked on ecological issues professionally for almost 40 years, I am very familiar with these emotions, but I was shocked by how common they were among the people I know.

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This completely unscientific survey was part of a personal enquiry into hope that I started back in 2011. One day, when I was feeling especially disheartened about the Fukushima nuclear power station disaster in Japan, I found myself asking myself questions such as, “How can I be hopeful when the world seems to be falling apart?”, “How can I nurture hope?” and, “What does hope even mean in these times?” And because I had no satisfactory answers, I decided to launch an investigation into the subject.

Defining hope

The first step was to look in the dictionary. Most common definitions use words like ‘desire’, ‘expectation’ and ‘anticipation’. The Concise Oxford English Dictionary says that hope is “expectation and desire combined” and Merriam-Webster’s says it is “to cherish a desire with anticipation”.

After reflecting on these definitions, I realised they are based on the assumption that life should give us whatever we desire. In other words, whenever we hope for something, there’s a belief – even if it is very subtle – that events will conform with our wishes.

But life doesn’t always give us what we want. Many people, including me, hope to see a just, peaceful and sustainable society. But as global ecological problems continue to worsen, life seems to be giving us the opposite – what we don’t want. The trend lines for climate disruption, water scarcity, species extinction and resource depletion say it all. No matter how sincere and well-intentioned our hopes and no matter how hard we work to achieve them, there are no guarantees we will get what we want.

There is, therefore, a dissonance between our hopes for the future and what is actually happening. This makes it inevitable that we will experience fear, sadness, despair, anger, guilt and grief. Indeed, the yawning gap between what we hope for and the reality of life is a set-up for these painful feelings. Even though our hopes may be noble and altruistic, the more desperately we want to attain them the more emotional suffering we will experience when life doesn’t conform with our wishes.

Intrinsic and extrinsic hope

By this stage of my enquiry, I was feeling even worse than when I started. So I went back to the dictionary, and thankfully I found another def­inition. In addition to defining hope in terms of desire, expectation and anticipation, most dictionaries provide secondary, archaic definitions of it as ‘trust’. This older and much less common meaning is based on having confidence in life, without the expectation or anticipation that we will get what we want any time soon. To me, this type of hope feels much more robust and capacious than the first type because it doesn’t depend on attaining specific improvements in life. At last I felt that I was finding answers to my questions.

Related to Judaeo-Christian hope, this type of hope has an unshakeable faith in whatever happens and in the human capacity to respond. It is an outlook or an inclination towards life that is positive, although not necessarily optimistic.

Unlike the first type of hope, which is based on expecting or anticipating favourable outcomes in our external circumstances and conditions, the second type comes from inside – from our hearts, souls and spirits. It is about loving life so much that we cannot sit idly by and do nothing. I called this type of hope ‘intrinsic hope’ and I called the first type ‘extrinsic hope’.

Václav Havel described intrinsic hope, saying: “[Hope is] a state of mind, not a state of the world … it is a dimension of the soul; it’s not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation. Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons.”

Life’s love for itself

Over time, I came to see that intrinsic hope is inherent in all life. Where there is life, there is hope. We can experience hope simply because we are alive. It is sewn into our genes – just as it is sewn into the genes of every living thing. It’s the way a dandelion sprouts between the cracks in a city pavement, even if there’s no soil, lots of pollution and a constant onslaught of passing pedestrians and dogs.

It’s the way a single maple tree releases hundreds of thousands of seeds, oblivious of whether any take root and grow. And it’s the way Pacific salmon, heavy with eggs, strain to swim up their natal rivers and streams to spawn, even though they will die in the effort. One could say that intrinsic hope is life’s love for itself.

Although we are all born with intrinsic hope, it’s easy to forget. Because we usually focus on problems and difficulties, we can fail to appreciate the miracle of life and become blind to its potentials and possibilities. By concentrating on the negative, we don’t see the positive. By emphasising what we lack and what we want, we ignore what we already have, and don’t consider what could be.

