Researchers: 'Nature positive' isn't just planting a few trees, it's actually stopping the damage we do

by Martine Maron, Megan C Evans and Sophus zu Ermgassen, The Conversation

Credit: Shahjehan/Shutterstock

Have you heard the phrase "nature positive?" It's suddenly everywhere.The idea is simple: rather than continually erode the natural world, nature positive envisions a future with more nature than we have now.

Created by an environmental alliance, the nature positive concept has been embraced by industry, world leaders and conservationists.

Sudden popularity can be reason for caution. After all, we've seen well-intended ideas become cover for greenwashing before. And without strong guardrails, we risk nature positive being used as a distraction from continued failures.

Our new research points to three ways to make sure nature positive is truly positive for nature.

What's the big idea?

According to the Nature Positive Initiative, "nature positive" aims to "halt and reverse nature loss measured from a baseline of 2020, through increasing the health, abundance, diversity and resilience of species, populations and ecosystems so that by 2030 nature is visibly and measurably on the path of recovery."

So, nature positive means seriously scaling back negative impacts on nature—through tackling land clearing, invasive species, and climate change—while also investing in positive impacts like ecosystem restoration and rewilding.

The goal is hugely ambitious. But it's also essential.

The natural world is humanity's life-support system. But we have now seriously compromised the biosphere's ability to support us.

The goal is ambitious and necessary—but it's not going to be easy.

 Credit: naturepositive.org

Australia's environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, has backed the idea, announcing plans for a nature positive summit next year. The goal: "drive private sector investment to protect and repair our environment."

You can also see the influence of nature positive in Plibersek's plans for a nature repair market. And just this month, the New South Wales review of biodiversity laws recommended nature positive become "mandatory."

We must be wary of greenwashing

The risk of big-picture plans is that they can be used for PR purposes—serving to make companies or governments look good on the environment rather than actually improving nature's lot.

Already, the term nature positive is being used too freely to refer to any vaguely green action.

This new focus on nature positive mustn't distract from the need to fully address ongoing negative impacts.

Take the Australian government's Nature Positive Plan—its official response to the scathing 2020 review of Australia's national environment law.

Under the plan, "conservation payments" could be made by developers when destruction of threatened biodiversity is permitted, but suitable environmental offsets cannot be found.

These conservation payments would then be invested by government into conservation projects—but they would not necessarily benefit the same biodiversity destroyed by the development.

The plan states this approach will deliver "better overall environmental outcomes." In reality it could make it possible to destroy habitat of our most threatened species and replace it with other, easier-to-replace biodiversity—as long as there is more "nature" overall.

Tackling invasive species like lantana will relieve some pressure on native ecosystems. Credit: Andrew Howe/Australian Wildlife Conservancy

Positive for nature: The fundamentals

For "nature positive" to actually be positive for nature, it must do what it says on the tin. We cannot let this vitally important movement be used to justify further loss of valuable ecosystems or species, or to exaggerate the benefits of action.

Our research suggests three ways to make sure claims about nature positive are not misleading.

First, we have to make sure any proposal that might damage nature follows the "mitigation hierarchy." In short: can biodiversity losses be avoided entirely? If not, can they be kept to a bare minimum? Any remaining impacts must be fully compensated with gains of the same type and amount elsewhere.

Unfortunately, this is rarely achieved. In practice, developers often do poorly on avoiding or minimizing damage. Instead, they rely heavily on the final, most risky step—offsets.

Yes, offsets can work—in very limited situations. They cannot replace the irreplaceable. And much of nature is irreplaceable.

Old-growth forests cannot be replaced. The same goes for tree hollows—these take hundreds of years to form, and artificial nesting boxes often don't work.

So, the move towards nature positive must not replace rigorous adherence to the mitigation hierarchy with more general environmental action which doesn't fully address damage.

Second, organizations must consider not just their direct impact on biodiversity, but the footprint of their whole operation and its resource use.

Achieving nature positive will mean tackling entire supply chains.

How do you offset the loss of an old-growth forest? Hint: you can’t. Credit: Shutterstock

It's not easy to account for, reduce and compensate for your company or organization's unavoidable impacts on nature. But it can be done. It will require improvements in knowledge and traceability of supply chains, reducing consumption, and investing in nature restoration to make up for the leftover harms unable to be eliminated.

