Urban sprawl contributes to housing crisis, exacerbates childhood adversities

by Hulya Gilbert and Ian Woodcock, The Conversation

Credit: Shutterstock

Amid Australia's housing crisis, land-supply slogans are once again dominating discussions about the solutions. Governments and private developers often blame housing crises on lack of land for new housing. Their solution? Rezone farmland for housing on the suburban fringe.

Earlier this year, the South Australian government announced the state's largest ever release of land for housing. Some 23,700 houses are to be built on the fringe of Adelaide. SA Premier Peter Malinauskas has even said urban sprawl "is not a dirty word".

Support for the creation of fringe suburbs, while still business as usual in Australia, reflects outdated views. [Evidence] of the need to halt urban sprawl is now overwhelming. The spruiking of these greenfield developments as affordable and good for young families with children is at odds with their experiences of these developments.

What life is actually like on the suburban fringe

Greenfield developments are often attractive to young families due to the perception of affordable housing and promises of local schools, childcare, shops and public transport. However, these neighborhoods rarely live up to such expectations. Instead, they often entrench disadvantage due to the neglect of transport costs when assessing how affordable suburban housing is.

Families in Truganina and Tarneit in Melbourne's west exemplify the daily struggles of outer suburban life. Nearly a decade after moving in, the promises of local schools and public transport had failed to materialize.

Likewise, in the outer suburbs of Western Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide, families with children struggle to get to the services they need without a car. In South Australia, the Thrive by Five alliance cites transport as the second-biggest barrier (after attendance costs) to early learning.

These suburbs all provide stark reminders to governments of the problems associated with the suburban sprawl they have encouraged.

Suburban sprawl and car dependence go hand in hand

The defining feature of suburban sprawl is car dependence. It's linked with most of the social and economic downsides of sprawl. Continuing with such developments signals an acceptance of car dependence and the growing social and economic burdens it imposes on future generations.

Life on the fringe without a private car is particularly difficult for families with children due to their complex travel patterns. For example, trip chaining between children's schools, extra-curricular activities and parents' workplaces is common.

The harmful impacts of these car-centric suburbs disproportionally affect children.

To start with, road deaths are the leading cause of death for children and young adults globally. It's easily one of the most underestimated issues in our world.

Long after moving into their new houses, Tarneit residents are paying the price for the lack of promised services. Credit: Shutterstock

Concerns for children's safety in car-dominated neighborhoods and other accessibility issues make the private car "a must use tool" in outer suburbs. We know the rest: the vicious cycle of car dependence and more and more driving.

So suburban sprawl leads to more high-speed roads, longer distances between centers of daily activity and more time in cars. All these factors increase the risk of road deaths and injuries.

Car-dependent neighborhoods deprive children of opportunities essential for their health and well-being. They miss out on physical activity, unstructured play, social interaction and developing social networks. In addition, traffic noise and air pollution expose them to a wide range of environmental and health problems.

Having a backyard doesn't meet all children's needs

What does a truly child-friendly neighborhood look like? It allows for safe and convenient active travel—walking, cycling and "wheeling" (using mobility devices)—as well as public transport, to conduct daily activities. Child-friendliness is embedded in the everyday places, in streets, parks, square and public transport.

But all too often children's play opportunities are reduced to the tiny backyards that are now common in fringe suburbs. These suburban restrictions are at odds with globally recognized principles of child-friendliness. Backyards alone cannot make up for the lack of access to child care, schools, shops, recreation and health services.

How can we develop better planning policies to create neighborhoods that properly meet families' needs? Some policies already exist, such as 15-minute or 20-minute neighborhoods, to reduce private car use for daily activities. But these policies get sidelined when governments promote suburban sprawl and build more freeways.

These governments should not dismiss the suitability of higher-density living in well-serviced neighborhoods for families with children. Yes, some densification policies have been blind to the needs of children and their families. However, when done well, high-density settings can be wonderful communities for such families.

With careful planning, many more families could be housed in established areas without having to significantly increase building heights.

Car-centric planning has failed families

Car-centric planning dates back to the 1950s. Since then, Australian suburban fringe development has largely failed to create child-friendly neighborhoods. Given the pro-sprawl political advocacy, the prospects of Adelaide's largest ever greenfield development being good for children are rather poor, despite some encouraging steps by the government to ensure the new suburbs get adequate infrastructure.

Using aspirations of families with children to justify suburban sprawl is exploitative and misleading. It's an approach that ignores the real-life challenges residents experience and distracts from government's responsibility for proper planning.

