Public schools and colleges in California must stock restrooms with free menstrual products under new law

Connor Perrett

Sat, October 9, 2021

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday signed into law a bill that will require all public schools and colleges in the state to stock restrooms with free menstrual products. Isabel Pavia/Getty Images

• A California law will require public schools and colleges to provide free menstrual products.

• The law, signed Friday, builds on a 2017 law that required they be available in low-income schools.

• "Our biology doesn't always send an advanced warning when we're about to start menstruating," the lawmaker who sponsored the bill told the Associated Press.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday signed into law a bill that will require all public schools and colleges in the state to stock restrooms with free menstrual products.

According to the Associated Press, the legislation builds on a 2017 law that required public schools in low-income areas to provide menstrual products for free.

The new law requires schools to provide free menstrual products in at least half of their restrooms, including in all women's restrooms, in all-gender restrooms, and in at least one men's restroom. The cost of the products to schools would be reimbursed by the state, according to the legislation.

"Our biology doesn't always send an advanced warning when we're about to start menstruating, which often means we need to stop whatever we're doing and deal with a period," said Cristina Garcia, the California lawmaker who introduced the legislation, per AP. "Just as toilet paper and paper towels are provided in virtually every public bathrooms, so should menstrual products."

California in early 2020 enacted legislation to eliminate sales tax on menstrual products, often called the tampon tax. According to Marie Claire, 20 states and Washington, DC, have eliminated the tax on menstrual products.

The California legislation requires free menstrual products to be provided in the bathrooms of students in grades 6 through 12, in community colleges, at California State University, and at all University of California systems beginning in the 2022-23 school year, the AP first reported.

While the law does not require private institutions to do the same, it encourages them to do so.

"California joins a growing number of states who lead the way in demonstrating that menstrual equity is a matter of human rights," the advocacy group PERIOD said in a statement, according to the AP. "No student should ever lose learning time due to their periods, period."

Column: Up to 1 million gallons of water ... a night? That's par for some desert golf courses


Steve Lopez
Sat, October 9, 2021

Ecologists Robin Kobaly and Doug Thompson are concerned about the amount of water used to irrigate golf courses in the Coachella Valley. 

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Doug Thompson couldn’t believe what he’d just been told. His wife, a botanist, was advising a Coachella Valley country club on drought-resistant landscaping, and Thompson, who got to talking with the groundskeeper, asked how much water it takes to irrigate a golf course.

“He proudly said they had just computerized their system and they were down to 1.2 million gallons a night,” recalls Thompson, an ecologist who leads natural history expeditions. “I thought I didn’t hear him correctly, so about 30 minutes later I asked again, and he said the same thing.”

That conversation took place a few years ago. But in the midst of a prolonged drought that has prompted a first-ever federal declaration of a water shortage in the Colorado River Basin and brought calls for greater conservation throughout California, Thompson and his wife, Robin Kobaly, became more keenly aware of all the lush green golf courses set against the parched landscape of the Coachella Valley.

How many golf courses?

About 120, many of them shoulder to shoulder across the desert floor, complete with decorative ponds, fountains and streams. It’s one of the highest concentrations of golf courses in the world.

“From the homework we have done ... the smaller courses use at least several hundred thousand gallons a night, but the larger courses are in the 1-million-gallon range or more,” Thompson said.

“It’s not only an outrage,” he added, “but many months of the year, it's too hot to play golf in the desert, yet the watering continues.”

When I met with Thompson and Kobaly in the desert, they told me they’re not trying to shut down the golf industry, and I’m with them on that. There’d be no Palm Springs without golf, just as there would have been no Rat Pack without Sinatra. The industry employs several thousand people, drawing hordes of snowbirds and pumping as much as $1 billion into the local economy.

But the planet now spins on a rotisserie, roasted and toasted in ways that are transforming landscapes and forcing us to adapt. Thompson and Kobaly wonder why golf courses aren’t doing more to conserve.

“This water crisis is huge,” Thompson said. “They’ll ask us to do things like don’t leave the water running when you brush your teeth, and it’s illegal to wash your car unless you turn off the valve on the hose. That might save 10 gallons of water, and meanwhile a million gallons a night are being used on every golf course in the Coachella Valley.”

When I put these observations to Craig Kessler, director of governmental affairs for the Southern California Golf Assn., he was more than happy to respond, as well as to share his considerable knowledge of state water policy.

And he threw me a curve.

Kessler said Coachella Valley golf courses are in much better shape in terms of water supplies than golf courses in California’s wetter climates. That’s because the desert, which had less than an inch of rain in the last season, has much more water to draw from, including a vast aquifer that sits beneath the desert floor.

“It’s complicated and counterintuitive,” Kessler said, but many coastal golf courses that rely on the state’s melted snowpack and rain have been harder hit by the drought than those in the desert.

The Coachella Valley Water District (CVWD), which serves 105 of the golf courses, draws from the California Water Project, the Colorado River and the aquifer. Kessler, who heads up the Coachella Valley Golf and Water Task Force, said much of the water used to irrigate golf courses is non-potable.

And yet, those 120 golf courses do indeed use massive amounts of precious, increasingly scarce water. Kessler said the valley has less than 1% of Southern California’s population, but 28.6% of its golf courses. Golf, he said, consumes less than 1% of all water used in California, but nearly 25% of Coachella Valley water.

So what are they doing about it? A lot, Kessler said, and the conservation effort goes back several years. Golf courses have been removing turf, narrowing fairways, installing more sophisticated irrigation systems, researching less thirsty grasses and scaling back on the practice of “overseeding,” which has kept courses green in winter months, when Bermuda grass goes dormant.

Jim Schmid, director of operations at Palm Desert’s Lakes Country Club, told me he has a weather station on site to help manage and reduce irrigation. And much of the water he uses, Schmidt said, is recycled water the “district needs to get rid of because they haven’t treated it to a standard where it can be used for potable purposes.”

Josh Tanner, general manager of Ironwood Country Club in Palm Desert, said Ironwood pumps its water out of the ground and pays a fee to the water agency to replenish the aquifer with imported water. The club has reduced its water consumption by 20% in recent years, Tanner said, largely by replacing turf with native landscaping.

But it doesn’t appear that every golf course is pulling its weight. And the CVWD, as Doug Thompson told me, doesn’t provide data on water use by individual golf courses. When I asked why, Katie Evans, CVWD’s director of communications and conservation, told me the district does not share information about individual customers. In fact, the water agency was sued for release of the information, but prevailed in court.

Pro golfers walk past a water feature at the Pete Dye Stadium Course at PGA West in La Quinta in January.

 (Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press)

The Desert Sun reported in 2018 that the golf industry had not met its own goal — set in 2014 — of reducing water use by 10% below 2010 levels. Kessler told me that golf courses used 9% less water in 2020 than in 2013 when using a complicated calculation that takes evaporation into account, but just 5.6% less in total volume.