And third, organizations signing up to nature positive must contribute to active ecological restoration. That's on top of any compensation for their own direct and indirect impacts. The huge scale of historical damage to the environment means that even if organizations completely address all of their current and future biodiversity impacts, nature positive will still not be achieved.

Here, so-called voluntary biodiversity credits may play a useful role.

But wherever there are credits, there's risk. It's entirely possible companies could simply buy these credits without avoiding and minimizing biodiversity losses in the first place—the exact same problem plaguing carbon offsets.

Nature positive is welcome: Now let's see it in action

For decades, conservationists have tried to protect what's left of the natural world through lobbying for protected areas and better environmental laws. But nature's decline has only accelerated. Economic growth and profit have always taken precedence.

Moving to a truly nature positive world, one fit to provide future generations with all that we enjoy from nature, means a serious societal shift. For this reason, nature positive is welcome.

It's not enough to slow the decline—it's time to reverse it.

But we must not underestimate the task ahead.

Only if nature positive commitments are translated into action with rigor can they help reduce the damage we do, alongside spurring on ecological restoration and rewilding. But if nature positive is used as a tactic for positive publicity, it won't change a thing.

Provided by The Conversation 

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

Greenwashing: A threat to a 'nature positive' world

 

Scientists believe exoplanet Gliese 367 b is probably a solid ball of metal

by Evan Gough, Universe Today

An illustration of the exoplanet Gliese 367 b. It's an oddball planet that may be composed 

entirely of iron. Credit: NASA

We can't understand nature without understanding its range. That's apparent in exoplanet science and in our theories of planetary formation. Nature's outliers and oddballs put pressure on our models and motivate scientists to dig deeper.

Gliese 367 b (or Tahay) is certainly an oddball. It's an Ultrashort Period (USP) planet that orbits its star in only 7.7 hours. There are almost 200 other USP planets in our 5,000+ catalog of exoplanets, so Gliese 367 b isn't unique in that regard. But it's an outlier in another way: it's also an ultra-dense planet—almost twice as dense as Earth.

That means it has to be almost pure iron.

Astronomers found Tahay in TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) data from 2021. But new research in The Astrophysical Journal Letters is refining the oddball planet's mass and radius with improved measurements. It also found two siblings for the planet. The research is titled "Company for the Ultra-high Density, Ultra-short Period Sub-Earth GJ 367 b: Discovery of Two Additional Low-mass Planets at 11.5 and 34 Days." The lead author is Elisa Goffo, a Ph.D. student at the Physics Department of the University of Turin.

TESS found Gliese 367 b in 2021 when it detected an extremely weak transit signal from the red dwarf star named Gliese 367. The signal was at the limits of TESS detection capability, so astronomers knew it was small, like Earth.

As part of the 2021 effort, the researchers used the High-Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) spectrograph at the European Southern Observatory to determine G 367 b's mass and density. They determined that the planet's radius is 72% of Earth's and its mass is 55% of Earth's. That means that it was likely an iron planet, the leftover core of a once much larger planet.

Fast forward to now and the new research by Goffo and her colleagues.

They also used HARPS to measure the small planet. This time they used 371 HARPS observations of G 367 b. These results show that the planet is even more dense than the 2021 study found. Instead of 55% of Earth's mass, this new research reveals that the planet is 63% of Earth's mass. Its radius also shrank from 72% of Earth's to 70% of Earth's.

What it boils down to is that G 367 b is twice as dense as Earth. How did the planet get this way? It's unlikely that it formed the way it is now. Instead, it's probably the core of a planet that had its rocky mantle stripped.

"You could compare GJ 367 b to an Earth-like planet with its rocky mantle stripped away," said lead author Goffo. "This could have important implications for the formation of GJ 367 b. We believe that the planet might have formed like the Earth, with a dense core made mainly of iron, surrounded by a silicate-rich mantle."

Something extraordinary must've happened for the small planet to lose its mantle. "A catastrophic event could have stripped away its rocky mantle, leaving the dense core of the planet naked," Goffo explained. Collisions between it and other still-forming protoplanets early in its life could've removed the planet's outer layer.

Another possibility, according to Goffo, is that the small USP was born in an unusually iron-rich region of a protoplanetary disk. But that seems unlikely.