If governments are serious about the needs of families with children, they could start by acknowledging children's needs and rights to be able to get to their daily destinations without a car. To deliver neighborhoods that make this possible, governments need to be bold and decisive in their planning.

Suburban sprawl and car dependence go hand in hand. Our politicians must commit to urban planning where cars are no longer privileged. Otherwise we deny our children basic rights to learn, play and socialize safely in their own neighborhoods.

Provided by The Conversation 

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Cars bad for children and the planet

  

After Maui fires, human health risks linger in the air, water and even surviving buildings

by Andrew J. Whelton, The Conversation

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

People returning to what remains of the beachside town of Lahaina, Hawaii, and other Maui communities after one of the nation's deadliest wildfire disasters face more dangers, beyond the 2,700 buildings destroyed or damaged and dozens of lives lost. The fires also left lingering health risks for humans and wildlife.

When fires spread through communities, as we've seen more often in recent years, they burn structures that contain treated wood, plastics, paints and hazardous household wastes. They can burn vehicles and melt plastic water pipes. All of these items release toxic gases and particles.

Many airborne pollutants fall to the ground, and when debris or dust is stirred up, hazardous particles can enter the air, where people can easily breathe them in.

Chemicals can also contaminate water supplies. On Aug. 11, 2023, Maui County issued an "unsafe water" alert for areas of Lahaina and Upper Kula that were affected by wildfires, warning residents to use only bottled water for drinking and cooking, and not rely on boiling tap water because of the risk of harmful chemicals.

As an environmental engineer, I work with colleagues to help communities respond to and recover from wildfires and other disasters, including the Marshall Fire in Boulder County, Colorado, and the Camp Fire that destroyed Paradise, California. Lahaina and other Maui communities face similar risks ahead.

Chemical hazards in fire debris

Residents returning to their burned neighborhoods will likely find themselves surrounded by hazards. Some are obvious, such as broken glass, nails and damaged natural gas containers. Broken power lines and gas lines may be live or leaking.

Less obvious are the chemical hazards that can reach well beyond the fire zone.

Black smoke from a fire is a sign of incomplete combustion that can produce thousands of chemicals when wood and plastics burn.

Chemicals like benzene, lead, asbestos and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, are common in ash, runoff and sometimes water systems after fires.

Exposure to high levels of chemicals can sometimes cause immediate harm, such as nausea, vomiting, dizziness, rashes and respiratory issues. For these reasons it is critical to protect people, especially children and people with health conditions, from exposure.

State health officials recommended that residents wear close-toed shoes, N95 respirators, chemical resistant gloves and other protective equipment while looking through property debris.

When disaster debris is eventually removed by professionals, the contractors will be wearing Tyvek suits and possibly respirators to protect their health.

Buildings that didn't burn can still have hazards

Even buildings deemed structurally safe may have pollutants that make them unsafe for human health.

Particles and vapors can enter buildings through cracks, doors, windows and other portals. Some of these pollutants settle onto surfaces, while others penetrate fabrics, stick to walls and enter air ducts.

Often buildings must be professionally cleaned or decontaminated by wildfire remediation companies. Cleaning surfaces and ducts, replacing air filters and installing HEPA filters can also help.

Drinking water risks and soil testing

Drinking water is another serious concern after urban fires.

Wildfires can make the plumbing outside or inside the building itself unsafe in a couple of ways. Loss of water pressure can allow pollutants to enter pipes. Maui County cited this risk in issuing its "unsafe water" alert on Aug. 11. When plastic pipes heat up, they can also decompose and then directly leach chemicals into water.

My colleagues and I have documented benzene levels that exceeded hazardous limits for drinking water after several previous fires. PAHs can also be present, as our research has shown.

These and other chemicals pose an immediate health risk to water users, even if the water smells fine. Simple water flushing can fail to remove severe contamination. Proper inspections and testing in buildings and for private wells and larger water systems are important.

Outside, the ground can also become contaminated in a fire. Once the debris is removed, testing is necessary to ensure that the soil where people will replant their gardens, yards and fruit trees is free of hazardous chemicals and safe for humans and pets.

Protecting waterways and aquatic life

During firefighting and clean-up, and when it rains, pollutants can wash into waterways and end up in the ocean.

Lahaina stretches along Maui's west coast and has long been a popular site for seeing sea turtles and other marine life. That sea life may now be at risk from pollutants from burned coastal buildings and runoff. The fire burned to the shoreline, destroying boats, docks and other vehicles, some of which sank.