I’m not suggesting that we become like Pollyanna and adopt a naively optimistic outlook on life. Intrinsic hope is not about wishful thinking. However, it offers a different and helpful perspective on what’s happening. Moreover, we can choose to embrace intrinsic hope at any time, no matter how bad things seem. Victor Frankl, who survived the Nazi concentration camps in the second world war, said, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Habits of hope

So can we choose intrinsic hope in these troubled times? Can we choose to come from love rather than fear? Can we choose to come from compassion rather than anger? Can we stay open and engaged rather than closing down or distancing ourselves from those we disagree with? Can we let go of wanting to achieve particular goals and immerse ourselves in doing what is good and right, simply for its own sake?

This is a tall order and it is one I still struggle with. So, to conclude my investigation, I decided to explore how I could sustain and nourish intrinsic hope in daily life. And after careful reflection, I identified six ‘habits of hope’ – being present, expressing gratitude, loving the world, accepting what is, taking action, and persevering for the long haul – and I sincerely ‘hope’ that these simple ways of being are as helpful to you as they are to me.

Sustaining intrinsic hope is not always easy, but it is essential. If we lose hope and give up, all the gloomy predictions about the future will likely become a reality. And if we dwell on our extrinsic hopes, we will continue to feel fear, sadness, despair, anger, guilt and grief whenever life does not give us what we want.

But if we can live from intrinsic hope, we will be able to cope with whatever happens – staying positive and engaged even in the darkest of times. And in doing so, we can influence whether there will be a viable future for our children, their children and all future generations of life on Earth.

Expressing gratitude

Being present cultivates intrinsic hope as it increases our awareness of life. Although our bodies are always in the present, our minds are usually wandering somewhere else. When we are present, our minds slow down, life reveals itself and this makes it possible for us to respond to what’s happening in a fresh, unobstructed and positive way.

Expressing gratitude fosters intrinsic hope. When we are grateful, we naturally become more hopeful. It’s what gets poured into the glass to make it half full. It’s counting our blessings, not only our problems.

Loving the world nurtures intrinsic hope because when we feel love for others, or exper­ience others’ love for us, we naturally feel good. We can love other people whether we know them or not, we can love specific communities and places, and we can love the Earth itself.

Accepting the reality of our situation lays a foundation for hope because it gives us the possibility of changing things. By saying yes – even a qualified or reluctant yes – we accept responsibility for doing something about our problems.

The long haul

Taking action develops hope as it liberates us from the vicious cycle of not wanting to do anything because we feel hopeless and then feeling hopeless because we are not doing enough.

Persevering for the long haul is essential for intrinsic hope because it provides the determination to endure whatever happens and keep on going. With perseverance, we can work to resolve our problems and build a just, peaceful and sustainable world without expecting to see the fruits of our efforts.

This Author

Kate Davies is Senior Fellow at the Whidbey Institute and Emeritus Faculty at Antioch University in the United States. She is the author of Intrinsic Hope: Living Courageously in Troubled Times (2018).

The snowy owl, Atlantic puffin, grey parrot and European turtle-dove are among the instantly recognisable birds that are now facing extinction – primarily due to the expansion and intensification of agriculture.

Indeed, one in eight of our bird species are critically endangered, according to the State of the World’s Birds 2018 – a comprehensive global study.

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Tris Allinson, is a senior global science officer at BirdLife International, which produced the report. She said: “The data are unequivocal. We are undergoing a steady and continuing deterioration in the status of the world’s birds.

Impact of agriculture

“Roughly one in eight species now faces extinction. This includes once widespread and abundant species that only a few decades ago were a familiar sight across great swathes of the planet.” 

The report claims that, in total, 74 percent of  1,091 globally threatened birds are impacted by farming, 50 percent by logging, 39 percent by invasive alien species and 35 percent by hunting and trapping. Climate change also represents an emerging and increasingly serious threat—currently affecting 33 percent of globally endangered species.

Neurotoxic insecticides – known as neonicotinoids – were found to be highly detrimental to birds. One recent study from the USA found that migrating white-crowned sparrows exposed to neonicotinoids lost a quarter of their body mass and fat stores.  The neurotoxin also impaired the birds’ migratory orientation.

Allinson added: “The threats driving the avian extinction crisis are many and varied, but invariably of humanity’s making.” 

History repeating itself

The report also warns of history repeating itself – citing the example of how the once populous passenger pigeon of North America –  numbering in the billions – was driven to extinction in 1914 through excessive hunting and habitat destruction.

