It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
FULL-BODY FORENSIC RECONSTRUCTION OF A WOOLLY DOG BASED ON A 160-YEAR-OLD PELT IN THE SMITHSONIAN’S COLLECTION AS WELL AS ARCHAEOLOGICAL REMAINS.
THE RECONSTRUCTED WOOLLY DOG STANDS AGAINST A STYLIZED BACKGROUND OF A COAST SALISH WEAVING MOTIF FROM A HISTORIC DOG-WOOL BLANKET. THE PORTRAYAL OF THE WEAVING MOTIF WAS DESIGNED UNDER ADVISEMENT OF THE STUDY’S COAST SALISH ADVISORY GROUP.
RESEARCHERS FROM THE Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History LED A NEW ANALYSIS THAT SHEDS LIGHT ON THE ANCESTRY AND GENETICS OF WOOLLY DOGS, A NOW EXTINCT BREED OF DOG THAT WAS A FIXTURE OF INDIGENOUS COAST SALISH COMMUNITIES IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST FOR MILLENNIA. THE STUDY’S FINDINGS, PUBLISHED TODAY, DEC. 14, IN THE JOURNAL Science, INCLUDE INTERVIEWS CONTRIBUTED BY SEVERAL COAST SALISH CO-AUTHORS, INCLUDING ELDERS, KNOWLEDGE KEEPERS AND MASTER WEAVERS, WHO PROVIDED CRUCIAL CONTEXT ABOUT THE ROLE WOOLLY DOGS PLAYED IN COAST SALISH SOCIETY.
Researchers from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History led a new analysis that sheds light on the ancestry and genetics of woolly dogs, a now extinct breed of dog that was a fixture of Indigenous Coast Salish communities in the Pacific Northwest for millennia. Anthropologist Logan Kistler and evolutionary molecular biologist Audrey Lin analyzed genetic clues preserved in the pelt of “Mutton,” the only known woolly dog fleece in the world, to pinpoint the genes responsible for their highly sought-after woolly fur.
The study’s findings, published today, Dec. 14, in the journal Science, include interviews contributed by several Coast Salish co-authors, including Elders, Knowledge Keepers and Master Weavers, who provided crucial context about the role woolly dogs played in Coast Salish society.
“Coast Salish traditional perspective was the entire context for understanding the study’s findings,” said Kistler, the museum’s curator of archaeobotany and archaeogenomics.
Coast Salish tribal nations in Washington state and British Columbia bred and cared for woolly dogs for thousands of years. Prized for their thick undercoats, the dogs were sheared like sheep and often kept in pens or on islands to carefully manage their breeding and to care for the canines’ health and vitality. Coast Salish weavers used the dogs’ wool to craft blankets and other woven items that served a variety of ceremonial and spiritual purposes. Woolly dogs themselves possessed spiritual significance and were often treated as beloved family members. As emblems for many Coast Salish communities, woolly dogs adorned woven baskets and other art forms.
By the mid-19th century, this once thriving dog wool-weaving tradition was in decline. In the late 1850s, naturalist and ethnographer George Gibbs cared for a woolly dog named Mutton. When Mutton died in 1859, Gibbs sent his pelt to the nascent Smithsonian Institution, where the fleece has resided ever since. However, few were aware of the pelt’s existence until it was rediscovered in the early 2000s.
Lin first learned about Mutton when she was a Peter Buck postdoctoral fellow at the museum in 2021.
“When I saw Mutton in person for the first time, I was just overcome with excitement,” said Lin, who is now a postdoctoral researcher at the American Museum of Natural History. “I had heard from some other people that he was a bit scraggly, but I thought he was gorgeous.”
She was surprised to find out that virtually no work had been done on the genetics of woolly dogs, which disappeared around the turn of the 20th century. She teamed up with Kistler and they reached out to several Coast Salish communities to gauge their interest in working together on a potential research project on woolly dogs.
Many in the Coast Salish communities were eager to share their knowledge.
“We were very excited to participate in a study that embraces the most sophisticated Western science with the most established Traditional Knowledge,” said Michael Pavel, an Elder from the Skokomish/Twana Coast Salish community in Washington, who remembers hearing about woolly dogs early in his childhood. “It was incredibly rewarding to contribute to this effort to embrace and celebrate our understanding of the woolly dog.”
To complement the perspectives they received from Pavel and other Coast Salish people from British Columbia and Washington state (the text from their interviews is available in the study’s supplementary materials), Lin, Kistler and their colleagues began analyzing Mutton’s genetic code. They sequenced the woolly dog genome and compared it with the genomes of ancient and modern breeds of dogs to determine what set woolly dogs apart. They also identified certain chemical signatures called isotopes in Mutton’s pelt to determine the dog’s diet and teamed up with noted natural history illustrator Karen Carr to create a life-like reconstruction of what Mutton looked like in the 1850s. Carr’s work is the first in-depth reconstruction of a Coast Salish woolly dog in nearly three decades.
Based on the genetic data, the team estimated that woolly dogs diverged from other breeds up to 5,000 years ago—a date that lines up with archaeological remains from the region. They also discovered that Mutton was genetically similar to pre-colonial dogs from Newfoundland and British Columbia. The researchers estimate that nearly 85% of Mutton’s ancestry can be linked to pre-colonial dogs. This ancient ancestry is surprising because Mutton lived decades after the introduction of European dog breeds. This makes it likely that Coast Salish communities continued to maintain woolly dogs’ unique genetic makeup until right before the dogs were wiped out.