In the Coachella Valley, years of growth severely depleted the aquifer, just as agricultural irrigation has drained Central Valley water tables to the point where the ground is sinking. Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation in 2014 requiring communities to develop groundwater sustainability strategies, and the CVWD has touted its progress in stabilizing and increasing underground water levels.

But that’s partly because the valley is able to recharge the aquifer with water from the Colorado River and the water pumped down from Northern California. However, current allotments won’t last if drought trend lines continue and water wars escalate.

One of Thompson and Kobaly’s pet peeves is that residential water bills are based on a tiered pricing system that encourages conservation, but golf and agriculture pay flat rates.

They have an ally in Mark Johnson, former director of engineering for the CVWD and a frequent critic of the agency. The retired Johnson said residential users have conserved far more than agriculture, which uses roughly half the district’s water, and significantly more than the golf industry, which uses short of 25%.

“Absolutely, there is an inequity,” said Johnson, and that, in effect, residential users “subsidize the infrastructure used to get water to golf courses.” Johnson, a golfer, said he used to play at a La Quinta course where “they were irrigating areas that weren’t even in play,” and watering sand traps, as well.

So why not institute tiered pricing for golf and ag, same as for residential users?

The CVWD's Evans said such pricing is prohibited by the state water code, but it might be possible to implement “a different pricing structure” in the future.

I'll be watching to see how that goes, but it's worth noting that three of the five members of the agency's board of directors are in the agriculture industry. Water and oil don't mix, but in California, water and politics always do.

“I agree that more can be done to conserve,” Evans said. “At this time, we are pushing out new conservation advertisements and continuing to offer a broad range of programs. … To be sustainable, we need to be water wise.”

Kessler, despite defending golf’s record on conservation, said that if drought and higher temperatures continue, maintaining the recent rate of conservation "won't be enough moving 10-25 years forward."

Unless it starts raining again like it used to, everyone in California is going to have to get by with less water in the very near future, not 10 or 25 years down the road.

Thompson and Kobaly, who aren't golfers, have a suggestion. They’ve been looking into links-style golf courses, which are common in other countries and use far less water. You tee off on a patch of green and you putt on a patch of green, but most of the area in between is natural and not irrigated.

“I’ve got nothing against golf,” Thompson said. “But they’ve got to find a different way of doing it.”

steve.lopez@latimes.com

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

California becomes first state to require ethnic studies for high school graduation

Howard Blume, Melissa Gomez
Fri, October 8, 2021, 

A student presentation on Mayan math is displayed in teacher Ron Espiritu's ethnic studies classroom at Camino Nuevo Charter Academy in Los Angeles.

 (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

After more than five years of intense scrutiny and effort, California on Friday became the first state to make ethnic studies a required class for high school graduation to help students understand the past and present struggles and contributions of Black, Asian, Latino, Native/Indigenous Americans and other groups that have experienced racism and marginalization in America.

Although critics from across the political spectrum remain, the bill garnered overwhelming support in the Legislature and was signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom, who had vetoed a nearly identical measure last year. At that time, he called for a revised and completed state curriculum guide for ethnic studies — one that would be, he said, balanced, fair and "inclusive of all communities."

The revised teaching guide was completed and approved in March by the state Board of Education. The requirement would first apply to those who graduate in 2030.


"Ethnic studies courses enable students to learn their own stories — and those of their classmates," Newsom said in a signing statement. A news release from his office predicted ethnic studies will "help expand educational opportunities in schools, teach students about the diverse communities that comprise California and boost academic engagement and attainment for students.

The signing was lauded by Assemblyman Jose Medina (D-Riverside), the bill's author. Medina called the new requirement "long overdue" and "one step in the long struggle for equal education for all students.”

Ethnic studies in California classrooms will move forward as a compromise between advocates who wanted an activist, anti-imperialist approach and those who asserted that the first version of the state teaching guide was filled with radical ideology, obscure academic jargon and bias against capitalism.

Alterations toned down these elements and also added the experiences of Jewish, Armenian and Sikh communities in the U.S.

With the issue seemingly settled at the state level, debate could now move to schools and school districts — and become entangled in a volatile political divide over critical race theory and the extent to which it is incorporated in the state's ethnic studies curriculum. School boards must hold public hearings on the courses they plan to offer.

Critical race theory was first developed at the university level as an academic lens through which to analyze how race and racism are enmeshed in institutional and systemic inequities in America. A footnote in the state's ethnic studies teaching guide states that critical race theory "acknowledges that racism is embedded within systems and institutions."

Critical race theory is rarely mentioned in the teaching guide, but critic Williamson M. Evers said the overall model curriculum is "permeated" with content that makes it "racially divisive and burdened by faddish ideology." According to Evers, a former U.S. assistant secretary of Education, and some other opponents, the problematic issues include a reliance on the concepts of critical race theory, leading to a portrayal of American culture and institutions through a racially divisive prism of oppressor and victim.

Newsom didn't see it that way.

"America is shaped by our shared history, much of it painful and etched with woeful injustice," the governor said in his signing statement. Students "must understand our nation's full history if we expect them to one day build a more just society."

Individual school districts will have the task of developing courses using the state's teaching guide, which is called a "model curriculum." Educators can pick and choose elements to include in a local course but are expected to be faithful to the main ideas of this framework.

Students in Glendale, with its large Armenian American population, for example, could study the Armenian immigrant experience in that community.

Under the law, students in the class of 2030, who will start high school in the fall of 2026, must pass at least one single-semester course. And by the fall of 2025, all public high schools will have to offer such a class.

Secretary of State Shirley Weber, a longtime professor of Africana studies and a former member of the Instructional Quality Commission, which reviewed the model curriculum, said the successful push for ethnic studies sets California apart.

“At a time when some states are retreating from an accurate discussion of our history, I am proud that California continues to lead in its teaching of ethnic studies,” Weber said. “This subject not only has academic benefits but also has the capacity to build character as students learn how people from their own or different backgrounds face challenges, overcome them and make contributions to American society."

Even before the statewide requirement, an increasing number of schools and districts were offering ethnic studies, and some, including the Los Angeles Unified School District, already had made the class a graduation requirement.

Ultimately, many California ethnic studies critics were at least mollified by changes to the teaching guide or to the legislation. These included Jewish and pro-Israel advocates, who asserted that the original draft of the model curriculum was anti-Israel and defined Islamophobia but not antisemitism.

The final version deletes the lessons and references that offended some Jewish groups.

When the bill passed with overwhelming approval in both the Assembly and the Senate, the Legislature's five "diversity caucuses" — lawmakers who identify with and evaluate legislation with sensitivity to Asians and Pacific Islanders, Black people, Jews, Latinos, and Native Americans — issued a joint statement of support.

"Requiring ethnic studies in high schools is an integral part of cultivating a classroom environment that is accepting of diversity," the joint statement said.