A third possibility exists, and it was first pondered when astronomers discovered G 367 b in 2021. It could be the remnant of a once-enormous gas giant like Neptune. For that to be the case, the planet would have formed further from the star and then migrated in. It's so close to its star now that the intense irradiation from the red dwarf would've boiled the atmosphere away.

G 367 b is in a very small class of exoplanets called super-Mercuries. Their composition is the same as Mercury, but they're larger and denser. (Even though they're rare, there's one system with two of them.) Mercury may have suffered the same fate that G 367 b may have suffered. It might have had more mantle and crust at one time, but impacts removed it.

But even among super-Mercuries, G 367 b stands out. It's the densest USP that we know of. "Thanks to our precise mass and radius estimates, we explored the potential internal composition and structure of GJ 367 b and found that it is expected to have an iron core with a mass fraction of 0.91," the new paper states.

So what happened in this system? How did G 367 b find itself in this state, and so close to its star?

The researchers also found two more planets in this system: G 367 c and d. Astronomers think that USP planets are almost always found in systems with multiple planets, so this new research strengthens that. TESS couldn't detect these planets because they don't transit their star. The team found them in their HARPS observations, and their presence limits the possible formation scenarios.

"Thanks to our intensive observations with the HARPS spectrograph we discovered the presence of two additional low-mass planets with orbital periods of 11.5 and 34 days, which reduce the number of possible scenarios that might have led to the formation of such a dense planet," said co-author Davide Gandolfi, Professor at the University of Turin.

The companion planets also orbit close to the star but have lower masses. This puts pressure on the idea that any of them formed in an iron-rich environment but doesn't eliminate it. "While GJ 367 b might have formed in an iron-rich environment, we do not exclude a formation scenario involving violent events like giant planet collisions," said Gandolfi in a press release.

In their paper's conclusion, the team digs a little deeper into possible formation scenarios.

In the formation scenario, the protoplanetary disk around Gliese 367 must have had a region that was iron-enriched. But astronomers don't know if that type of iron-rich region even exists.

"Possible pathways may include the formation out of material significantly more iron-rich than thought to be normally present in protoplanetary disks. Although it is not clear if disks with such a large relative iron content specifically near the inner edge (where most of the material might be obtained from) exist," they write.

In fact, a separate 2020 study said that their work on planet formation "fails to reproduce the extreme enrichments in Fe needed to account for the formation of Mercury." If disk models can't explain how iron-rich Mercury formed, they can't explain how G 367 b formed.

Instead, it's more likely that the planet was different when it formed and then took its current form over time. Collisional stripping is when a planet's outer material is removed by one or more collisions. Since outer material is less dense than inner material in differentiated planets, repeated collisions would've increased G 367 b's bulk density by removing lighter material.

But there's at least one problem with that. "Our measurement of the bulk density of GJ 367 b suggests that collisional stripping has to be remarkably effective in removing non-iron material from the planet if it is the only process at work," the authors write. Remarkably effective, but not impossible.

So there are three possibilities: the planet formed in an iron-rich environment, the planet was once larger and lost its outer layers through collisions, or the planet is the left-over core of a once-massive gas giant that migrated too close to its star and had its gaseous envelope stripped away.

Maybe we don't have to settle on one. "Of course, all of the above-discussed processes could have contributed to creating the nearly pure ball of iron, known as GJ 367 b," the authors write.

All we have now are possibilities. The system is like a puzzle, and it's up to astronomers to solve it. Its unusual properties make it an outlier and scientists like outliers because it motivates them to dig deeper. If our current theories can't explain these oddballs, then our theories need refinement.

"This unique multi-planetary system hosting this ultra-high density, USP sub-Earth is an extraordinary target to further investigate the formation and migration scenarios of USP systems," the researchers conclude.

More information: Elisa Goffo et al, Company for the Ultra-high Density, Ultra-short Period Sub-Earth GJ 367 b: Discovery of Two Additional Low-mass Planets at 11.5 and 34 Days*, The Astrophysical Journal Letters (2023). DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ace0c7

Journal information: Astrophysical Journal Letters 

Provided by Universe Today Two additional exoplanets detected in a nearby planetary system

 

Gases from Philippine volcano sicken dozens of children, prompting school closures in nearby towns

A small steam rises from Taal Volcano, Batangas province, Philippines on Friday July 2,

 2021. Smog containing gases from a restive Philippine volcano sickened dozens of

 students and prompted 25 towns and cities to shut their schools on Friday, Sept. 22, 2023,

 as a health precaution, officials said. Credit: AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File

Smog containing gases from a restive Philippine volcano sickened dozens of students and prompted 25 towns and cities to shut their schools on Friday as a health precaution, officials said

There was no imminent threat of a major eruption of Taal Volcano, which authorities said remains at a low level of unrest in Batangas province south of Manila. But they said its emission of sulfur dioxide-laden steam in recent days caused skin, throat and eye irritation for at least 45 students in nearby towns.