In total, the team analyzed more than 11,000 different genes in Mutton’s genome to determine what gave woolly dogs their fluffy fleece and wool fibers that could be spun together to create yarn. They identified 28 genes that have links to hair growth and follicle regeneration. These included a gene that causes a woolly hair phenotype in humans, and another linked to curly hair in other dogs. Similar genes were even activated in the genomes of woolly mammoths.
However, Mutton’s genetics could tell the researchers little about what caused the dogs to decline. Traditionally, scholars have speculated that the arrival of machine-made blankets to the region in the early 19th century made woolly dogs expendable. But insights from Pavel and other traditional experts revealed that it was improbable that such a central part of Coast Salish society could be replaced.
Instead, woolly dogs were likely doomed by numerous factors impacting the Coast Salish tribal nations after European settlers arrived. Due to disease and colonial policies of cultural genocide, displacement and forced assimilation, it likely became increasingly difficult or forbidden for Coast Salish communities to maintain their woolly dogs.
“It was thousands of years of very careful maintenance lost within a couple of generations,” Lin said.
But despite their disappearance, the memory of woolly dogs is still embedded into Coast Salish society. And Pavel thinks their understanding of woolly dogs is only getting clearer thanks to the new research effort.
“All of our communities held a certain aspect of knowledge about the woolly dog,” Pavel said. “But when woven together, as a result of participating in this study, we now have a much more complete understanding.”
The study included authors affiliated with Vancouver Island University, University of Utah, University of Victoria, The Evergreen State College, Skokomish Nation, Squamish Nation, Musqueam First Nation, Karen Carr Studio, Queen Mary University of London, Texas A&M University, Simon Fraser University, The Francis Crick Institute, University of East Anglia, Ludwig Maximilian University Munich, University of Oxford, University of York, Centre for Paleogenetics in Sweden, Stockholm University, Swedish Museum of Natural History, University of Copenhagen, the National Institutes of Health in the United States, Memorial University of Newfoundland, University of California at Davis, University of Copenhagen and Cardiff University.
This research was supported by the Smithsonian, European Molecular Biology Organization, the Vallee Foundation, the European Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, the Francis Crick Institute, Cancer Research UK, the Medical Research Council and Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
About the National Museum of Natural History
The National Museum of Natural History is connecting people everywhere with Earth’s unfolding story. It is one of the most visited natural history museums in the world. Opened in 1910, the museum is dedicated to maintaining and preserving the world’s most extensive collection of natural history specimens and human artifacts. The museum is open daily, except Dec. 25, from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Admission is free. For more information, visit the museum on its website, blog, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
The History of Coast Salish ‘Woolly Dogs’ Revealed by Ancient Genomics and Indigenous Knowledge
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
14-Dec-2023
Pelt of the woolly dog Mutton in the Smithsonian’s collection
The 160-year-old pelt of the woolly dog Mutton in the Smithsonian’s collection.
Researchers from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History led a new analysis that sheds light on the ancestry and genetics of woolly dogs, a now extinct breed of dog that was a fixture of Indigenous Coast Salish communities in the Pacific Northwest for millennia. The study’s findings, published today, Dec. 14, in the journal Science, include interviews contributed by several Coast Salish co-authors, including Elders, Knowledge Keepers and Master Weavers, who provided crucial context about the role woolly dogs played in Coast Salish society.
By the mid-19th century, the once thriving Coast Salish dog wool-weaving tradition was in decline. In the late 1850s, naturalist and ethnographer George Gibbs cared for a woolly dog named Mutton. When Mutton died in 1859, Gibbs sent his pelt to the nascent Smithsonian Institution, where the fleece has resided ever since.
Mutton’s genetics could tell the researchers little about what caused these dogs to decline. Traditionally, scholars have speculated that the arrival of machine-made blankets to the region in the early 19th century made woolly dogs expendable. But insights from Coast Salish community members and experts revealed that it was improbable that such a central part of Coast Salish society could be replaced.
Woolly dogs were likely doomed by numerous factors impacting the Coast Salish tribal nations after European settlers arrived. Due to disease and colonial policies of cultural genocide, displacement and forced assimilation, it likely became increasingly difficult or forbidden for Coast Salish communities to maintain their woolly dogs.
CREDIT
Brittany M. Hance, Smithsonian
USAGE RESTRICTIONS
News media use of the photos in relation to the study is permitted with attribution.
LICENSE
Original content
A classic-style Coast Salish blanket
A classic-style Coast Salish blanket, which includes a mixture of woolly dog and goat wool. The woolly dog wool is in the warp (vertical strands). Accessioned 1858. Collection notes.
Researchers from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History led a new analysis that sheds light on the ancestry and genetics of woolly dogs, a now extinct breed of dog that was a fixture of Indigenous Coast Salish communities in the Pacific Northwest for millennia. The study’s findings, published today, Dec. 14, in the journal Science, include interviews contributed by several Coast Salish co-authors, including Elders, Knowledge Keepers and Master Weavers, who provided crucial context about the role woolly dogs played in Coast Salish society.