The revised curriculum now includes two sample lessons about the experience of Jews in America. Arab Americans are included with a sample lesson titled "An Introduction to Arab American Studies." Another lesson is "The Sikh American Community in California."

A Sikh representative said the changes represent a step in the right direction.

"While this is an extremely positive development for the California Sikh community, we also must acknowledge that the curriculum which passed in March 2021 did fall short and leave many other marginalized communities behind," said Pritpal Kaur, education director of the Sikh Coalition.

Another change: A glossary with terms developed largely at the college level, such as cisheteropatriarchy ("a system of power that is based on the dominance of cisheterosexual men") was deleted.

And language directly associating capitalism with oppression also was struck from the revision.

But those who wrote the original draft say the final teaching guide is too diluted. They objected to the extent of the expansion beyond the four groups that have traditionally been the focus of ethnic studies: Latinos, Asian Americans, African Americans and Indigenous peoples — those who lived in the Americas before the arrival of colonizers from Europe. They were not invited to take part in the revision and have disassociated themselves from it.

Even so, a leader of that group applauded the new graduation requirement.

"It's high time that we addressed the demographic imperative," said Theresa Montaño, professor of Chicana/o studies at Cal State Northridge. She noted that the battle over ethnic studies courses began in the 1960s. "In California, 70% of students are students of color. They go through 12 years of an education — taking everything from mathematics to biology — and yet it's taken 53 years to get a single course in something that is relevant to their own personal historical trajectory."

Two provisions of the bill bother Montaño and others who favored the original draft of the teaching guide.

The bill specifically advises that school districts avoid using anything that was removed from the original draft. The new law also requires that course materials be provided for public review, including a public hearing, before being approved at a later meeting.

Montaño said these two provisions could become a recipe for litigation and unruly board meetings at which educators could become targets for intimidation from uninformed or hostile critics. Already, she noted, opposing ethnic studies has become a rallying point for the political right.

This year, protesters descended on the Los Alamitos Unified School District to complain that a proposed ethnic studies class and social justice learning resources would spread "hate for America and all America stands for." Others strongly challenged those claims, and the Los Alamitos Board of Education eventually approved the learning materials.

Newsom defended the additions that Montaño objected to.

"I appreciate that the legislation provides a number of guardrails to ensure that courses will be free from bias or bigotry and appropriate for all students," Newsom said in his signing statement. "The bill also expresses the Legislature's intent that courses should not include portions of the initial draft curriculum that had been rejected by the Instructional Quality Commission due to concerns related to bias, bigotry, and discrimination."

Assemblyman Medina, a former ethnic studies teacher, said the new requirement, along with the revised teaching guide, embodies reasonable compromise.

"As we've seen in this lengthy process, there are criticisms from different sides, from the left and the right," Medina said. "This wasn't an easy task, but at the end of the day, in the adopted version, I say that it's a model curriculum that we can all be proud of."

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

California wildfire may have killed hundreds of giant sequoias, burning through Earth's largest grove


Joshua Yeager, 

Visalia Times-Delta

USA TODAY
Fri, October 8, 2021

Hundreds of giant sequoias may have perished after the raging KNP Complex Fire raced through Redwood Mountain Grove, considered to be the Earth's largest, as well as the birthplace of modern prescribed burning science.

High-severity fire burned through the grove early Monday, creating its own weather — a massive fire cloud that generated 50 mph gusts and blew singed sequoia needles to nearby Hume Lake in Sequoia National Forest in California.

Scientists prepping the grove ahead of the KNP's arrival had tagged 400 sequoias as "high-risk" because of the abundance of dead trees in the area and the steep, uphill terrain – conditions that have resulted in blazes capable of mortally wounding the famed giants, experts said.

Aerial crews had planned to drop fire-resistant gel on the sequoias' treetops, where they are most vulnerable to flames, but the operation was scrapped after conditions became unsafe. Heat mapping performed in the days since shows the fire burned hot enough to produce the kinds of crown fires that have already killed thousands of sequoia across the southern Sierra Nevada.

The fire's run through Redwood Mountain Grove comes weeks after the KNP Complex initially sparked, just as firefighters had begun to achieve significant containment around the 130-square-mile blaze in Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks.

"There's so much uncertainty I'm trying not to think about it," said Christy Brigham, the parks' chief scientist. "When I first saw the smoke plume, I cried heavily."

Christy Brigham, Chief of Resources Management & Science, Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks, left, and Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks Superintendent Clay Jordan walk among sequoia trees near the General Sherman Tree on Wednesday, September 22, 2021More

Despite some worrying signs, Brigham maintains there are reasons to be hopeful about the grove's prospects: Prescribed burning had occurred at the edge of the stand just three years ago, and photos taken from Generals Highway show mature sequoias with healthy "broccoli tops."

The Redwood Mountain Grove's fate won't be known for sure until firefighters can access the land, hopefully sometime in the next week, Brigham said.

What she does know, based on heat mapping, is that more than 80% of the massive 2,600-acre stand burned. But just because fire burned through an area doesn't mean every tree there has been killed, she added.

The KNP Complex is 85,000 acres and 11% contained, according to fire officials. Containment dropped by half after the wildfire torched the mountain grove early Monday.

Professor Harold Biswell demonstrates a controlled burn in 1969 at UC Berkeley's Whitaker Forest, located within the Redwood Mountain Grove. The research was key in shifting National Park Service fire management policy.More
Birthplace of modern prescribed fire

The Redwood Mountain Grove in California is considered the birthplace of modern fire ecology by scientists who study the role of fire on the natural landscape. Researchers used the grove as a laboratory to demonstrate the beneficial effects of controlled burning, a then-novel idea, to an audience of skeptical foresters in the 60s and 70s.

"Redwood Mountain in the western United States really became the cradle of this change and an openness to the use of fire as a natural part of the ecosystem and as a management tool," Brigham said. "For the parks service, that's where this new era of fire ecology was born."

How did the Redwood Mountain Grove, an early poster child for prescribed burning, fall victim to the very kind of unnatural, high-intensity fire that researchers had warned about decades ago?

The answer is complicated, Brigham says.

"It's not that we forgot, and it's not that there was evil intention," she said. "But all the factors have to be right to continue to have a successful prescribed fire program like we have had in Giant Forest and Grant Grove."

Prescribed fire in sequoia groves requires decades of commitment. You can't burn a grove and walk away. After an initial burn, crews must return every 15 years to maintain the groves and keep them healthy – just like a home, Brigham says.

"If your funding and staffing or public support wavers, then you miss a few. You start to accumulate fuel, and when you accumulate that fuel it becomes unsafe to do the burn," the scientist said. " Add on top of that climate change, and the tree mortality from climate change, and the second year of drought ... then your window where it's safe to do a prescribed burn goes away."