Today, the population of the yellow-breasted bunting has declined by 90 percent since 1980. Although now officially banned, large-scale hunting continues – particularly in China.

Likewise, the numbers of European turtle-dove are falling rapidly due to habitat loss and the illegal trade in the grey parrot has rendered this bird endangered. 

The decline of the snowy owl is linked to climate change, with changes in the snowmelt and snow cover affecting the availability and distribution of its prey.

And overfishing accounts for the loss in numbers of the Atlantic puffin and the black-legged kittiwake which are both now categorised as “vulnerable” on the International Union of Conservation of Nature ( IUCN) Red List.

Conservation can work

Despite these worrying findings, the report also provides a message of hope. At least 25 bird species would have gone extinct without conservation action over recent decades.

These include the Seychelles white-eye, the echo parakeet and the Azores bullfinch – all species confined to oceanic islands.

But according to BirdLife, protecting wide-ranging birds requires a more global approach and although pinpointing the most critical sites to safeguard is essential, it says this needs to be complemented by broader-scale strategies.

Its Trillion Trees programme – a partnership between WWF, WCS and BirdLife – is aiming for one trillion trees planted, protected and restored by 2050.

Patricia Zurita, chief executive of BirdLife International, said: “Although the report provides a sobering update on the state of birds and biodiversity and of the challenges ahead, it also clearly demonstrates that solutions do exist and that significant, lasting success can be achieved.” 

This Author

Catherine Harte is a contributing editor of The Ecologist. This story is based on a news release from BirdLife International.

The snowy owl, Atlantic puffin, grey parrot and European turtle-dove are among the instantly recognisable birds that are now facing extinction – primarily due to the expansion and intensification of agriculture.

Indeed, one in eight of our bird species are critically endangered, according to the State of the World’s Birds 2018 – a comprehensive global study.

Don’t miss out! Sign up for our shiny new newsletter!

Tris Allinson, is a senior global science officer at BirdLife International, which produced the report. She said: “The data are unequivocal. We are undergoing a steady and continuing deterioration in the status of the world’s birds.

Impact of agriculture

“Roughly one in eight species now faces extinction. This includes once widespread and abundant species that only a few decades ago were a familiar sight across great swathes of the planet.” 

The report claims that, in total, 74 percent of  1,091 globally threatened birds are impacted by farming, 50 percent by logging, 39 percent by invasive alien species and 35 percent by hunting and trapping. Climate change also represents an emerging and increasingly serious threat—currently affecting 33 percent of globally endangered species.

Neurotoxic insecticides – known as neonicotinoids – were found to be highly detrimental to birds. One recent study from the USA found that migrating white-crowned sparrows exposed to neonicotinoids lost a quarter of their body mass and fat stores.  The neurotoxin also impaired the birds’ migratory orientation.

Allinson added: “The threats driving the avian extinction crisis are many and varied, but invariably of humanity’s making.” 

History repeating itself

The report also warns of history repeating itself – citing the example of how the once populous passenger pigeon of North America –  numbering in the billions – was driven to extinction in 1914 through excessive hunting and habitat destruction.

Today, the population of the yellow-breasted bunting has declined by 90 percent since 1980. Although now officially banned, large-scale hunting continues – particularly in China.

Likewise, the numbers of European turtle-dove are falling rapidly due to habitat loss and the illegal trade in the grey parrot has rendered this bird endangered. 

The decline of the snowy owl is linked to climate change, with changes in the snowmelt and snow cover affecting the availability and distribution of its prey.

And overfishing accounts for the loss in numbers of the Atlantic puffin and the black-legged kittiwake which are both now categorised as “vulnerable” on the International Union of Conservation of Nature ( IUCN) Red List.

Conservation can work

Despite these worrying findings, the report also provides a message of hope. At least 25 bird species would have gone extinct without conservation action over recent decades.

These include the Seychelles white-eye, the echo parakeet and the Azores bullfinch – all species confined to oceanic islands.

But according to BirdLife, protecting wide-ranging birds requires a more global approach and although pinpointing the most critical sites to safeguard is essential, it says this needs to be complemented by broader-scale strategies.