Coast Salish tribal nations in Washington state and British Columbia bred and cared for woolly dogs for thousands of years. Prized for their thick undercoats, the dogs were sheared like sheep and often kept in pens or on islands to carefully manage their breeding and to care for the canines’ health and vitality. Coast Salish weavers used the dogs’ wool to craft blankets and other woven items that served a variety of ceremonial and spiritual purposes.
“We were very excited to participate in a study that embraces the most sophisticated Western science with the most established Traditional Knowledge,” said Michael Pavel, an Elder from the Skokomish/Twana Coast Salish community in Washington, who remembers hearing about woolly dogs early in his childhood. “It was incredibly rewarding to contribute to this effort to embrace and celebrate our understanding of the woolly dog.”
Despite their disappearance, the memory of woolly dogs is still embedded into Coast Salish society. And Pavel thinks their understanding of woolly dogs is only getting clearer thanks to the new research effort.
CREDIT
Smithsonian
USAGE RESTRICTIONS
News media use of the photos in relation to the study is permitted with attribution.
LICENSE
Original content
Thursday, November 02, 2023
Researchers hope tracking senior Myanmar army officers can ascertain blame for human rights abuses GRANT PECK Wed, November 1, 2023 Myanmar War Crimes FILE - An alphabet book and a notebook lie on top of an elevated wooden floorboard of a middle school in Let Yet Kone village in Tabayin township in the Sagaing region of Myanmar on Sept. 17, 2022, the day after an air strike hit the school. A group of human rights researchers officially launched a website Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2023 that they hope will help get justice for victims of state violence in Myanmar, where one of the world’s less-noticed but still brutal armed struggles is taking place.
BANGKOK (AP) — A group of human rights researchers officially launched a website Wednesday that they hope will help get justice for victims of state violence in Myanmar, where one of the world’s less-noticed but still brutal armed struggles is taking place.
Since the army seized power in February 2021 from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, thousands of people have been killed by the security forces seeking to quash pro-democracy resistance. According to the United Nations, more than 1.8 million have been displaced by military offensives, which critics charge have involved gross violations of human rights.
War crimes have become easier to document in recent years thanks largely to the ubiquity of cellphone cameras and the near-universal access to social media, where photo and video evidence can easily be posted and viewed.
But it's harder to establish who is responsible for such crimes, especially generals and other high-ranking officers behind the scenes who make the plans and give the orders.
“Generals and lower ranking officers should fear being dragged before a court of law and imprisoned for crimes they ordered or authorized,” Tom Andrews, the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, told the AP by email. “Research must move beyond merely stating the obvious — that crimes are occurring — and connect those who are responsible to specific atrocities. The victims of these crimes deserve justice and that will require the research necessary to hold those responsible fully accountable.”
The new website, myanmar.securityforcemonitor.org, is an interactive online version of a report, “Under Whose Command? — Human rights abuses under Myanmar’s military rule,” compiled by Security Force Monitor, a project of the Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute, to connect alleged crimes with their perpetrators.
The project’s team constructed a timeline of senior commanders and their postings, which can be correlated with documented instances of alleged atrocities that occurred under their commands. It exposes the army’s chain of command, identifying senior army commanders and showing the connections from alleged rights violations to these commanders, study director Tony Wilson told The Associated Press in an email interview.
“This is one of the pieces of the jigsaw that has up until now been missing in terms of accountability — demonstrating how the system works and that these abuses are not just the result of rogue units or individual soldiers,” he said.
Wilson said the Myanmar data show that 65%, or 51 of all 79 senior army commanders between the end of March 2011 and the end of March this year, “had alleged disappearances, killings, rape or instances of torture committed by units under their command.”
He said the study also shows the officer with the most links to serious human rights violations is Gen. Mya Htun Oo, who became defense minister and a member of the ruling military council when the army seized power in 2021. He also became deputy prime minister in 2023.
The legal significance leans on the established doctrine of “command responsibility,” which allows the prosecution under international law of military commanders for war crimes perpetrated by their subordinates.
“Establishing the command structures of militaries and other groups involved in atrocities is the lifeblood of properly conducting investigations into international crimes,” Mark Kersten, assistant professor of criminology and criminal justice at Canada’s University of the Fraser Valley, said in an email to The Associated Press. “When the Nazis were prosecuted at Nuremberg, the lead counsel for the Allies famously exclaimed that it was individuals who would be prosecuted for atrocities, and not abstract entities, namely states.”
Collecting evidence of human rights violations in Syria’s civil war has served as a guide to utilizing online information and technical advances to gather and organize evidence of war crimes. Similar projects have also been launched in other areas of conflict including Sudan, Yemen and Ukraine.
Since 2021, evidence-gathering groups have formed in Myanmar, including Myanmar Witness, an NGO that seeks to “collect, analyse, verify and store evidence related to human rights incidents … in a way that is compatible with future human rights prosecutions.”
Similar work for Myanmar has already been done by groups documenting the security forces’ brutal 2017 counterinsurgency campaign in the western part of the country that drove an estimated 740,000 Rohingya to seek safety across the border in Bangladesh. Several international tribunals have been considering charges of genocide and other crimes brought against the army for their activities.
“Our work can complement and feed into the work of documenting abuses,” said Wilson. “Because we always aim to map the entire police or military, our research can help make connections between what human rights groups have documented and the wider chain of command.”
He said the project relied on open-source information drawn from the work of national and international human rights organizations and local activists, as well as books, independent newspapers and the military’s own media outlets.