Despite those challenges, Sequoia and Kings Canyon have run one of the most successful prescribed burning programs in the country. Six burns have occurred in the Redwood Mountain Grove since 2000, continuing the legacy of her predecessors.

Operations Section Chief Jon Wallace, left, and Ed Christopher walk near the General Sherman Tree in Sequoia National Park on Wednesday, September 22, 2021.
Adopting Native American practices

Without those prescribed fires, the KNP's impact on the historic grove would likely be much worse. As it stands, Brigham expects many parts of the grove will actually benefit from the fire.

Sequoia are among the most fire-adapted species on the planet and require low- and moderate-intensity heat to burst their pinecones and clear the forest of competitors. Research performed in Redwood Mountain showed that lightning-caused wildfires touched sequoia groves every 12 to 16 years, on average.

Watch: Scorched trees left in wake of Caldor Fire

But the giants, with their 2-foot-thick bark and crowns that tower hundreds of feet above the ground, are no match for the mega-blazes that have recently scorched the West. These fires are unlike any the Sierra has experienced in millennia; experts say they are fueled by a century of poor forest management and worsened by climate change.

Indigenous tribes that called the Sierra Nevada home long before white settlers arrived understood fire's role in the landscape and practiced cultural burning, keeping the forest healthy. Some of the earliest burns that NPS prescribed were done in collaboration with local tribes, such as the Wukchumni and Tule River.

Tule River Indian Tribe cultural specialist Lauren McDarment speaks to the media during a tour in the Trail of 100 Giants on Monday, October 4, 2021.

Tribal representatives said it has taken science decades to catch up with the traditional knowledge that their ancestors had understood and put into practice for centuries.

"It's something that we carry as an honor," said Lauren McDarment, a cultural specialist with the Tule River Indian Tribe, located in the southern Sierra. "This is the landscape that we have lived with for centuries, and it needs fire to go through ... to cleanse the areas and let new life regrow."

"Not just the sequoias but the animals and the fish; they get more nutrients," he added. "Everything is healthier."

Despite the damage to the sequoia groves, which are sacred to McDarment and his people, he remains optimistic about the future. In the footprint of the 2017 Pier Fire, for example, McDarment recently saw a carpet of green needles: Hundreds of sequoia saplings.

Some of those tiny trees could be transplanted to other burned groves, where sequoia regeneration isn't happening, said Garrett Dickman, a wildfire botanist with Yosemite National Park.

He points out, though, that a baby sequoia is a far cry from the 1,000-year-old monarchs that tower above the forest canopy and inspire awe in visitors worldwide.

"On balance, we'll see more beneficial effects than negative ones but when the loss is a 1,000-year-old or 2,000-year-old tree it's hard to take," Brigham said.

Joshua Yeager covers water, agriculture, parks, and housing for the Visalia Times-Delta and Tulare Advance-Register newspapers. Follow him on Twitter @VTD_Joshy.

MEXICO 

We Finally Know How 43 Students on a Bus Vanished Into Thin Air


Jeremy Kryt
Sun, October 10, 2021

DAILY BEAST

Pedro Pardo/AFP via Getty

Transcripts of newly released text messages between a crime boss and a deputy police chief have finally lifted the lid on the mystery of 43 students who went missing one night in southwestern Mexico.

The messages indicate that the cops and the cartel worked together to capture, torture, and murder at least 38 of the 43 student teachers who went missing in September of 2014.

The students had made the deadly mistake of commandeering several buses in order to drive to Mexico City for a protest. It now seems clear that those buses were part of a drug-running operation that would carry a huge cargo of heroin across the U.S. border—and the students had accidentally stolen the load.

Gildardo López Astudillo was the local leader of the Guerreros Unidos cartel at that time. He was in charge of the area around the town of Iguala, in southwestern Mexico, where the students were last seen. Francisco Salgado Valladares was the deputy chief of the municipal police force in the town.

On Sept. 26, 2014, Salgado texted López to report that his officers had arrested two groups of students for having taken the busses. Salgado then wrote that 21 of the students were being held on a bus. López responded by arranging a transfer point on a rural road near the town, saying he “had beds to terrorize” the students in, likely referencing his plans to torture and bury them in clandestine grave sites.

Police chief Salgado next wrote that he had 17 more students being held “in the cave,” to which López replied that he “wants them all.” The two then made plans for their underlings to meet at a place called Wolf’s Gap, and Salgado reminded López to be sure to send enough men to handle the job.

Aside from a few bone fragments, the bodies of the students have never been found.

Some of the remains of Christian Alfonso Rodriguez Telumbre, one of the 43 missing students, was found at the mountain town of Cocula, near Iguala
REUTERS/HENRY ROMEROMore

A bit later that night, Salgado also informed the crime boss that “all the packages have been delivered.” This appears to be a reference to the fact that one or more of the busses commandeered by the students had, unbeknownst to them, been loaded with heroin that the Guerreros Unidos had intended to smuggle north toward the U.S. border.

Mike Vigil, the DEA’s former chief of international operations, told The Daily Beast that this strongly implies that López was calling the shots all along, ordering Salgado to arrest the students lest they accidentally hijack his shipment of dope.

“The new evidence that has come to light regarding the Ayotzinapa case cracks it wide open and provides irrefutable proof of who was involved in the student massacre,” Vigil said.

“The story of the massacre of the students in Ayotzinapa is like a Hollywood movie, but the events are real. They involve collusion between the police, army, organized crime, and a massive coverup by the Mexican government.”

The students were all enrolled at the Rural Teachers College in the nearby town of Ayotzinapa, and so they became known as the Ayotzinapa 43. The College is considered a bastion of leftist activism and on the night of the disappearance more than 100 students had been making their way to the nation’s capital. There they planned to take part in demonstrations to mark the anniversary of the 1968 student massacre at Tlatelolco. Most of the student teachers were in their early twenties, but the youngest—Jose Angel Navarrete, known as Pepe to his friends—was just 18 years old.

The mass kidnapping in Iguala would spark protests across Mexico. The previous government originally put forward a theory—now largely discredited—that the students’ bodies had been burned in a trash dump on the outskirts of Iguala. In the wake of the new evidence, the young men's families are demanding fresh searches for the bodies and additional evidence to identify all of those involved.

Relatives gathered in Mexico City with pictures of their missing family.
REUTERS/Henry Romero

Stephanie Brewer, the Mexico director at the Washington Office on Latin America, said the new evidence shows how often in Mexico “organized crime is comprised of both state and non-state actors.”

Brewer pointed to both “state tolerance and collusion—seen in this case in its most brutal and extreme form, where corrupt police are carrying out the gravest human rights violations that exist.”

Although Salgado is already incarcerated for his alleged role in the massacre, López was arrested and then released over an apparent failure of due process, and remains at large.

Although not specifically mentioned in the text messages, allegations have previously surfaced that Mexico’s military was also involved in the disappearances.