Its Trillion Trees programme – a partnership between WWF, WCS and BirdLife – is aiming for one trillion trees planted, protected and restored by 2050.

Patricia Zurita, chief executive of BirdLife International, said: “Although the report provides a sobering update on the state of birds and biodiversity and of the challenges ahead, it also clearly demonstrates that solutions do exist and that significant, lasting success can be achieved.” 

This Author

Catherine Harte is a contributing editor of The Ecologist. This story is based on a news release from BirdLife International.

The snowy owl, Atlantic puffin, grey parrot and European turtle-dove are among the instantly recognisable birds that are now facing extinction – primarily due to the expansion and intensification of agriculture.

Indeed, one in eight of our bird species are critically endangered, according to the State of the World’s Birds 2018 – a comprehensive global study.

Don’t miss out! Sign up for our shiny new newsletter!

Tris Allinson, is a senior global science officer at BirdLife International, which produced the report. She said: “The data are unequivocal. We are undergoing a steady and continuing deterioration in the status of the world’s birds.

Impact of agriculture

“Roughly one in eight species now faces extinction. This includes once widespread and abundant species that only a few decades ago were a familiar sight across great swathes of the planet.” 

The report claims that, in total, 74 percent of  1,091 globally threatened birds are impacted by farming, 50 percent by logging, 39 percent by invasive alien species and 35 percent by hunting and trapping. Climate change also represents an emerging and increasingly serious threat—currently affecting 33 percent of globally endangered species.

Neurotoxic insecticides – known as neonicotinoids – were found to be highly detrimental to birds. One recent study from the USA found that migrating white-crowned sparrows exposed to neonicotinoids lost a quarter of their body mass and fat stores.  The neurotoxin also impaired the birds’ migratory orientation.

Allinson added: “The threats driving the avian extinction crisis are many and varied, but invariably of humanity’s making.” 

History repeating itself

The report also warns of history repeating itself – citing the example of how the once populous passenger pigeon of North America –  numbering in the billions – was driven to extinction in 1914 through excessive hunting and habitat destruction.

Today, the population of the yellow-breasted bunting has declined by 90 percent since 1980. Although now officially banned, large-scale hunting continues – particularly in China.

Likewise, the numbers of European turtle-dove are falling rapidly due to habitat loss and the illegal trade in the grey parrot has rendered this bird endangered. 

The decline of the snowy owl is linked to climate change, with changes in the snowmelt and snow cover affecting the availability and distribution of its prey.

And overfishing accounts for the loss in numbers of the Atlantic puffin and the black-legged kittiwake which are both now categorised as “vulnerable” on the International Union of Conservation of Nature ( IUCN) Red List.

Conservation can work

Despite these worrying findings, the report also provides a message of hope. At least 25 bird species would have gone extinct without conservation action over recent decades.

These include the Seychelles white-eye, the echo parakeet and the Azores bullfinch – all species confined to oceanic islands.

But according to BirdLife, protecting wide-ranging birds requires a more global approach and although pinpointing the most critical sites to safeguard is essential, it says this needs to be complemented by broader-scale strategies.

Its Trillion Trees programme – a partnership between WWF, WCS and BirdLife – is aiming for one trillion trees planted, protected and restored by 2050.

Patricia Zurita, chief executive of BirdLife International, said: “Although the report provides a sobering update on the state of birds and biodiversity and of the challenges ahead, it also clearly demonstrates that solutions do exist and that significant, lasting success can be achieved.” 

This Author

Catherine Harte is a contributing editor of The Ecologist. This story is based on a news release from BirdLife International.

The snowy owl, Atlantic puffin, grey parrot and European turtle-dove are among the instantly recognisable birds that are now facing extinction – primarily due to the expansion and intensification of agriculture.

Indeed, one in eight of our bird species are critically endangered, according to the State of the World’s Birds 2018 – a comprehensive global study.

Don’t miss out! Sign up for our shiny new newsletter!

Tris Allinson, is a senior global science officer at BirdLife International, which produced the report. She said: “The data are unequivocal. We are undergoing a steady and continuing deterioration in the status of the world’s birds.

Impact of agriculture

“Roughly one in eight species now faces extinction. This includes once widespread and abundant species that only a few decades ago were a familiar sight across great swathes of the planet.” 