Debris and sunken boats will need to be removed from the nearshore waters to protect corals. Similar to wildfires near lakes, rivers and streams, water testing will be necessary.

Communities can avoid more harmful runoff during the cleanup process by placing pollution-control barriers near storm drains, around properties and near waterways. These can help intercept pollutants flowing toward the ocean.

What happens to all the debris?

How to safely dispose of all the debris as the community is cleaned up and recovers is another question.

After the 2021 Marshall Fire in Colorado, where about 1,200 structures were destroyed, the cleanup generated 300,000 tons of waste. In Maui, debris may have to be taken off the island for disposal.

Cleanup and recovery from a disaster of this magnitude takes years. In the process, I recommend residents reach out to public health departments for advice to help them stay healthy and safe

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Maui officials and scientists warn that after the flames flicker out, toxic particles will remain

Wildfires are a severe blow to Maui's economy, but other iconic destinations have come back from similar disasters

by Rich Harrill, The Conversation

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

Major wildfires on the Hawaiian island of Maui have killed dozens of people and caused heavy damage, particularly in the historic town of Lahaina, as of Aug. 10, 2023. The state has asked all visitors to leave Maui and those planning to travel there to reschedule their trips—a harsh blow to a destination whose economy relies heavily on tourism. University of South Carolina research professor Rich Harrill, an expert on hospitality and tourism, explains how such events affect places like Maui in the short and long terms.

How tourism-dependent is Hawaii compared to other popular destinations?

Compared to other destinations, Hawaii is very reliant on tourism—it comprises about 25% of the state's economy. According to the Hawaii Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism, visitor spending was projected to be US$20.8 billion in 2023 and $23.4 billion in 2026.

Tourism plays an even greater role on Maui. Maui County has the state's highest reliance on tourism, with 51% of its jobs falling into sectors directly associated with tourism. That means household incomes and purchasing power there are strongly influenced by the tourism economy.

What are the main steps that tourist-related businesses on Maui will have to take in the coming days and weeks?

The first step any business owner should take is to ensure that their business opens in line with all state protocols and laws related to the safety, health and welfare of residents and visitors.

In the short term, the top priorities are helping visitors get flights home, handling cancelations and assessing damage to facilities and property. Then, in the weeks that follow, businesses will clean up and make repairs. They will have various aid sources, including the county, state and federal governments, nonprofits and private insurers.

As we saw during the COVID-19 shutdowns, downtime can give business owners an opportunity to reflect on their product or service and how they market it. Some business owners decided to close up shop and retire. Others redoubled their efforts to accommodate the post-pandemic rebound in visitor demand.

Maui is asking visitors to leave and to delay planned trips—will a lot of tourism-related jobs be lost?

Hawaii has weathered other major disasters, including Hurricane Iniki, which devastated the island of Kauai in September 1992.

Individual businesses and corporations may offer some types of worker protection. But historically, many jobs in the tourist sector get cut in the short term when a crisis shuts down business. Then, as conditions improve, companies gradually hire employees back

How do local governments decide when to start inviting visitors back?

This is a process that's led by groups known in the travel industry as destination marketing and management organizations. They often have names like tourist boards, or convention and visitors bureaus, and they help promote and market local attractions.

Working with their local destination marketing organization, local governments should make decisions carefully about inviting visitors back. First and foremost, they need to consider the health, safety and welfare of everyone who's involved—residents, visitors and hospitality providers. All of those groups should be involved in the decision, and it needs to be communicated through carefully crafted marketing messages to reach globally diverse audiences.

Once the needs of the community and its residents have been met, a new marketing campaign takes place that typically presents a revitalized destination that is open and ready for visitors. This message may emphasize new and improved aspects of the destination, or simply show that its beloved and iconic qualities are still there to enjoy. That includes making sure that transportation is available to reach the destination and that there's quality lodging and dining readily available for all price points.

In your experience, does interest in top destinations like Hawaii usually bounce back to pre-disaster levels?

Globally, tourism revenues are projected to grow by almost 5% yearly through 2027. Unlike other forms of economic development, travel and tourism have shown resilience through many different types of crises.

Even destinations that have been massively damaged can regain their markets, although rebuilding may be a multi-year process. New Orleans was a major destination within a decade after it was flooded by Hurricane Katrina. The same was true for the Hawaiian island of Kauai after Hurricane Iniki ravaged it in 1992.

Tourism is a experience that is unique to the human condition. It sustains our hopes and dreams, and offers relaxation and tranquility, or excitement and adventure, through good times and bad.