A leading newspaper, La Reforma, published leaked testimony earlier this year that suggested army officers based in Iguala had also worked with the Guerreros Unidos to round up some of the students as well as other enemies of the cartel who were in the town on the night of Sept. 26.

The exchanges between the cop and the capo in Iguala were originally intercepted by the army, which has taken some seven years to release them. That has led to criticism, including from the families of the missing students, that the army is not being transparent despite a presidential commission having been established with universal jurisdiction over the case.

“The army hides information because it’s in their best interest to do so,” said a high-ranking Mexican police commander who agreed to speak to The Daily Beast only under the condition of anonymity. “The whole world knows that the army controls the drug trade [in that part of Mexico.]”

Protests have been held across the country as people demanded the authorities did more to end the traumatic wait for answers.
NurPhoto

The Reforma report indicated that, in addition to the 43 students, the army had participated in the abduction of some 30 cartel rivals to Guerreros Unidos that same night.

“The army destroys anyone or anything that gets in their way,” the commander said. “They work with organized crime to protect their own objectives.”

WOLA’s Brewer also pointed to the Mexican military’s lack of cooperation in the case.

“The Mexican army had these wiretaps [and so] had knowledge about the facts that it was not sharing,” Brewer said.

“This raises questions about why and how the army obtained this information, and what obstacles still need to be overcome to be sure that the army is in fact sharing its information with those in charge of investigating the case.”

The DEA’s Vigil said it is “unconscionable” that so many of the cartel members, police and military officers involved in the crime have yet to be punished.

“Mexico continues to wonder why violence persists unabated. They don’t understand that no consequence for criminal actions translates to more impunity.”

Unfortunately, the tragedy of Iguala is far from an isolated incident. More than 93,000 people have gone missing during Mexico’s long drug war—and more than 90 percent of those cases have never been solved, according to Brewer, who is helping WOLA push the Mexican government for reforms in its treatment of missing persons.

“During the past three years, over 25,000 people have been declared disappeared or missing and remain so today, according to official statistics,” Brewer said. “That is almost one person every hour.”

UPDATED

Philippine Nobel winner Ressa calls Facebook 'biased against facts'

By Karen Lema

© Reuters/ELOISA LOPEZ Filipino journalist Maria Ressa, one of 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winners, poses for a picture

MANILA (Reuters) -Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa used her new prominence to criticise Facebook as a threat to democracy, saying the social media giant fails to protect against the spread of hate and disinformation and is "biased against facts".

The veteran journalist and head of Philippine news site Rappler told Reuters in an interview after winning the award that Facebook's algorithms "prioritise the spread of lies laced with anger and hate over facts."

Her comments add to the pile of recent pressure on Facebook, used by more than 3 billion people, which a former employee turned whistleblower accused of putting profit over the need to curb hate speech and misinformation. Facebook denies any wrongdoing.

 https://www.reuters.com/technology/facebook-whistleblower-reveals-identity-ahead-senate-hearing-2021-10-03 

© Reuters/ELOISA LOPEZ Filipino journalist Maria Ressa, one of 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winners, poses for a picture

Sought for comment on Ressa's remarks, a Facebook spokesperson said the social media giant continues to invest heavily to remove and reduce the visibility of harmful content.


"We believe in press freedom and support news organisations and journalists around the world as they continue their important work," the spokesperson added.

Ressa 

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/nobel-prize-shines-light-dark-time-philippines-ressa-2021-10-08 

shared the Nobel

 https://www.reuters.com/world/philippines-journalist-ressa-russian-journalist-muratov-win-2021-nobel-peace-2021-10-08 

with Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-editor-muratov-dedicates-nobel-prize-staff-murdered-their-work-2021-10-08

 on Friday, for what the committee called braving the wrath of the leaders of the Philippines and Russia to expose corruption and misrule, in an endorsement of free speech under fire worldwide.

© Reuters/ELOISA LOPEZ Filipino journalist Maria Ressa, one of 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winners

Facebook has become the world's largest distributor of news and "yet it is biased against facts, it is biased against journalism," Ressa said.

"If you have no facts, you can't have truths, you can't' have trust. If you don't have any of these, you don't have a democracy," she said. "Beyond that, if you don't have facts, you don't' have a shared reality, so you can't solve the existential problems of climate, coronavirus."

Ressa has been the target of intense social-media hatred campaigns from President Rodrigo Duterte's supporters, which she said were aimed at destroying her and Rappler's credibility.

ELECTION 'A BATTLE FOR FACTS'

"These online attacks on social media have a purpose, they are targeted, they are used like a weapon," said the former CNN journalist.

Rappler's reporting has included close scrutiny of Duterte's deadly war on drugs https://www.reuters.com/investigates/section/philippines-drugs

 and a series of investigative reports into what it says is his government's strategy to "weaponise" the internet, using bloggers on its payroll to stir up anger among online supporters who threaten and discredit Duterte's critics.

Duterte has not commented on Ressa's award. The presidential palace, Duterte's spokesperson, his chief legal counsel, and communications office did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.

© Reuters/ELOISA LOPEZ Filipino journalist Maria Ressa, one of 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winners

Facebook in March 2019 removed an online network in the Philippines for "coordinated inauthentic behaviour ", and linked it to a businessman who has previously said he helped manage the president's social media election campaign in 2016.

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-facebook-fake-accounts-idUKKCN1RA0CL

Filipinos top the world  in time spent on social media, according to 2021 studies by social media management firms.

 https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2021-global-overview-report

Platforms like Facebook have become political battlegrounds and have helped strengthen Duterte's support base, having been instrumental in his election victory in 2016 and a rout by his allies in mid-term polls last year.

The Philippines will hold an election in May to choose a successor to Duterte 

who under the constitution is not allowed to seek another term.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/contenders-philippines-2022-presidential-race-2021-09-30 

That campaign "will be a battle for facts," Ressa said. "We are going to keep making sure our public sees the facts, understands it. We are not going to be harassed or intimidated into silence."

(Reporting by Karen Lema; Additional Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; editing by William Mallard and Jason Neely)

SEE Maria Ressa’s Nobel peace prize win is an indictment of Facebook — Quartz (qz.com)

Philippine journalist's Nobel called 'rebuke' to Duterte, who remains silent


Maria Ressa, an executive of online news platform Rappler, 

poses at Rappler's office in Pasig City, Metro Manila

Neil Jerome Morales
Sat, October 9, 2021

MANILA (Reuters) - The Nobel Peace Prize for Philippine journalist Maria Ressa was hailed by many at home on Saturday as a rebuke on official attacks on the media, but there was no comment from President Rodrigo Duterte, a frequent critic of Ressa's news site.