The report claims that, in total, 74 percent of  1,091 globally threatened birds are impacted by farming, 50 percent by logging, 39 percent by invasive alien species and 35 percent by hunting and trapping. Climate change also represents an emerging and increasingly serious threat—currently affecting 33 percent of globally endangered species.

Neurotoxic insecticides – known as neonicotinoids – were found to be highly detrimental to birds. One recent study from the USA found that migrating white-crowned sparrows exposed to neonicotinoids lost a quarter of their body mass and fat stores.  The neurotoxin also impaired the birds’ migratory orientation.

Allinson added: “The threats driving the avian extinction crisis are many and varied, but invariably of humanity’s making.” 

History repeating itself

The report also warns of history repeating itself – citing the example of how the once populous passenger pigeon of North America –  numbering in the billions – was driven to extinction in 1914 through excessive hunting and habitat destruction.

Today, the population of the yellow-breasted bunting has declined by 90 percent since 1980. Although now officially banned, large-scale hunting continues – particularly in China.

Likewise, the numbers of European turtle-dove are falling rapidly due to habitat loss and the illegal trade in the grey parrot has rendered this bird endangered. 

The decline of the snowy owl is linked to climate change, with changes in the snowmelt and snow cover affecting the availability and distribution of its prey.

And overfishing accounts for the loss in numbers of the Atlantic puffin and the black-legged kittiwake which are both now categorised as “vulnerable” on the International Union of Conservation of Nature ( IUCN) Red List.

Conservation can work

Despite these worrying findings, the report also provides a message of hope. At least 25 bird species would have gone extinct without conservation action over recent decades.

These include the Seychelles white-eye, the echo parakeet and the Azores bullfinch – all species confined to oceanic islands.

But according to BirdLife, protecting wide-ranging birds requires a more global approach and although pinpointing the most critical sites to safeguard is essential, it says this needs to be complemented by broader-scale strategies.

Its Trillion Trees programme – a partnership between WWF, WCS and BirdLife – is aiming for one trillion trees planted, protected and restored by 2050.

Patricia Zurita, chief executive of BirdLife International, said: “Although the report provides a sobering update on the state of birds and biodiversity and of the challenges ahead, it also clearly demonstrates that solutions do exist and that significant, lasting success can be achieved.” 

This Author

Catherine Harte is a contributing editor of The Ecologist. This story is based on a news release from BirdLife International.

The snowy owl, Atlantic puffin, grey parrot and European turtle-dove are among the instantly recognisable birds that are now facing extinction – primarily due to the expansion and intensification of agriculture.

Indeed, one in eight of our bird species are critically endangered, according to the State of the World’s Birds 2018 – a comprehensive global study.

Tris Allinson, is a senior global science officer at BirdLife International, which produced the report. She said: “The data are unequivocal. We are undergoing a steady and continuing deterioration in the status of the world’s birds.

Impact of agriculture

“Roughly one in eight species now faces extinction. This includes once widespread and abundant species that only a few decades ago were a familiar sight across great swathes of the planet.” 

The report claims that, in total, 74 percent of  1,091 globally threatened birds are impacted by farming, 50 percent by logging, 39 percent by invasive alien species and 35 percent by hunting and trapping. Climate change also represents an emerging and increasingly serious threat—currently affecting 33 percent of globally endangered species.

Neurotoxic insecticides – known as neonicotinoids – were found to be highly detrimental to birds. One recent study from the USA found that migrating white-crowned sparrows exposed to neonicotinoids lost a quarter of their body mass and fat stores.  The neurotoxin also impaired the birds’ migratory orientation.

Allinson added: “The threats driving the avian extinction crisis are many and varied, but invariably of humanity’s making.” 

History repeating itself

The report also warns of history repeating itself – citing the example of how the once populous passenger pigeon of North America –  numbering in the billions – was driven to extinction in 1914 through excessive hunting and habitat destruction.

Today, the population of the yellow-breasted bunting has declined by 90 percent since 1980. Although now officially banned, large-scale hunting continues – particularly in China.

Likewise, the numbers of European turtle-dove are falling rapidly due to habitat loss and the illegal trade in the grey parrot has rendered this bird endangered. 