Its previous work includes research on the Mexican Army’s chain of command for a complaint to the International Criminal Court alleging crimes against humanity. Its methodology has been used to support the Syrian Archive’s submission of evidence to investigative and prosecute authorities in Germany, France, and Sweden about the 2013 sarin gas attack on Khan Shaykhun.
“We’ve applied lessons learned from researching militaries around the world to our work in Myanmar, and we would not have been able to map the Myanmar Army without those lessons,” said Wilson.
Tuesday, October 24, 2023
Israel-Hamas war threatens world economy, bankers tell Saudi forum
Robbie COREY-BOULET and Haitham EL-TABEI Tue, 24 October 2023 at 6:43
In this article: Ajay Banga Indian American business executive, CEO of Mastercard Israel has bombarded targets in the Gaza Strip for more than two weeks since Hamas's deadly cross-border attacks on October 7 and is poised for a widely anticipated ground offensive (Jack Guez)
The war between Israel and Hamas could deal a heavy blow to the global economy, banking titans told a glitzy investment forum in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.
The dour mood from some of the gathering's most high-profile speakers underscored how the war threatens attempts by the world's biggest oil exporter to diversify its economy away from fossil fuels.
Hamas militants stormed into Israel from the Gaza Strip on October 7 and killed at least 1,400 people, mostly civilians who were shot or burnt to death on the first day of the raid, according to Israeli officials.
The militants also took 222 people hostage, among them elderly people and young children, according to the Israeli authorities' latest count.
More than 5,700 Palestinians, mainly civilians, have been killed across the Gaza Strip in retaliatory Israeli bombardments, the territory's Hamas-run health ministry said.
"What just happened recently in Israel and Gaza -- at the end of the day you put all this together, I think the impact on economic development is even more serious," World Bank President Ajay Banga told the Future Investment Initiative (FII), often referred to as "Davos in the Desert", on Tuesday.
"I think we're at a very dangerous juncture," he added.
The raging war risks drawing in other countries, notably Lebanon, home to the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group which has engaged in daily exchanges of fire with Israeli forces.
"If these things are not resolved, it probably means more global terrorism, which means more insecurity, which means more (of) society is going to be fearful, less hope," said BlackRock CEO Larry Fink.
"And when there's less hope we see contractions in our economies."
More than 6,000 delegates are registered for the three-day event that will feature appearances by global banking chiefs and the presidents of South Korea, Kenya and Rwanda, organisers say.
- Unstable neighbourhood -
But Wall Street leaders indicated that lofty themes of innovation and economic transformation would be at least partly overshadowed by the shocking violence in Israel and Gaza.
"We're sitting here with the backdrop, which I think we all acknowledge, of the aftermath of the terrorist attack in Israel and the events that have been unfolding since, and it's desperately sad. So it's hard not to be a little bit pessimistic," Citi CEO Jane Fraser said.
The war stands in stark contrast to the vision of a more stable and prosperous Middle East championed by Saudi Arabia, which this year rebuilt ties with Iran and was in talks towards recognising Israel before the fighting broke out.
The conflict comes halfway through the Vision 2030 reform agenda championed by the kingdom's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, which is intended to remake the oil-reliant Saudi economy.
"Saudi Arabia today is all about their internal transformation which demands a stable neighbourhood," said Kristin Diwan of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.
"It's harder to get people to invest, to golf in Riyadh, or to sun along the Red Sea coast when the region is associated with war and terrorism."
Riyadh has condemned violence against civilians in Gaza and affirmed its support for the Palestinian cause.
A source familiar with discussions on possible normalisation with Israel told AFP this month that the process had been paused.
- Hopes for stability -
Saudi officials have signalled they intend to forge ahead with their economic reform plans despite fears of wider regional turmoil.
In addition to FII, the capital this week is hosting its first fashion week and a boxing match between Tyson Fury and Francis Ngannou.
The FII opening ceremony featured a vocal performance by Britain's Got Talent contestant Malakai Bayoh as a giant dove flashed on a screen behind him.
Some attendees struck a positive note despite grim headlines from the region.
The war "is in the minds of each and everyone", Laurent Germain, CEO of construction engineering firm Egis Group, told AFP.
"But I guess in the economic world we're optimistic people. We're hoping for the comeback to stability as soon as possible."
Atul Arya, chief energy strategist at S&P Global Commodity Insights, said the current geopolitical situation was "challenging" but that "economic development never stops".
rcb/th/srm
Sunday, October 22, 2023
As drought dries up B.C. rivers, conservationists turn to beavers for help
CBC Sun, October 22, 2023
The ongoing drought in many parts of B.C. is causing some rivers in the province's northern Interior to reach their driest mid-October levels in years.
In Prince George, the unusually low waters have locals worried.
Harriet Schoeter moved to the northern B.C. city 60 years ago, and loves walking the shore where the Fraser and Nechako rivers meet.
This week, the water was so low she could almost walk right across.
"I've never seen it this low," she said. "It was low before, but not like this."
Wayne Salewski, with the Nechako Environment and Water Stewardship Society, said the river is indeed at its driest for this time of year in decades.
"It's horridly low — unbelievably low," Salewski said, standing on the dry river bottom at the confluence of the two Prince George rivers. "Everything is going to pay the price for that.