Classes were suspended in 25 towns and cities in Batangas to keep students safely at home. Some schools resumed online classes and home learning that were in wide use at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, officials said.

Smog has also been reported in Manila north of Taal in recent days, but the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said it was largely caused by vehicle emissions and not the volcano.

Taal, one of the world's smallest volcanoes, is among two dozen active volcanoes in the Philippines, which lies along the Pacific "Ring of Fire," a seismically active region that is prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

The 311-meter (1,020-foot) volcano sits in the middle of a scenic lake and is a popular tourist attraction about 60 kilometers (37 miles) south of Manila.

Taal erupted in January 2020 with a massive plume of ash and steam that prompted the evacuation of tens of thousands of people and the closure of Manila's international airport.

© 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

Volcano erupts near Manila; villagers flee, airports shut

ARACHNOLOGY

Large fossil spider found in Australia

by Australian Museum

Credit: Australian Museum

A team of Australian scientists led by Australian Museum (AM) and University of New South Wales (UNSW) paleontologist Dr. Matthew McCurry have formally named and described a fossil spider, Megamonodontium mccluskyi, which is between 11–16 million years old. The findings on this new genus of spider have now been published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.

Found at McGraths Flat, NSW, a fossil site known for its iron-rich rock called "goethite," the new genus of spider is the first ever spider fossil of the Barychelidae family to be found. Similar to the living genus, Monodontium (a brushed trapdoor spider) but five times larger, the spider was named after Dr. Simon McClusky who found the specimen. A geospatial scientist based in Canberra, McClusky volunteers his time helping on palaeontological excavations.

Dr. McCurry said that there have been very few fossil spiders found in Australia which makes the discovery very significant.

"Only four spider fossils have ever been found throughout the whole continent, which has made it difficult for scientists to understand their evolutionary history. That is why this discovery is so significant, it reveals new information about the extinction of spiders and fills a gap in our understanding of the past."

"The closest living relative of this fossil now lives in wet forests in Singapore through to Papua New Guinea. This suggests that the group once occupied similar environments in mainland Australia but have subsequently gone extinct as Australia became more arid."

Queensland Museum arachnologist, Dr. Robert Raven, who was the supervising author of the study said this was the largest fossil spider to be found in Australia.

Credit: Australian Museum

"Not only is it the largest fossilized spider to be found in Australia but it is the first fossil of the family Barychelidae that has been found worldwide."

"There are around 300 species of brush-footed trapdoor spiders alive today, but they don't seem to become fossils very often. This could be because they spend so much time inside burrows and so aren't in the right environment to be fossilized."

University of Canberra Associate Professor, Michael Frese, who used stacking microphotography to scan the fossils said that the fossils from McGraths Flat show an amazing level of detailed preservation.

"Scanning electron microscopy allowed us to study minute details of the claws and setae on the spider's pedipalps, legs and the main body. Setae are hair-like structures that can have a range of functions. They can sense chemicals and vibrations, defend the spider against attackers and even make sounds."

The fossil is now housed in the AM's paleontology collection and is available online for researchers to study.

A separate paper will be published on the same day in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society describing a jumping spider from McGraths Flat. These are separate publications, but both describe fossils from the same site. Matthew McCurry and Michael Frese are authors on both pieces of work.

More information: Matthew R McCurry et al, A large brush-footed trapdoor spider (Mygalomorphae: Barychelidae) from the Miocene of Australia, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society (2023). DOI: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlad100

Journal information: Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 

Provided by Australian MuseumA fossil jumping spider's 15-million-year journey

 

Tuvalu will always be a state, even if underwater, says PM

by Issam AHMED

Speaking on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Kausea Natano said there had been

 "unnecessary" conservations in academic and diplomatic circles centered on the 

definition of a country under international law.