Provided by The Conversation 

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Exploring how movie locations move tourism

  

Canadians have highly positive views of wolves, survey finds

by Stephanie Rutherford, The Conversation

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Who is afraid of the big bad wolf? Turns out, fewer Canadians than you might think. But that was not always the case.

Aug. 13 marks International Wolf Day. But 100 years ago, it is hard to imagine there would have been any ability to even conceive of such a day, at least on the part of settlers. Celebrating wolves would have seemed ridiculous, even dangerous.

Wolves have historically been viewed with fear by most Canadians. So much so that provincial bounties were established to pay people to kill wolves, and many would not have thought twice about shooting a wolf if they had encountered one on their farm or in the wild.

This was in stark opposition to how many Indigenous nations thought and continue to think about wolves, as kin, brother and a hunter whose skill should be emulated.

So, how did Canadians go from shooting wolves to having a day that honors them? A lot has changed in the intervening years. But do people really want to celebrate wolves? Do they have positive feelings about them and think they deserve protection? That is what we were interested in finding out.

Canadians have generally positive attitudes toward wolves

In March 2023, partnering with conservation researcher Valli-Laurente Fraser-Celin and The Fur-Bearers, a Canadian charitable organization working to protect fur-bearing animals, we developed a survey that was administered by polling firm Research Co. and completed by 1,000 people. We asked Canadians about their knowledge of, and attitudes about, wolves and what circumstances might prompt them to act for their protection.

What we found is that most Canadians might find the idea of celebrating wolves quite appealing. Across Canada, 70 percent of survey participants had moderately or very positive attitudes toward wolves. Moreover, 77 percent considered them to be an iconic species and 83 percent thought of them as important ecosystem members.

Interestingly, these feelings are remarkably even across gender, income, party preference in the 2021 federal election, and province or territory of residence. It seems we are a country of wolf lovers.

This is perhaps unsurprising given that across Canada, wolves have remained abundant, occupying nearly 80 percent of their historic range. This differs from the United States where wolves were almost entirely eradicated.

Indeed, when Canadians celebrate International Wolf Day, we can proudly claim to be home to approximately 60,000 of the 200,000 to 250,000 gray wolves left in the world.

Clip from BBC Earth showcasing the bonds of wolf families.

These positive feelings may also be influenced by the works of writers like Farley Mowat who encouraged readers in Never Cry Wolf to see wolves as noble, affectionate and playful individuals who live in families much like our own. And the audience for this view only grew when the novel was adapted into a film of the same name.

When we broke positive attitudes down by community type, the results were even more intriguing. Previous research and conventional wisdom suggests that rural dwellers do not like wolves. This would seem to make sense; rural people are more likely to be ranchers, farmers and hunters whose interactions with wolves can be negative.

However, we found that people in rural and remote communities had the most positive views at 74 percent, compared to 64 percent of suburban residents. It may be that familiarity with wolves has bred a degree of tolerance. In Canada, rural and remote dwellers are more likely to see or hear a wolf near their home and are 22 percent more willing to accept having wolves live within five kilometers of their home.

It seems that in Canada, wolves are more welcomed in the places they are also more likely to thrive: sparsely populated wild places.

Livestock loss remains a stumbling block

While people expressed fondness for wolves, they do not always like what they do. A clear majority of our survey respondents—60 percent—felt wolves were a primary threat to livestock.

Wolves do prey on livestock, and those losses are keenly felt, both economically and emotionally. But livestock are not under intense threat from wolves across Canada, even if there are some parts of the country, like Alberta, that experience higher rates of depredation.

Evidence shows that wolves will prey on livestock, especially if they are unprotected. Moreover, if wolves do not have wild prey to eat, they will turn to domesticated animals. Managing wolf predation is linked to making sure that other wild prey like moose, caribou and deer have space to flourish. In this way, wolf protection is tied to broader conservation aims that may also work to alleviate the livestock losses felt by ranchers and farmers.

Fostering wolf protection

Our survey also asked participants what would motivate them to act to protect wolves. Put differently, how can we mobilize affection for wolves?

Forty-two percent of people surveyed reported that they would act if wolf populations decreased. Forty-one percent reported they would act if they learned more about the ecosystem benefits that wolves provide, while a further 41 percent said they would act if they learned that a wolf had been killed illegally. Thirty-three percent reported that they would act if they saw a news report that wolf habitats were threatened.

These answers point to a desire for the preservation of wolf habitats and populations, so they can continue their role as keystone predators. This requires ongoing dialog and a focus on broader conservation efforts to make sure that next year on International Wolf Day, they continue to thrive.