Ressa 

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/nobel-prize-shines-light-dark-time-philippines-ressa-2021-10-08

, who is free on bail as she appeals a six-year prison sentence last year for a libel conviction and has faced a slew of other court cases, shared the prize

 https://www.reuters.com/world/philippines-journalist-ressa-russian-journalist-muratov-win-2021-nobel-peace-2021-10-08

 with Russian investigative journalist Dmitry Muratov https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-editor-muratov-dedicates-nobel-prize-staff-murdered-their-work-2021-10-08

Duterte has described Rappler news site that Ressa co-founded as a "fake news https://www.reuters.com/article/us-philippines-media-idUSKBN1F50HL outlet" 

and a tool of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

Rappler, launched in 2012, has challenged Duterte's policies and the accuracy of his statements. Its investigations have included a spate of killings by law enforcement during a war on drugs

 https://www.reuters.com/investigates/section/philippines-drugs 

Duterte launched when he took office in June 2016.

Rights group says authorities summarily executed thousands of drugs suspects. The police deny this, saying those killed violently resisted arrest in sting operations.

Lawmakers and media experts said the award highlights the importance of free speech and speaking truth to power ahead of next year's elections to choose Duterte's successor.

Carlos Isagani Zarate, an opposition lawmaker, said the government is in an awkward position.

"The deafening silence from the palace speaks volumes on how they treated Maria Ressa in the past and how they were taken aback by this recognition," Zarate told Reuters. "This is a personal rebuke on Duterte who was insulting critics, especially women."

Ressa is the first Filipino to individually win a Nobel - 13 Filipinos were in organisations that received the prizes in 2017, 2013 and 2007.

PALACE DILEMMA

"For the palace, the dilemma is how to congratulate someone who is a victim of persecution by the government," Danilo Arao, a journalism professor at the University of the Philippines, told Reuters.

Duterte's government denies persecuting critics in the media.

The presidential palace, Duterte's spokesperson, his chief legal counsel, and communications office did not respond to Reuters requests for comment on Ressa's award or on critics' reactions.

Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra welcomed Ressa's win but said libel laws would be upheld.

"As an ordinary Filipino, I am happy that a fellow Filipino has been included in this year’s roster of Nobel Peace laureates," Guevarra said in a statement.

He said freedom of expression is constitutionally guaranteed in the Philippines but there are legal limits, including libel and defamation.

"Prosecutorial discretion will always be guided by these legal principles and the facts obtaining in any given case, regardless of the persons involved," Guevarra said.

In 2018, Duterte banned Rappler 

https://www.reuters.com/article/philippines-media-idINKCN1G41TW

from covering his official events, prompting the news site to cover event speeches and activities via live television and social media.

Several well-wishers said the Nobel highlights the importance of the media, truth and democracy ahead of Duterte ending his six-year term in June.

Ressa's prize highlights the importance of protecting freedom of the press "as our vanguard against abuse of power, and an essential element of democracy," the Management Association of the Philippines, one of the premiere business groups, said in a statement.

(Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; Editing by William Mallard)

Yurok people see victory in decades-long effort to revive language


Eliyahu Kamisher
Sun, October 10, 2021

Photograph: Bill Gozansky/Alamy

Skip Lowry interacts with nature much like his Yurok ancestors did – in the Indigenous Yurok language. There’s the original name for a purple flower, low-slung Yurok homes and sweet huckleberries. “Our worldview is harbored within the language,” said Lowry. He has been working for years to master the language and now works as a California state parks interpreter, guiding visitors through the Indigenous history of a state park on the foggy northern California coast.

Yurok members have always referred to the state park where Lowry works – a craggy point north of Eureka – as Sue-meg, but for around 150 years the region was known as Patrick’s Point and the park, established in 1929, kept the name. Patrick refers to Patrick Beegan, an Irish settler who built a cabin on the peninsula in 1851 and fled the area after his arrest on charges of killing a Yurok boy. He later resurfaced in the historical record for instigating an attempted massacre of Indigenous people in the region.

Peering through the foliage & coastal pine trees at Sue-meg state park.

 Photograph: Randy Andy/Shutterstock

“It hurt my feelings to have to say Sue-meg village within Patrick’s Point state park,” said Lowry, referring to a collection of recreated Yurok structures in the park. “It’s painful for someone who knows how much more this place is than just an old homestead.”

As of last week, Lowry won’t have to. A commission of the California state parks unanimously voted to change the name, marking one of the most significant Indigenous name restorations in the American west and earning comparisons to the 2015 restoration of Alaska’s Denali mountain – the highest peak in North America. Not only is the name restoration the first in a statewide effort to address discriminatory names, it is also the product of decades of arduous work by Yurok Tribe members in reclaiming and rejuvenating their language – a tongue brought to the edge of destruction by genocide and forced boarding schools.

In the name Sue-meg lies a story about breathing new life into an Indigenous language and the sometimes contentious process of relying on western phonetics to capture the nuance and worldview of the Yurok people.

“It’s kind of bittersweet we’re using the western European alphabet to save our language,” said Lowry, who is part of the grassroots True North Organizing Network that pushed for the name change. “It doesn’t really always taste good.”

Sue-meg – which will be pasted on California’s 101 Highway and viewed by hundreds of thousands of visitors to the park each year – is often pronounced as it appears to a non-Native person, but its traditional pronunciation is closer to “Sue-mae”. The word encapsulates one of the most difficult sounds for Yurok learners to master, said Andrew Garrett, a linguistics professor at the University of California, Berkeley. There is no hard G in the Yurok language, and the consonant indicates an intermediate sound between a Y and G. “It corresponds to nothing that happens to be in English.”

According to Lowry, these subtle variations have deep meaning for expressing the Yurok worldview through language. “The last EG means ‘habitually’,” said Lowry. “The elders knew that the Sue-meg village was a habitually used fishing camp. It wasn’t always a really big village, but the two largest villages would all show up there during the right time of year to harvest and gather and trade at that village.”

Yurok members have always referred to the craggy point north of Eureka as Sue-meg, but for around 150 years the region was known as Patrick’s Point. 

Photograph: Melissa Kopka/Alamy

History of violence

Patrick Beegan came to present-day Humboldt county as California’s Gold Rush spread to the redwood forests in the far reaches of northern California. He arrived only a year after white settlers first made contact with Indigenous peoples who had lived in the area for millennia, including the Yurok, Karuk, Wiyot and Hoopa, according to historian Jerry Rohde of Humboldt University. “Whites arrived here in April of 1850. By May the whites had begun killing the local Indians, and that was the start of our local genocide,” said Rhodes.

The large-scale attacks on tribes by the US military and vigilante groups continued for 15 years until the remaining First Nation people were forced onto reservations. The systematic attempts to wipe out Indigenous culture in the area, and throughout the country, continued as forced boarding schools sought to strip Yurok children of their culture and language. By the early 1900s, the Yurok language hung on by a thread.