Tuvalu could be one of the first nations to sink beneath the sea as a result of climate change, but that doesn't mean its statehood is up for discussion, the tiny Pacific archipelago's prime minister said Thursday.

Speaking on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Kausea Natano said there had been "unnecessary" conversations in academic and diplomatic circles centered on the definition of a country under international law.

"Our sovereignty is not negotiable," Natano told AFP, adding that his country would be working with the international community to "bring a close to these distractions."

Tuvalu's population of 11,000 is spread across nine islands that rise less than five meters above sea level, underscoring the extraordinary challenges it faces from sea-level rise.

Two of the atolls represented on its flag of 11 stars have already disappeared, and even the higher lying areas could become uninhabitable by 2100 as a result of salt contaminating its land and water supply.

The 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States holds that a state consists of a defined territory, a permanent population, a government and the capacity to interact with other states.

If the territory is swallowed up, or no one can live on what is left of it, then at least one of the criteria is no longer met.

But while Tuvalu's land mass accounts for just 26 square kilometers (10 square miles)—around the size of seven Central Parks—its maritime territory covers a vast 800,000 square kilometers.

The convention is ambiguous on the question of whether territory is wet or dry, and there is no precedent for revoking the status of a UN member state, leaving the matter fuzzy.

Land reclamation, and the metaverse

Tuvalu isn't taking an underwater future as a given, and—along with pleading with the world to end its addiction to fossil fuels—has begun work on a Coastal Adaptation Project that aims to reclaim around 3.8 kilometers of land from the ocean and raise land levels in the most vulnerable spots.

It has been financed with $36 million in international assistance channelled through the Green Climate Fund, and $2.9 million from Tuvalu's own government.

The situation is dire, says Natano. Around 40 percent of the capital Funafuti already gets submerged during periodic "king" tides that wash away root crops, including former island staples taro and cassava.

While he is pleased that the project's first phase is nearing completion, Natano said the scope is too small to help all of his people.

"We need more, faster action from whoever is in a position to support us, urgently," he said.

To this end, the country has been at the forefront of the major climate action calls: a global tax on fossil fuels, and the activation of a "loss and damages" fund—international climate jargon for climate compensation owed by rich polluting countries to the most impacted nations.

This fund was agreed to in principle at the last major climate talks in Egypt, but—like so many other vows from the rich world—has yet to be fulfilled.

"It's a matter of life and death—it's a matter of disappearing from the surface of this Earth," said Natano, urging countries to keep their promise.

Should the worst come to pass, Tuvalu has been moving its cultural heritage to the digital sphere, in what some have called a model for how "Nation-States 2.0" might work.

But what happens to Tuvalu will merely be a harbinger of what cities around the world threatened by sea-level rise will experience—from Miami to Manila, said Natano.

"More and more citizens of the world will have to relocate," he said. "Use us a model to preserve the entire world."

© 2023 AFP

As oceans rise, are some nations doomed to vanish?

EDGAR ALLAN POE

THE CITY IN THE SEA.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


LO! Death has reared himself a throne

In a strange city lying alone

Far down within the dim West,

Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best

Have gone to their eternal rest.

There shrines and palaces and towers

(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)

Resemble nothing that is ours.

Around, by lifting winds forgot,

Resignedly beneath the sky

The melancholy waters lie.

 

No rays from the holy heaven come down

On the long night-time of that town;

But light from out the lurid sea

Streams up the turrets silently —

Gleams up the pinnacles far and free —

Up domes — up spires — up kingly halls —

Up fanes — up Babylon-like walls —

Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers

Of scultured ivy and stone flowers —

Up many and many a marvellous shrine

Whose wreathed friezes intertwine

The viol, the violet, and the vine. [page 22:]

 

Resignedly beneath the sky

The melancholy waters lie.

So blend the turrets and shadows there

That all seem pendulous in air,

While from a proud tower in the town

Death looks gigantically down.

 

There open fanes and gaping graves

Yawn level with the luminous waves;

But not the riches there that lie

In each idol's diamond eye —

Not the gaily-jewelled dead

Tempt the waters from their bed;

For no ripples curl, alas!

Along that wilderness of glass —

No swellings tell that winds may be

Upon some far-off happier sea —

No heavings hint that winds have been

On seas less hideously serene.

 

But lo, a stir is in the air!

The wave — there is a movement there!