The decline of the snowy owl is linked to climate change, with changes in the snowmelt and snow cover affecting the availability and distribution of its prey.

And overfishing accounts for the loss in numbers of the Atlantic puffin and the black-legged kittiwake which are both now categorised as “vulnerable” on the International Union of Conservation of Nature ( IUCN) Red List.

Conservation can work

Despite these worrying findings, the report also provides a message of hope. At least 25 bird species would have gone extinct without conservation action over recent decades.

These include the Seychelles white-eye, the echo parakeet and the Azores bullfinch – all species confined to oceanic islands.

But according to BirdLife, protecting wide-ranging birds requires a more global approach and although pinpointing the most critical sites to safeguard is essential, it says this needs to be complemented by broader-scale strategies.

Its Trillion Trees programme – a partnership between WWF, WCS and BirdLife – is aiming for one trillion trees planted, protected and restored by 2050.

Patricia Zurita, chief executive of BirdLife International, said: “Although the report provides a sobering update on the state of birds and biodiversity and of the challenges ahead, it also clearly demonstrates that solutions do exist and that significant, lasting success can be achieved.” 

This Author

Catherine Harte is a contributing editor of The Ecologist. This story is based on a news release from BirdLife International.

For many residents of Sinoe County, Liberia, the experiences of Golden Veroleum (GVL) – a palm oil company that arrived in 2010 – have been disappointing and detrimental to their way of life. 

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Communities say their land was taken without their consent in many instances. These communities remain on the frontline of a development model that puts people’s wellbeing in the hands of private companies and foreign investors.

This remains so, even after years of complaints to international organisations including the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), the industry’s leading certification body.

I am a senior forests and lands campaigner at Friends of the Earth in the United States. I advocate for financial institutions to stop financing deforestation and human rights violations and for the recognition of indigenous peoples and local communities’ land and natural resource rights. This photo essay captures what I witnessed when I travelled to Sinoe County. 

GVL has has faced significant controversy since its arrival in Liberia. Along the rugged roads you hear stories of armed police threatening villagers to sign agreements with the company, drinking water sources spoiled by industrial machinery, and livelihoods lost behind plantation fences. Mile after mile reveals vanishing forests. 

Weathered stumps jut from the earth amidst felled trees, serve as the final reminders of what was recently thick forest. The barren landscape here signals what is to come: communities’ lifelines to their land and culture traded for an uncertain future driven by industrial agriculture.

Amidst the ever-growing plantations, there is one sight to be seen: neatly arranged rows of palm in every direction. These plantations are part of GVL’s concession agreement with the Government of Liberia. The agreement covers 350,000 hectares – more than two percent of the country’s land mass – for 65 years.

“The day the Memorandum of Understanding was signed with GVL we saw three pickup trucks full of armed police putting guns on our people. GVL forced our people to sign that MOU. When our people see armed police, they are confused. Here’s a man who can’t even read or write, and he is forced to put his fingerprints to sign the MOU.” – Ricky Kanswea, Nimupoh, Sinoe County

Since GVL and its primary investor Golden Agri-Resources arrived in Liberia, the companies have faced consistent charges of human rights violations and environmental destruction. A February 2018 RSPO Complaints Panel decision affirmed communities’ longstanding grievances. The decision found that GVL violated RSPO Principles and Criteria by coercing and intimidating community members into signing agreements, continuing to develop on disputed lands, and destroying community sacred sites.

  “They built their mill on our sacred hill. We said this place is our sacred hill. They said it wasn’t. But what do they know? We are in our town. This is our sacred hill.” – Kaffa Samneh, Jacksonville, Sinoe County

Many still hold out hope that GVL will keep its promises of building handpumps, schools and clinics. But after the better part of a decade, others are skeptical about what the company will provide for the people who depend on the land and forests for their sustenance. Some are beginning to question a development model that relies on private companies to provide basic services.

“When they came to operate on my land, they never asked me. They just jumped on my land and started working. When I asked them, who gave you this land, they said it was government land. So we were forced to leave the place.” – Romeo M. Chea, Jacksonville, Sinoe County

Following the 2017 election of President George Weah, Liberians are filled with both hope and concern for the future. The new president has promised a pro-poor agenda, while declaring the country “open for business.”