Provided by The Conversation 

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Austrian regions allow controversial wolf hunting

Gray wolf recovery: Conservationists discuss the challenges of success

by American Institute of Biological Sciences

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Over the past 30 years, efforts to recover gray wolf populations in the United States have been broadly successful, with many regions now sporting robust populations of the carnivore. Writing in BioScience, wolf experts David E. Ausband and L. David Mech describe the conservation landscape and also the obstacles that wolves face as their populations expand into their historical ranges.

"Remarkable wolf conservation success yields remarkable challenges," say the authors, as 6,000 wolves now occupy habitat across 11 states. These growing populations now face significant threats as they attempt to colonize human-dominated areas, among them "fragmented habitats and barriers to dispersal, as well as increased encounters with humans, pets, and livestock."

In response to those concerned about wolves' potential impacts to prey populations and domestic livestock production, many jurisdictions have ramped up wolf efforts. For instance, in Wisconsin, "the legislature requires a public hunting or trapping season whenever wolves are delisted from the US Fish and Wildlife Service's (USFWS) list of Endangered species."

In contrast, wolves are seen as desirable in other areas, such as Colorado, where voters recently passed a ballot initiative to reintroduce them in the state. The authors caution that such pro-reintroduction initiatives, which may seem initially promising for wolves, could have the unintended consequence of setting precedent for laws barring reintroduction and thus complicate management. An uncertain regulatory regime, say Ausband and Mech, could cause major fluctuations in wolf populations, with dire consequences for conservation efforts.

The answer to this quandary, the authors suggest, is thoughtful management that carefully considers the needs of diverse stakeholders.

"Future wolf conservation in the United States will be affected by the ability of managers to predict colonization and dispersal dynamics, to reduce hybridization and disease transmission, to mitigate and deter wolf–livestock conflicts, to harvest wolves sustainably while satisfying diverse stakeholders, to avert a reduction in tolerance for wolves due to a disinterest in nature, and to engage diverse stakeholders in wolf conservation to avoid management by ballot initiative or legislative and judicial decrees."

Only through such science-informed management, argue Ausband and Mech, can the present success of wolf conservation be built on in the future.

More information: David E Ausband et al, The challenges of success: Future wolf conservation and management in the United States, BioScience (2023). DOI: 10.1093/biosci/biad053. academic.oup.com/bioscience/ar … .1093/biosci/biad053

Journal information: BioScience 

Provided by American Institute of Biological ScienceAnother Western state says it won't send wolves to Colorado, citing 'enormous price' of managing the species

 

Creating forest inventories with drones and artificial intelligence

by Leibniz-Zentrum für Marine Tropenforschung (ZMT)

Overhead image of a mangrove forest in Utría National Park on Colombia's Pacific coast Credit: Daniel Schürholz, Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research

Using drone imagery and artificial intelligence (AI), scientists from the Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT) in Bremen have developed a method that delineates each tree in a forest, along with an estimate of its height and diameter. This capability can help to create biological inventories of forests such as mangroves and also to determine their stocks of stored carbon. Their study appeared as a featured article in the journal Remote Sensing.

Mangrove forests can store large amounts of CO2 and other climate gases as organic material in their biomass and sediment soils. They are therefore considered one of the ecosystems that deserve special attention in the fight against climate change. Experts estimate that between four and 20 billion tons of organic carbon are stored in these tidal forests worldwide. However, the amount of carbon varies greatly between regions and mangrove stands.

Precise estimates of the carbon stocks in the various mangrove areas of the tropics have hardly existed to date. Usually, measurements of a tree's height and diameter are taken on site in a few small plots, and based on the wood density and composition of the tree species, the amount of above-ground biomass is estimated.

The nature of mangrove forests makes this task very difficult. Usually they are very remote and difficult to access. You can sink up to your navel in muddy sediment and have to wade or swim through tideways, tormented by swarms of mosquitoes. With all that effort, the estimates are still imprecise due to natural variability.

How can carbon stocks in large areas of remote mangrove forests be more accurately and easily recorded? That was the task facing a team of scientists from the Data Science and Technology group of the Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT). "We were looking for new techniques to cover the entire forest area and enable regular monitoring," explains doctoral candidate Daniel Schürholz, lead author of the study. "The more detailed the information about the trees in a forest, the more precise the calculation of stored carbon."