"Our streams are dry right now … We need to hold water in place." A family walks on the riverbed where water normally flows at the confluence of the Nechako and Fraser rivers near Prince George, B.C., on Wednesday. (Jason Peters/CBC)
The shallower and warmer waters will harm salmon, sturgeon, and people whose livelihoods depend on healthy rivers, he said.
Now, Salewski's non-profit is looking for help to slow water loss in tributaries, from Canada's best-known builders: beavers.
'Nature's engineers'
According to data from Environment and Climate Change Canada, the Fraser River near Prince George is at its lowest for this week in 17 years, and nearly a third below the historical average for October.
The Nechako River, which flows into the Fraser from a reservoir to the city's west, is at its lowest for this time of year since records were kept.
A Prince George, B.C., railway bridge at the confluence of the Nechako and Fraser rivers is seen in an October 2021 photograph. This October’s river levels are far below average for this time of year. (Submitted by Chuck Chin)
Salewski asked engineers at the University of Northern B.C. to help plan beaver dam analogues (BDAs), a promising fix that's common in Washington, Idaho and other U.S. states.
Sometimes also known as artificial logjams, the idea is to simulate the flat-tailed rodents' wood-and-mud dams to retain tributaries' moisture in small pools.
"Beavers are nature's engineers," said Mauricio Dziedzic, chair of UNBC engineering. "They tend to build dams that hold for quite a while."
He is helping Salewski's society with the technical aspects of beaver-style building. Thanks to their sharp teeth, he said, beavers cut wood to start a new dam, criss-crossing branches in a stream, adding mud, and then packing it tight with their flat tails. Beavers use their sharp teeth to cut wood to build dams — criss-crossing branches in a stream, adding mud, and then packing it tight with their flat tails. (David P. Lewis/Shutterstock)
"They use their tails to tap it and and make it almost impervious," he said.
"A man-made structure made to look and function similarly — by keeping that water behind the dam — you recharge the groundwater [and] make the soil moisture increase."
'A more resilient kind of a waterway'
B.C. already has several such pilot projects. The B.C. Wildlife Federation (BCWF) and Nicola Valley Institute of Technology researchers installed nearly a dozen BDAs on a stream near Merritt, B.C., earlier this year.
The federation plans to build at least 100 more across the province's Interior and North, including in Nechako tributaries.
By driving vertical wood poles into the stream bed, and weaving them with debris such as logs, evergreen boughs and mud, their hope is beavers will take over their maintenance.
A beaver dam analogue is set up in Howard Creek, a tributary of the Nicola River, where 10 of the artificial logjams have been built as a pilot project that could soon expand across B.C. (Submitted by B.C. Wildlife Federation)
"It is basically a starter kit for a beaver," explained Neil Fletcher, BCTF's conservation stewardship director. "Can we encourage beavers to come back onto the land base and help hold that water?
"Beaver dam analogues can be part of post-fire recovery, as well as to respond to drought and climate change."
Last April, the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation offered the BCWF $100,000 to try out the woven wood dams across B.C.
A map of B.C. shows the seven-day average streamflow on waterways across the province according to the River Forecast Centre on Friday. The darker-red dots represent the most drought-affected rivers, and paler dots represent the least drought-affected, compared to their usual water flow. (B.C. River Forecast Centre/National Geographic maps)
Fletcher said a key area for study is how BDAs impact fish. But he said U.S. evidence suggests salmon can often migrate past beaver dams, or take advantage of their pools.
Salewski said the artificial beaver dams' low costs have big appeal — especially if beavers themselves can take over their maintenance.
"Fundamentally, a beaver dam analogue is building the landscape for beavers to move in in 10 to 15 years," he told CBC News.
"This idea … is actually trying to work toward wetland corridors, to create this new mosaic and build a more resilient kind of a waterway here."
Contaminants in cannabis and hemp flowers create potential for health risks
Team of researchers urges further study and evaluation of standards for medical use
MATURE CANNABIS INFLORESCENCES EXHIBIT A LARGE FLORAL STRUCTURE THAT IS COMPOSED OF FEMALE REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS (PISTILS), INFLORESCENCE LEAVES, AND THE BRACTS SURROUNDING THEM. PHOTO FROM FRONTIERS IN MICROBIOLOGY, COURTESY OF Z. PUNJA.
CREDIT: PHOTO FROM FRONTIERS IN MICROBIOLOGY, COURTESY OF Z. PUNJA
Cannabis use, even for medical purposes, could make some people sick due to harmful fungi that contaminate the plants.
That is the finding of a recently published peer-reviewed journal article, whose authors recommend further study and consideration of changes to regulations to protect consumers, especially those who are immunocompromised. They examined data, previous studies, and U.S. and international regulations related to the cannabis and hemp industry.
The article was published in Frontiers in Microbiology. It was researched and written by Kimberly Gwinn, professor of entomology and plant pathology at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture: Maxwell Leung, assistant professor, and Ariell Stephens, graduate student, both from the School of Mathematical and Natural Sciences at Arizona State University; and Zamir Punja, professor of plant pathology/biotechnology at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada.
“Hemp and cannabis are new crops, and we are in the early stages of understanding relationships with their pathogens. Several pathogens produce mycotoxins, compounds that negatively impact human health and are regulated in other crops. In this review, we summarize the current literature on mycotoxins in hemp and cannabis products, identify research gaps in potential mycotoxin contamination in hemp and cannabis, and identify potential developments based on research in other crop systems,” Gwinn said.