But the Liberian Legislature has yet to pass the Land Rights Act – a draft law that would recognize communities’ ownership rights over their traditional lands, providing them equal footing with companies and investors. As national organizations mobilize for the passage of a strong Land Rights Act, vested interests are seeking to push forward a watered down version that would maintain business-as-usual. Land insecurity is widely seen as one of the main causes of the country’s 14-year civil war. 

“The place where my parents borne me – that is my land. That is the place they left for me. This land is for every one of us. Aren’t I the one working here? Let the company come talk to us. I will say come and take that piece of land, but leave this piece for me, this is where I will make my farm. But that’s not what they want to do.” – Beatrice Flahn, Jacksonville, Sinoe County

In rural Sinoe County growing disillusionment with Golden Veroleum’s palm oil plantations signify a demand for a new path towards progress. Will Liberia’s forests continue to be handed over to foreign companies and investors? Or will Liberians begin to reap the full benefits from the land they have called home for generations?

This Author

Gaurav Madan is a senior forests and lands campaigner at Friends of the Earth, US.

Gordon MacKay runs an independent tourism business offering bespoke diving tours around the Isle of Skye. He launched Dive and Sea the Hebrides more than three decades ago. It is a business he hopes to pass onto his two teenage sons. But Gordon claims that if a fish farm on the island’s Loch Pooteil continues to expand, his family business plans could be ruined.

Kames Fish Farming Ltd submitted a planning application in 2013 for a farm on Loch Pooteil in Glendale, on the north west of Skye.

Following pressure from locals, Kames withdrew their application but in 2015 submitted a revised proposal that placed the farm further west from their original plan. The new proposal was met with 77 objections and was rejected by the Highland Council.

Government intervention

The site falls within the North West Skye Special Landscape Area, meaning it has the status of a local or regional heritage feature. When Lynn Schweisfurth moved to Glendale in 2015, she heard that an application for a fish farm nearby had been submitted and rejected by the council. “I naively thought, ‘Well, that’s that then,’” she said.

However, Kames persisted and took their case to the Scottish government’s Planning and Environmental Appeals division. Allison Coard was the appointed reporter for the government. After reviewing the case, she granted permission.

“Glendale is one of the most beautiful sights in Scotland,” Lynn said. “People could not believe you would put a fish farm on that spot.”

According to Allison Coard’s report, the fish farm on the Loch Pooteil site is within 550 metres of the ‘Top 100 British Shore Dives’. “There’s a fantastic shore dive there,” Gordon said. “You dive off and you swim 70m and there is this big reef that sticks out.”

The report concluded that the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) “advises that it does not expect the fish farm to have any significant effect on the dive sites”.

“You make representation to your MP, MSP and anybody you can, but the voice of the fish farm is a lot louder than anything else,” Gordon said.

Expansion

The revised proposal in 2015 moved the site further west than the original 2013 plan. By 2019, Kames say they plan to have six farms on site and then add further cages in 2020 and 2021.

“As the site was moved, it got a lot closer to another dive site of mine that is very tidal,” Gordon explained. “So that will be decimated if it [the expansion] all goes ahead.”

Farms have been accused of releasing chemical “medicines” used to treat lice on the fish, and fish excrement, into surrounding waters. This pollution has been said to damage nearby ecosystems.

Formerly a commercial diver for fish farming companies, Gordon used to survey the sites underwater.

“I am a bit like a poacher turned gamekeeper. I have seen all the damaging effects and environmental effects below the salmon farms and surrounding areas. I have been diving here for four and a half decades and the changes within that time that I attribute to farms are drastic. Loss of habitat and loss of species.”

He said he has to avoid farm sites on his dives. “I don’t go to the immediate area around the fish farm. There’s a health and safety aspect and there are acoustic scarers.”

RSPB

Acoustic scarers are devices that emit vibrations and noise to ward off sea life like seals and dolphins from the farmed fish. The RSPB recently objected to two proposed salmon farms on Skye’s north east coast due to the effect they said acoustic scarers can have on nearby wildlife.

“You can feel it yourself,” Gordon said, referring to the noise they emit.

When asked what he will do if farms continue to expand, Gordon replied: “I might have to get a career change.”