As if the towers had thrown aside,

In slightly sinking, the dull tide —

As if their tops had feebly given

A void within the filmy Heaven.

The waves have now a redder glow —

The hours are breathing faint and low —

And when, amid no earthly moans,

Down, down that town shall settle hence. [[,]]

Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,

Shall do it reverence.


Notes:

In reading this poem, the modern mind tends immediately to think of Atlantis, the fabled paradise that has long usurped any recollection of other submerged cities. As has often been suggested, the more likely source for Poe was the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, both still visible beneath the Dead Sea. In his poem “Al Aaraaf,” Poe includes the following note: “There were, undoubtedly, more than two cities engluphed in the ‘dead sea.’ In the valley of Siddim were five — Adrah, Zeboin, Zoar, Sodom, and Gomorrah. Stephen, of Byzantium, mentions eight, and Strabo, thirteeen, (engulphed) — but the last is out of all reason. It is said, (Tacitus, Strabo, Josephus, Daniel, of St. Saba, Nau, Maundrell, Troilo, D’Arvieux) that, after an excessive drought, the vestiges of columns, walls, &c. are seen above the surface. At any season, such remains may be discoverd by looking down into the transparent lake, and at such distances as would argue the existence of many settlements in the space now usurped by the ‘Asphaltites.’ ”


[S:1 - RAOP, 1845 (fac, 1969)] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Poems - The City in the Sea (Text-05c)

Island nations blame rich countries for climate inaction at UN assembly

Fri, September 22, 2023 
By Daphne Psaledakis

UNITED NATIONS, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Island nations bearing the brunt of climate change this week confronted rich countries at the United Nations General Assembly, saying the failure by developed countries to act with urgency had put the islands' survival at risk.

"There are many amongst us, the small and marginalized islands of our globe, surrounded by rising seas and scorched by rising temperatures, who are beginning to question this annual parade of flowery speeches and public pretense of brotherhood, otherwise known as the U.N. annual General Assembly," Saint Lucia Prime Minister Philip Pierre told the gathering on Friday.

Several speakers at the week-long event quoted U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who in July cautioned that the era of global warming had ended and “the era of global boiling has arrived.”

A perceived lack of urgency by developed nations was a recurring theme. Speakers emphasized that a failure to sufficiently curb greenhouse gas emissions had contributed to rising sea levels, threatening island and low-lying nations.

"The problem is that those whose actions we most need may be so confident in their survival that they do not act early enough for us," Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley said on Friday.

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation, countries aimed to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), the threshold scientists say would head off the worst impacts of warming.

To meet that goal, scientists say the world needs to cut global emissions in half by 2030, and to net-zero by 2050.

"Unfortunately, the international community has not done nearly enough to get us on track to limiting the global average temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius," Wesley Simina, president of Micronesia, said in a speech on Thursday.

"One need only scan the news on any random day to see the evidence of the climate crisis in devastating effects around the world today," he said.

Marshall Islands President David Kabua called for the establishment of an international financing facility to assist small island and low-lying atoll nations facing natural disasters.

Kabua said countries attending the U.N. COP28 climate summit beginning in November must recognize that the world is failing to deliver on the Paris Agreement and agree on a roadmap to correct course, including the phase-out of fossil fuels.


"These challenges might be inconvenient for large economies - but I can assure the climate impact's already at our door," he told the General Assembly.

U.S. President Joe Biden will host a second summit with leaders of the Pacific Islands Forum at the White House on Monday, where climate will be on the agenda. The gathering is part of Washington's efforts to step up engagement with a region where the U.S. is in a battle for influence with China. (Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis at the United Nations and Valerie Volcovici in Washington; Editing by Don Durfee and Howard Goller)

 

Australia's firefighters face worst season in years

by Sharon MARRIS, Andrew LEESON

Australia heavily relies on a 190,000-strong volunteer cohort to fight fires.

Volunteer firefighters are scorching Australia's forest undergrowth, reducing fuel for what is expected to be the fiercest fire season since the monster "Black Summer" blazes.

Deadly wildfires have devastated forests in Canada, Greece, Hawaii and elsewhere around the world this year but unlike many other countries, Australia heavily relies on a 190,000-strong volunteer cohort to battle the flames.