Cannabis research has mostly focused on the substance and medical uses of the plant, but with the increased legalization of cannabis for various uses, this article addresses the need for more study of potential health risks.
“Although fungi and mycotoxins are common and well-studied contaminants in many agricultural crop species, they have been generally under-studied in cannabis and hemp. This is partly because human health risk assessment methodologies used to regulate food and pharmaceuticals have yet to become standard for the emerging cannabis and hemp industries. Additionally, the wide range of consumer uses of cannabis and hemp flowers, including for medical use by patients with susceptible conditions, makes it uniquely challenging to assess and manage human health risk of these contaminants,” according to the article.
The authors discuss Aspergillus, Penicillium, Fusarium, Mucor, and other fungi that can infect the plants and can produce mycotoxins; review the regulations and assessment methods of the contaminants; and offer recommendations to produce safer products for all consumers. Environmental factors such as where the plants are grown, whether indoors or outdoors, and in soil or soilless media, may impact the kinds of contaminants and ensuing health risks.
Studies reviewed by the authors show some fungi may cause infection on lung and skin tissues, and these infections were most common when smoked and less common in edibles. They also found cancer patients using cannabis to help with nausea and appetite as well as transplant patients and consumers with HIV and type 1 diabetes may be particularly susceptible to infection. Studies also show workers harvesting cannabis could also be at risk. The authors encouraged consumers who are immunocompromised to use products that have been sterilized until better data are obtained.
The authors studied international and U.S. standards for these contaminants, but there is a lack of data on the prevalence of the contaminants and their health impacts. Another issue for consumers is the varying levels of legalization of cannabis products from state to state, which has resulted in each state creating its own regulations. Fusarium mycotoxins, a prevalent class of fungal contaminants in agricultural commodities that can result in vomiting, are not currently regulated.
Assessing and testing for pathogens can be problematic, as the authors found when they studied various methods including culture-based assays, immuno-based technologies, and emerging technologies. The article also examines management of the possible toxins before harvest and after harvest. “A major hurdle faced by cannabis and hemp industries is addressing the disconnect between production-related issues and human safety issues,” the article states. Recreational use of hemp and cannabis is common in many areas and all case studies linking cannabis use and fungal infections, except one, involved patients who were immunocompromised. The authors suggest a potential solution is “to reduce potential harm to medical users of cannabis from toxigenic fungi is to develop a two-tier system that distinguishes products intended for medical and recreational use.”
“We wrote this article to bring these issues to the attention of the scientific, medical, and regulatory communities. We hope to encourage further research in this area, particularly in the areas of mycotoxins in product. Better data and public access to data will allow us to fully evaluate these risks and subsequently ensure safe products for consumers,” Gwinn said.
The University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture is composed of UT AgResearch, UT College of Veterinary Medicine, UT Extension, and the Herbert College of Agriculture. Through its land-grant mission of research, teaching and extension, the Institute touches lives and provides Real. Life. Solutions. utia.tennessee.edu.
mycelium (IMAGE)
UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE INSTITUTE OF AGRICULTURE
Proliferation of mycelium of a Fusarium species within cannabis inflorescence tissues under conditions of high humidity.
CREDIT
Photo from Frontiers in Microbiology, courtesy of Z. Punja.
JOURNAL
Frontiers in Microbiology
ARTICLE TITLE
Fungal and mycotoxin contaminants in cannabis and hemp flowers: implications for consumer health and directions for further research
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
19-Oct-2023
Thursday, October 19, 2023
Amid inflation, a housing crisis and conflict with Trudeau, Alberta adopted rent control — 48 years ago
CBC Thu, October 19, 2023
Sky-high inflation. Exorbitant rent increases. Conflict between Alberta and Prime Minister Trudeau.
The year is not 2023.
It's 1975.
Albertans were grappling then, like they are now, with a surging cost of living, high interest rates and a housing crisis.
The Progressive Conservative government of premier Peter Lougheed had just been re-elected in the spring with a commanding majority. That summer, amid growing calls from tenants groups who felt gouged by what they described as frequent and unreasonable price increases from landlords, the PCs were adamant that rent controls were not the solution.
By autumn, they had changed their minds.
In the face of mounting pressure both locally and federally — as prime minister Pierre Trudeau's government prepared its own set of wage and price controls — the Alberta government reluctantly adopted legislation in December 1975 that put an 18-month cap on rent increases in the province: no more than 10 per cent in 1976 and no more than nine per cent in the first six months of 1977. After that, the rent-control law would be phased out.
It was a controversial move. Free-market advocates abhorred the government intervention, while tenants groups felt the rules were too lenient. Enforcement was also a challenge, with numerous cases ending up in court.
A Calgary Herald article from Oct. 22, 1975, in which Calgary-Buffalo PC MLA Ron Ghitter discusses 'reluctantly and unhappily' calling for rent control in Alberta. (Newspapers.com/Screenshot)
Today, Ron Ghitter looks back at the rent control legislation as an extraordinary measure at an extraordinary time. He was the PC MLA for Calgary-Buffalo and one of the architects of Alberta's landlord-tenant policy of the 1970s. And while he sees many parallels from that era to today, he doesn't believe a return to rent control is the right way to tackle the current housing crisis.