Nevertheless, Allison Coard stated in her report: “I have no conclusive evidence on underwater noise impact for divers other than reference to dive sites which operate close to other fish farms.”

Community

Stuart Cannon is managing director of Kames Fish Farm Ltd. He told The Ecologist: “We and SEPA do not believe there will be any significant ecological damage to the area, neither to the reef or wrecks which are in the locality.

“Any application, for whatever, will always get objectors and never please everyone. However, we are employing and using local labour and supplies, which is 365 days a year and will help to sustain the community.”  

He added: “We have a good dialogue with the local Glendale Trust and local community.  We have provided a trot of heavy mooring to accommodate sailing yachts and a plastic walkway pontoon to give continuous access from the sea to the shore. This, we hope, will bring tourists into the village and nearby cafes and shops, helping to improve the local economy.”

These Authors

Alexandra Heal is a journalist and MA student at City University, London. She freelances for BBC News and is co-founder of siftguide.com. She tweets at @alexandraheal. Ellie O’Donnell is a freelancer and investigative journalism MA student on the Evening Standard Scholarship at City University. She tweets at @ellietodonnell. 

A staggering 85 percent of people in the UK support renewable energy, with just three percent opposed to it, according to data published by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’s (BEIS) in its quarterly public attitudes tracker.

This is the highest level of support since the tracker began in July 2012, and the joint-lowest figure for people against. The number of people who ‘strongly support’ the use of renewables also hit a record high of 37 percent.

Support was highest for solar generation with 87 percent of people in favour of it, ahead of offshore wind (83 percent), wave and tidal (81 percent), and onshore wind (76 percent) – with all being record highs since the first tracker in 2012. No renewable technology had a disapproval level above the eight percent against onshore wind.

Power generation

The release of the data coincides with the UK power generation being coal-free for a record 76 hours across 21 April to 24 April, setting a new record. This came only a week after the UK had 54 coal-free hours – itself a new record at the time. A shorter but equally impressive 40 hours of coal-free electricity generation was also recorded across 25-26 April.

Unseasonably warm temperatures this month pushed down demand for heating, which in turn lowered electricity demand. And the sunny and windy weather saw electricity from wind and solar providing over 30 percent of electricity in the 21 April-24 April coal-fee period.

The trend is set to continue heading in to the summer. System operator National Grid expects electricity production from renewables through the summer months to significantly reduce both gas and coal fired power generation.

Electricity needed from power stations connected to the transmission network – typically gas, coal and nuclear – is forecast to be more than 10 percent lower this summer year compared to 2015 because of solar and other renewables.

The government has set a target of October 2025 for removing unabated coal-fired power generation from the electricity system, meaning the importance of electricity from renewables is going to increase. It will also have to grow to ensure the UK meets its targets of reducing carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050 compared to levels in 1990.

Energy security

The BEIS public attitude tracker also showed support for fracking edged higher to 18 percent from 16 percent in the previous tracker in February. But this remains someway below a total of 35 percent opposed to it. Opposition to fracking has been higher than support for it on every tracker since the spring of 2014.

Pro-fracking industry group UK Onshore Operator’s Group (UKOOG) released a statement welcoming the increase, saying it showed a growing concern among the public that the UK is too reliant on other countries for its energy, with the cold weather earlier this year and arrival of Russian LNG driving the change.

For those who do support fracking, reducing the UK’s dependence on imported energy is the biggest factor, ahead of others such as cheaper bills, economic growth, and jobs.

The attitude tracker reported that 60 percent of people are concerned about the UK’s energy security – 10pp higher than the last tracker – with 57 percent of people most concerned about gas.

But this has not translated directly translated in to support growth for fracking. Support for renewables grew by 8pp, compared to just 2pp for fracking, suggesting people are rapidly making the link between the development renewables and improving energy security.

The record levels of popularity for renewables reflects the strength of support there is behind the government’s policies on decarbonisation and phase out of coal.

But at the same time, the popularity goes in the face of government decisions to cut support for solar and onshore wind. And despite the slight rise in support for fracking, the sector has a long way to go before it has anything resembling the social licence it needs to operate in the UK. 

This Author

Joseph Dutton is a policy adviser for the global climate change think-tank E3G. He tweets at @JDuttonUK.