Related: ‘No fish means no food’: how Yurok women are fighting for their tribe’s nutritional health

“[I] met elders who went to boarding school who were beat for speaking their language,” Rosie Clayburn, the Yurok tribal heritage preservation officer, said during a California parks commission meeting. “Those folks, when they would start to speak Yurok again it was hard for them. They would break down and cry.

“So even though this is a small world, it’s Sue-meg, it carries so much to us, it carries so much more meaning to us,” she added.

Starting around the 1970s the Yurok Tribe began the process of reviving their language through systematization, an effort that gained traction in the 1990s. Garrett, the UC Berkeley professor, has developed a Yurok language dictionary with the tribe since 2001. But in the background of his relationship with tribal language experts was a history of linguists belittling the Indigenous knowledge that they also sought to document. “Traditionally, you know, meaning 30 or 50 years [ago] the linguist mindset was ‘I’m the professional expert on the language and because I’m the expert I get to write down how the word is written and what it means,” said Garrett.

Yurok tribal headquarters in Klamath, California.

 Photograph: Andre Jenny/Alamy

Linguists have had a long history of attempting to control Indigenous languages they documented, one that parallels colonization of the US and still echoes today. Under US law, a self-taught linguist owned the language of the Penobscot Nation in Maine – the tribe is still seeking to wrest cultural authority over their language from his legacy. In 1998 the language dictionary for the Hopi people in Arizona – considered the gold standard in Indigenous language preservation – was beset by controversy over whether the University of Arizona or the Hopi Tribe owned the dictionary’s copyright.

When Garrett first started working with the tribe in 2001, he felt a lot of “resistance” to how Yurok experts wanted to structure their language, which deviated from the academic standards prescribing single-letter symbols for vowel sounds in phrases like “sue” in Sue-meg. Yurok experts were attached to the system they had begun to develop and wanted a dictionary that catered to language learners, not academics, said Garrett. “I’m sure I would have been relieved if the Yurok people had succumbed and used the Spanish or Italian type of vowel writing, but they didn’t,” added Garrett. “Eventually, I became attached to what they have and decided it was kind of lovely.”

Yurok language revival has been a resounding success and is held up as a national model by many. The language is taught in public high schools, and students can study the language for California college requirements. All of the elder tribe members who spoke Yurok as a first language have now passed away, but people like Lowry are living in tandem with their vibrant language. His 12-year-old son is named K’nek’nek’. “It means heartbeat or pulse of energy, which is exactly the way he is,” said Lowry.

The collection of redwood structures called Sue-meg village that now form the heart of the 640-acre Sue-meg state park were constructed in 1990 by a team of Yurok builders, including Axel Lindgren III. Lindgren helped carve the 20-ft redwood boards with an antler tool and turned Hazel branches into rope to strap the structure together. Later, as a maintenance supervisor for the park, he painstakingly kept the buildings in good condition despite pressure from his boss to spend his time on other projects. “I felt I was kind of in-between two worlds,” said Lindgren. “It was time for this change to be made.”

Bitter sugar: How money has flowed from the sugar fields of the Dominican Republic to the burgeoning tax haven of South Dakota



Zoeann Murphy,Debbie Cenziper,Will Fitzgibbon,Whitney Shefte and Salwan Georges, (c) 2021, The Washington Post
Sat, October 9, 2021


For decades, the U.S. government has condemned prominent offshore tax havens, where liberal rules and guarantees of discretion have drawn oligarchs, business tycoons and politicians.

But a cache of more than 11.9 million secret documents obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and shared with The Washington Post and other media outlets around the globe found that some of the most sought-after tax havens are now in the United States - and that the expanding U.S. trust industry is becoming a repository for some fortunes linked to individuals or companies that have been accused of worker exploitation and other human rights abuses.

In South Dakota, shares of a Dominican sugar company are being sheltered, part of a $14 million portfolio connected to family members of its onetime president.

The growing American trust industry promises levels of protection and secrecy that rival or surpass those offered by overseas havens. Its expansion has been enabled by a handful of state legislatures seeking an economic boost.

Among those who set up trusts in the United States were family members of the former chief executive of the largest sugar producer in the Dominican Republic.

This company - Central Romana - produces the sugar that Americans put in their coffee every morning and use to bake their birthday cakes.

For years, Central Romana and other sugar producers in the Dominican Republic have faced allegations that they pay their workers substandard wages and force them to work in unsafe conditions. The company has denied mistreating its workers.

By 1974, when Carlos Morales Troncoso became president of operations for Central Romana, then known as Gulf and Western Industries, allegations of evictions and human rights abuses had mounted for decades.

Morales would go on to become vice president of the Dominican Republic and later the ambassador to the United States before his death in 2014. His wealth - including shares of Central Romana - now sits in trusts set up by his family in Sioux Falls, S.D., in 2019.

Through an attorney, Morales's four daughters, who are dual U.S. citizens, declined to answer questions about why the trusts were established in South Dakota. They said they were never involved in the operations of Central Romana.

Workers for Central Romana say they earn around $125 a month cutting sugar cane, well below the country's average monthly salary of $777, according to the latest figures from the Central Bank of the Dominican Republic. Most are migrants from Haiti, and few have the rights of full citizenship. Their status in the country is tenuous, and their lives precarious.

Cutting sugar cane is perilous work, done in the middle of the Dominican summer, when the heat index can reach 110 degrees. The leaves of the plant are sharp enough to draw blood, and the slip of a machete can lead to permanent injury. Despite the dangers, workers say they are unsupervised and that quality medical care is hard to come by.

Morales amassed millions in personal wealth, some from shares earned from Central Romana's sugar production. In 2019, members of his family finalized the transfer of several trusts with assets worth $14 million from the Bahamas to a trust company in Sioux Falls.

The trusts were opened at Trident Trust, a global provider that opened its Sioux Falls office in 2014. Trident said it is committed to complying with all applicable regulations and routinely cooperates with authorities. The company declined to answer questions about its clients.

There is no evidence in the leaked documents that any of the trusts established by Morales's family shelter criminal proceeds.

In a written statement, Central Romana said, "Like any socially responsible company, we strive to advance each year and continue to invest in all of our processes, including health and industrial safety, labor aspects, environmental compliances and social responsibility programs."

It's not just workers who have accused Central Romana of wrongdoing. The company has been blamed for a pattern of forced evictions - periodically driving people from their homes and seizing the land for sugar cultivation. In 2016, they evicted families who had built makeshift houses on land that sits right up alongside the sugar cane plantations.

Last year, families who allege they were illegally evicted from their homes in the middle of the night sued Central Romana in federal court in Florida.

The 2016 evictions took place in one of the many informal settlements scattered across the Dominican Republic, where land rights are unclear or disputed. The homes in these communities often lack electricity or running water, but some have stood for decades.

Central Romana denied wrongdoing and accused the families of squatting on company land. "Our company would not and has never engaged in the eviction of people that have the right to live on or legally own the land they possess," the company said.