Walking through a mangrove forest can be very tedious, here near Bragança in Brazil. Credit: Martin Zimmer, Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research

The team investigated the possibility of accurately mapping large mangrove forests with dense canopies. An inventory of individual trees, including their height, location, and canopy area size, allows for more accurate calculation of the amount of carbon stored, as well as monitoring the condition and health of the forest. "Given the current advances in artificial intelligence, we decided to test cutting-edge techniques to automatically detect individual trees in the forest," Schürholz said

Utría National Park is located on Colombia's Pacific coast. It consists largely of impenetrable mangrove forests. With the support of park rangers and researchers from Colombia's Universidad del Valle, aerial drones were used to photograph the forest canopy from above.

Back in Bremen, using photogrammetric tools, the ZMT scientists created large-scale mosaics of the forest that surpassed the detail of satellite imagery. They then developed an AI workflow that could classify the large mosaics into different habitat categories, and for the native mangrove tree species, each tree could be delineated and the height and diameter of its crown estimated. Knowing the species, the height and the diameter of a tree, the above-ground biomass can then be estimated.

"Using our AI workflow, we calculated, for example, that there are 19,717 trees of the endemic mangrove species Pelliciera rhizophorae in the area studied. This is an estimation that would be very difficult to achieve by conventional means," says Arjun Chennu, an expert in habitat mapping at ZMT and co-author of the study.

"The use of low-cost drone imagery with AI tools could be applied to a variety of other features beyond determining blue carbon stocks, such as illegal logging, invasive species detection, or animal and plant community change," he says.

With their work, the researchers hope to help protect valuable mangrove forests by providing decision makers with more reliable data to argue for conservation or restoration of mangrove forests. "The current hype around cutting-edge AI algorithms should also be applied to environmental issues to improve our understanding of the natural world," Schürholz stipulates. "With the speed of progress in AI, we will be able to reveal more and more details about the processes in nature and better understand how to protect and sustainably manage it."

Similar algorithms could be used to map other ecosystems such as coral reefs or temperate forests, as well as to identify animals and track their movements. Forests in Germany could also benefit from the method. The prerequisite, Schürholz said, is to adapt the AI algorithm to the species found in these forests. "We are providing a good blueprint for a system that can be used around the globe," he adds.

More information: Daniel Schürholz et al, Seeing the Forest for the Trees: Mapping Cover and Counting Trees from Aerial Images of a Mangrove Forest Using Artificial Intelligence, Remote Sensing (2023). DOI: 10.3390/rs15133334

Provided by Leibniz-Zentrum für Marine Tropenforschung (ZMT)Mangrove forests store more carbon when they're more diverse

 

Genetic study of 3rd- to 16th-century people living on Canary Islands provide North African history clues

by Bob Yirka , Phys.org

The genomic history of the indigenous people of the Canary Islands. Credit: Nature Communications (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-40198-w

A team of paleo-geneticists at Universidad de La Laguna on Santa Cruz de Tenerife, working with colleagues from other Canary Islands and European institutes, has found that studying the genes of people living in the Canary Islands from the 3rd to the 16th century sheds light on the history of people living in North Africa around the same time.

In their study, reported in the journal Nature Communications, the group obtained bone samples from other research efforts and conducted genetic studies.

As archaeologists, historians and other researchers attempt to piece together the details of human history, going back as far as possible, they sometimes encounter blank spaces in the record. That has been the case with many parts of North Africa over the centuries from approximately the 200s to the 1500s. This is due, the researchers note, to the hot and dry climate.

The bones of those who lived there during that time have not been preserved well enough to extract DNA. To fill in some of the blanks, the team on this new effort looked instead at the bones of people living on the Canary Islands during that time. Prior research has shown that the people living in the Canary Islands during this period came from North Africa.

The work involved sequencing samples collected from bones and teeth unearthed on the islands during past digs by other research teams. They focused their attention only on bones and teeth of people known to have lived on at least one of the Canary Islands during the 3rd to 16th centuries.

The team found genetic ties between people living on the islands and those living in North Africa, mainly in what is now Morocco, dating back 5,000 years. They also found evidence of genetic influences from people living along the Mediterranean Sea, both in Africa and Europe—likely due, the researchers note, to migration across the Sahara.

The research team also found differences in the genes of people based on location—islands closer to Africa experienced more ancestral influence from European people, while those farther away were more African.

More information: Javier G. Serrano et al, The genomic history of the indigenous people of the Canary Islands, Nature Communications (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-40198-w

Journal information: Nature Communications 

© 2023 Science X Network

North Africans were among the first to colonize the Canary Islands