"I would be opposed to it personally," he said in an interview. "The problems that we've got are much deeper than what rent controls will solve."
Alberta's current United Conservative government has also rejected recent calls for rent control in the province.
So how did the government of 1975 come to adopt the policy, albeit reluctantly?
A combination of factors coalesced at the time, some of which may sound familiar to Albertans today, while others may seem quite foreign. And rent control wasn't the only measure the provincial government took in response to the housing crisis of the era. Additional policies included a temporary ban on apartment-to-condo conversions and a renters' tax credit. Those worked in concert with long-since-expired federal policies aimed at encouraging the construction of more rental housing.
Opinions then, like today, differed on which policies would provide the best solutions. In retrospect, there is still disagreement. But the experiences from nearly half a century ago still hold relevance — and may offer some lessons — when it comes to the housing crisis facing so many people today. What's old is new again — sort of
On the surface, the parallels between the mid-1970s and today seem numerous.
Economically, both eras saw high levels of global inflation, high interest rates, rapid population growth in Alberta and rapidly surging rents — especially in Calgary.
Politically, both eras saw a conservative government in Alberta that was often at odds with a Liberal government in Ottawa — led by a prime minister named Trudeau.
Pierre Trudeau, left, was prime minister in 1975. His son, Justin Trudeau, is prime minister in 2023. (AFP/Getty Images, Evan Mitsui/CBC)
Both eras also saw the Alberta NDP calling for more government action on affordable housing, led then by Grant Notley and today by his daughter, Rachel Notley.
Then, a group calling itself the Calgary Tenants' Committee circulated a rent-control petition that had amassed 12,000 signatures by November 1975. Among the signatories were two Calgary aldermen (although both said they didn't fully support the petition's demands.)
At first, the PC government of the 1970s came out against the idea, saying rent control would inhibit the construction of new rental housing, disincentivize maintenance on existing rental properties and ultimately harm the lower-income tenants it aimed to protect.
"The record in other parts of Canada and elsewhere indicates that such tenants in the long term suffer greater indignities when rents are controlled," Alberta's consumer affairs minister, Graham Harle, was quoted as saying in a July 1975 newspaper article.
Nearly a half-century later, Community and Social Services Minister Jason Nixon made much the same argument.
At left, Graham Harle, who served as Alberta's consumer affairs minister in 1975. At right, Jason Nixon, the province's current minister of community and social services. (Newspapers.com, Alberta.ca)
"I don't want to see more good, hard-working people become homeless," he told the Calgary Sun in August 2023. "That's what rent control in the end will do. It will create less space for people to be able to live."
The current Alberta government has so far stuck to its position.
So why did the Alberta government of 1975 end up backtracking?
Then vs. now
One difference between then and now has been the target of public ire over the housing crisis.
Today, much of the attention in Calgary has been focused on the municipal government, especially as it debated a contentious new affordable housing policy earlier this year. Federally, the opposition have also made housing a key point of attack on the Liberal government.
Meanwhile, the Alberta government has not faced the same level of political pressure.
Back in 1975, by contrast, the opposition Social Credit party had been calling for rent control specifically and, when the PCs finally introduced it, NDP Leader Grant Notley criticized the legislation as not going far enough.
"There was great pressure on us as a government to do something about rent," Ghitter recalled of the era.
Grant Notley, left, led the Alberta NDP in 1975. His daughter, Rachel Notley, leads the Alberta NDP in 2023. (CBC Archives, Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press)
Adding to the local pressure was a situation in federal politics that had not been seen since wartime and has never been seen again since. To deal with spiralling inflation in 1975, Ottawa brought forward a broad set of wage and price controls — a staggering degree of government intervention that was ultimately tested (and approved) by the Supreme Court.
Landlord-tenant relations, as a provincial responsibility, were outside Ottawa's direct purview but the federal government exerted pressure on provincial premiers to go along with the national plan when it came to housing costs.
In the end, Lougheed — sometimes known as "Peter the Pink" by more hard-line conservatives — agreed with the feds, but on the condition that agricultural and energy products would be exempted from federal price controls. Also, Alberta's rent control would be phased out after 18 months instead of the the three-year period Ottawa had been asking for.
The Alberta premier struck a conciliatory tone in announcing the about-face on rent control, saying the province needed to join the national effort to break the cycle — and psychology — of inflation.
"I agree with the prime minister's statement that Canadians are developing a significant fear of of inflation and are trying to overcompensate for the most severe inflation they can imagine," Lougheed said during the opening of the provincial legislature in November 1975.
"This attitude must be checked, and for this reason Alberta will work with the federal government."
Similar measures would be harder to imagine in today's political climate.
The federal wage controls were sweeping in their scope and scale, and nothing remotely close has been proposed by the current Liberal government in response to the modern inflation situation.
And Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, to date, has also been less willing than Lougheed to find common ground with the current Trudeau government on a host of issues — especially those involving federal overlap into provincial jurisdiction.
How it worked out
Opponents of rent control feared Lougheed would break the 18-month promise, but his government indeed began to unwind its policy in June 1977.
It took a phased approach and, by June 1980, all units that had been subject to rent control in Alberta were decontrolled.
In 1982, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation commissioned a report into the Alberta government's dalliance with rental-market regulation.