Advocates say the houses were built on a service road that had not been used in more than a half-century, the land had no clear owner and that the forced evictions - no matter who owns the property - breached widely accepted international human rights standards.

The lawsuit on behalf of the evicted families was recently dismissed. Their lawyer, Robert Vance, has appealed. After the evictions, experts for the United Nations appealed to the government of the Dominican Republic to help the evicted families. In 2018, Maria Magdalena Alvarez spoke at a U.N. conference in Geneva.

- - -

The Pandora Papers is an investigation based on more than 11.9 million documents revealing the flows of money, property and other assets concealed in the offshore financial system. The Washington Post and other news organizations exposed the involvement of political leaders, examined the growth of the industry within the United States and demonstrated how secrecy shields assets from governments, creditors and those abused or exploited by the wealthy and powerful. The trove of confidential information, the largest of its kind, was obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which organized the investigation.

Mexico's Napa Valley protests against unfettered development


Sat, October 9, 2021

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Defenders of Mexico’s Valle de Guadalupe wine-producing valley protested Saturday against unfettered development they say threatens the area’s environment and agriculture.

On Saturday, federal authorities announced they shut down a massive land-clearing project that had bulldozed native semi-desert vegetation on a hillside to create a concert venue.

“Acting on complaints from the public, this morning federal authorities inspected and closed a property where they had tried to install a massive concert forum,” the Environment Department said in a press statement.

Protesters from the group For a True Valley gathered nearby to demonstrate under the slogan “More grapevines, less plunder.”

“This devastation of flora and fauna on more than 20 hectares (44 acres) in the Valle de Guadalupe was done by APM Producciones,” a concert promoter, the group said in a statement. “This is a project which shows not the least consideration for the environment.”

APM Producciones said in a statement that the project had all necessary permits and affected only 4.4 hectares (9 acres). It said the final project would include building housing and planting trees and grape vines.

The company claimed a concert planned for the weekend would go ahead.

But the Environment Department said the developers did not have a permit to change the land use of the property.

The area between Ensenada and the border city of Tijuana has become a victim of its own success as Mexico’s answer to California’s prized Napa Valley. Wine tours, hotels, luxury apartments and entertainment venues threaten the area’s already-scarce water, thin soil and relative calm.

A bit dustier and rougher around the edges than Napa Valley, the Baja California wine country has vineyards clustered along a main highway known as the Ruta del Vino.

The fast-growing wine mecca just two hours south of San Diego is home to hip boutique hotels, an impressive culinary scene and more than 100 wineries.

Turkish fires endanger world pine honey supplies

Issued on: 10/10/2021 

Turkish beekeepers Fehmi Alti, (R) and his father Mustafa 

are now scrambling to get extra work

 Adem ALTAN AFP



Cokek (Turkey) (AFP)

Beekeepers Mustafa Alti and his son Fehmi were kept busy tending to their hives before wildfires tore through a bucolic region of Turkey that makes most of the world's prized pine honey.

Now the Altis and generations of other honey farmers in Turkey's Aegean province of Mugla are scrambling to find additional work and wondering how many decades it might take to get their old lives back on track.

"Our means of existence is from beekeeping, but when the forests burned, our source of income fell," said Fehmi, 47, next to his mountainside beehives in the fire-ravaged village of Cokek.

"I do side jobs, I do some tree felling, that way we manage to make do."

Nearly 200,000 hectares of forests -- more than five times the annual average -- were scorched by fires across Turkey this year, turning luscious green coasts popular with tourists into ash.

The summer disaster and an accompanying series of deadly floods made the climate -- already weighing heavily on the minds of younger voters -- a major issue two years before the next scheduled election.

Mugla is home to around 3.5 million of Turkey's eight million bees 

Adem ALTAN AFP

Signalling a political shift, Turkey's parliament this week ended a five-year wait and ratified the Paris Agreement on cutting the greenhouse emissions that are blamed for global warming and abnormal weather events.

But the damage has already been done in Mugla, where 80 percent of Turkey's pine honey is produced.

Turkey as a whole makes 92 percent of the world's pine honey, meaning supplies of the thick, dark amber may be running low worldwide very soon.

- Special insect -

Turkey's pine honey harvests were already suffering from drought when the wildfires hit, destroying the delicate balance between bees, trees, and the little insects at the heart of the production process.

The honey is made by bees after they collect the sugary secretions of the tiny Basra beetle (Marchalina hellenica), which lives on the sap of pine trees.

The honey is made by bees after they collect the sugary secretions of the tiny Basra beetle which lives on the sap of pine trees. A

dem ALTAN AFP

Fehmi hopes the beetles will adapt to younger trees after the fires. But he also accepts that "it will take at least five or 10 years to get our previous income back".

His father Mustafa agrees, urging President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government to expand forested areas and plant young trees.

"There's no fixing a burnt house. Can you fix the dead? No. But new trees might come, a new generation," Mustafa said.

For now, though, the beekeepers are counting their losses and figuring out what comes next.

The president of the Mugla Beekeepers' Association, Veli Turk, expects his region's honey production to plunge by up to 95 percent this year.

"There is pretty much no Marmaris honey left," he said.

"This honey won't come for another 60 years," he predicted. "It's not just Turkey. This honey would go everywhere in the world. It was a blessing. This is really a huge loss."

- 'So much loss' -

Beekeeper Yasar Karayigit, 45, is thinking of switching to a different type of honey to keep his passion -- and sole source of income -- alive.

"I love beekeeping, but to continue, I'll have to pursue alternatives," Karayigit said, mentioning royal jelly (or "bee milk") and sunflower honey, which involves additional costs.

"But if we love the bees, we have to do this," the father-of-three said.

Ismail Atici, head of the Milas district Chamber of Agriculture in Mugla, said the price of pine honey has doubled from last year, threatening to make the popular breakfast food unaffordable for many Turks.

Turkey's pine honey harvests were already suffering

 from drought when the wildfires hit

 Adem ALTAN AFP

He expects price rises to continue and supplies to become ever more scarce.

"We will get to a point where even if you have money, you won't be able to find those medicinal plants and medicinal honey," Atici said.

"It's going to be very hard to find 100-percent pine honey," beekeeper Karayigit agreed. "We have had so much loss."

- 'We must continue' -

Looking ahead, the president of the Turkey Beekeepers' Association, Ziya Sahin, suggests selectively introducing the Basra beetle to new areas of Mugla, expanding coverage from the current seven to 25 percent of local pine forests.

"If we conduct transplantation of the beetle from one area to another and continue this for two successive years, we can protect the region's dominance in the sector," Sahin said.

Yet despite the pain and the troubled road ahead, the younger Alti has no plans to quit.

"This is my father's trade. Because this is passed down from the family, we must continue it," Fehmi said.

© 2021 AFP