It found the province's policy had largely managed to achieve the goal of mitigating the housing crisis in the short term without stifling the construction of new rental housing in the longer term — which was a primary concern among rent-control opponents. It credited the short duration of the policy and nuances in the regulation that allowed landlords to pass on some additional costs to tenants in exceptional circumstances.
"These two aspects of the program served to alleviate any negative impacts on the rental housing market," the report reads. "New housing starts do not appear to have slowed due to rent control by itself."
The CMHC report also praised the decision to phase out the rent controls over time rather than having them end abruptly.
"The decontrol scheme did serve to soften and spread out the increases that would have taken place had the controls been lifted with no thought to the resultant increases that might occur," it reads.
Another key aspect of the legislation was the prohibition on the conversion of rental apartments to condominiums for sale, which the report found was effective and "made any transfers out of the rental market negligible."
There was also another provincial policy that helped ease the burden on renters during that era. Renters tax credit
Flip through newspaper archives from the 1970s and, scattered among the many articles, opinion columns and letters to the editor debating the pros and cons of rent control, you'll find advertisements from the Alberta government promoting its "renter assistance credit."
This was a benefit individuals could claim on their income taxes and was available to most people who paid rent. The value of the benefit was on a sliding scale: the amount of money you could receive diminished with your household income.
Today's rent assistance, by contrast, must be applied for separately and is aimed at low-income people living in subsidized units provided by housing management bodies.
A newspaper ad from 1975 promoting the Alberta government's renter assistance credit, which was a benefit claimed on individuals' income taxes. (Newspapers.com)
Alberta kept the renters tax credit even after ending rent control, and even boosted it. By 1983, it was worth up to a maximum of $500 annually minus one per cent of a household's taxable income.
The province cancelled the renters tax credit in its 1987 budget, amid a host of austerity measures brought in after a crash in oil-and-gas royalties. By that time, the rental market had completely changed as well, and provincial treasurer Dick Johnston defended the decision, noting "the vacancy rate across most of Alberta is, in fact, at the highest levels ever."
Today, you can still find tax credits aimed at renters in other provinces. Ontario's Trillium Benefit and Manitoba's Residential Renters Tax Credit, for example, both offer modest benefits to low-to-moderate-income tenants.
British Columbia also introduced a new renter's tax credit in its 2023 budget. Lower-income tenants in that province will be able to claim up to $400 in benefits when they file their income taxes in 2024.
Tim Richter, president and CEO of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, says these types of benefits administered through the tax system are an easier and more efficient way for tenants living in precarious rental situations to get financial support, compared to government programs that require a separate application process.
But he also noted that Ontario, Manitoba and B.C. each have some form of rent control today, too.
He cautioned that the hypothetical return of a renters tax credit in Alberta could have unintended consequences and end up benefiting landlords more than tenants.
"Alberta doesn't have rent control," Richter said. "I would be worried about a very large-scale subsidy of consumers being captured by landlords who now realize that, 'Everybody is going to get a subsidy of X per cent, so I'm just going to raise my rent by X per cent.'" Lessons from the past?
In retrospect, Ghitter said the rent controls his government adopted nearly a half-century ago were ultimately "a negative force, economically" and shouldn't be repeated because he believes they would slow the construction of new rental housing.
"What you need to do, really, is you need to have programs that will create more affordable housing," Ghitter said.
One 1970s-era policy he would like to see resurrected is the Multiple Unit Residential Buildings (MURB) provision to the federal Income Tax Act, which allowed investors to claim depreciation and some other costs of building rental apartments against unrelated income.
"It invited investors — net worth people, doctors, lawyers, whatever — to invest in construction of multi-family housing," Ghitter said. "And it was a tax advantage to them. The investor could write that off immediately and they were hopeful that the housing would bring them some benefits."
The CMHC also commissioned a study into the MURB program in 1981, which found the policy to be "an important component of the recovery in rental construction in the mid to late 1970s."
"However, it appears likely that, if left to its own devices, the rental market would have begun to respond to the excess demand on its own — albeit at higher rents."
The report adds: "The main beneficiaries of the MURB provision from the supply side of the market have been the developer/promoters and investors with high marginal tax rates."
In a recent briefing note from the CMHC to Housing Minister Sean Fraser (obtained by CBC News under access-to-information laws), the MURB policy was credited with encouraging the construction of about 195,000 units at a cost of $2.4 billion in forgone taxes.
"Since the elimination of the MURB program in 1982, tax policy in relation to rental housing development has remained largely unchanged and current tax regulations are less favourable to rental investment than have been historically," the briefing note said.
Richter, with the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, believes the MURB program was an effective tool. After it ended, he said, "you saw the construction of rental housing drop off and investors getting more into things like condominiums, which … obviously had a better return."
"So tax incentives are a really, really powerful incentive," he said.
Ghitter believes the key challenge with today's housing crisis is a lack of supply. He believes the role of government should be to encourage the construction of new rental housing, rather than to restrict the price of rent. Over the long haul, he believes that will bring the most relief to people struggling to afford their housing.
Richter agrees a permanent solution is needed but also says people struggling to pay rent right now need immediate supports.
"You want to provide relief to people in the short term, for sure," he said. "But in the long term, you know, you've got to build the housing supply and you've got to have a housing supply that matches with the growth of the province, or else you'll just have people permanently struggling to pay rent, right?"
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