Their courage was on display during the "Black Summer" fires of 2019-2020 that killed 33 people and millions of animals, as well as destroying thousands of homes and razing vast swathes of eucalyptus forest.

But some of them fear their brigades may not be able to cope in the future should global warming make fires even more intense and frequent.

"It's terrifying but, if 2019-20 became the norm, I don't know how you sustain that year on year. I don't think that's sustainable," said Andy Hain, a 41-year-old volunteer with the NSW Rural Fire Service, who is married with two young sons.

Faced with repeated fires on the scale of the "Black Summer", Australia and other countries would have to share personnel and resources more than they do already, said Hain, who has volunteered for nearly 10 years in Picton, a rural town southwest of Sydney with a population of about 5,000.

Because of wet conditions since "Black Summer", the RFS warns that the threat of grass fires is the highest it has been in two decades.

There are fears Australia's volunteer firefighters may not be able to cope if climate change makes fires even more intense and frequent.

'Ready to burn'

Driving through Picton, as kangaroos hop along in front of houses lit up by the late afternoon sun, Hain points at the grass growing along the roadside.

"There's green in it but see that straw colour? That's ready to burn," he told AFP.

In New South Wales, as in other states, firefighters have been burning off leaf litter and dense scrub to give themselves the best chance in the coming summer.

They carry fuel-filled "drip torches"—a metal can with a long narrow tube that has a small flame at its end—to set the brush alight before hosing down the embers.

Like most of the RFS's 70,000 volunteers in New South Wales, Hain has a paid job elsewhere—in his case, airline flight operations.

But he is looking at another fire season when his paid job might have to take a back seat.

As the fire season approaches, Hain worries about the toll on colleagues juggling paid work and family alongside their dangerous volunteer roles.

An Australian firefighting volunteer gasps for air while moving out of an area with thick smoke during a hazard reduction burn.

An estimated 82,000 people fought the "Black Summer" fires across Australia, 78 percent of them volunteers.

After the fires, research by the University of Western Australia found that roughly 5,000 of the personnel had a "high need" for mental health support.

'Massive, massive fire'

In a world of fiercer, more frequent fires, what happens when other Australian states and foreign countries are unable to lend a hand as they struggle with their own disasters?

Former NSW Fire and Rescue commissioner Greg Mullins is worried about just that as fire seasons around the world extend and overlap.

"You're asking people to leave their work for months, they have to be their breadwinners, they have to put bread on the table," he said. "At what stage does it become too much?"

During the "Black Summer", some firefighters found themselves saving the homes of their neighbours even as their own properties were burning, and that pressure takes a "huge toll", Mullins said.

"I've seen colleagues who have really broken down because of what they've seen."

Australia has been hit by intense, vast wildfires in recent years.

But it is not just fires that strain the state's firefighters.

Wisemans Ferry, about 90 minutes' drive north of Sydney, is nestled on the banks of the Hawkesbury River and surrounded by dense national parks.

In late 2019, a large fire sparked by lightning erupted not far from the home of 35-year-old RFS volunteer Kim Brownlie.

"We were very lucky that we didn't lose a single home during those fires, and that was a massive, massive fire," she said.

"So much effort was put in by volunteers from everywhere—they were coming down from Queensland or coming up from Victoria as well."

Months after the flames were extinguished, the first of four floods hit Brownlie's town.

Fellow volunteer Mitchell Brennan watched his home go under and then battled to save others from the rising waters.

"We helped them survive the flood with food, water, fuel, as much as we could," he said.

"There was nothing to be saved when the water came through and the way it came up. There was nothing you could do, there was no way of stopping it."

© 2023 AFP

Expert says to brace for bushfire season ahead, but expect worse to come

 

We could sequester CO2 by 're-greening' arid lands, plant scientists say

by Cell Press

Annual growth rate of atmospheric C pools (blue arrow) is the differential of emissions from 

fossil fuels (9.6 Gt C), land use change (1.2 Gt C), and uptake of C into terrestrial 

(3.1 Gt C) and oceanic (2.9 Gt C) C pools. Only land-based C fluxes are shown here.

Credit: Trends in Plant Science, Hirt et al.

Reducing CO2 levels in the atmosphere will take more than cutting emissions—we will also need to capture and store the excessive volumes of already-emitted carbon. In an opinion paper published in the journal Trends in Plant Science on September 21, a team of plant scientists argue that arid lands such as deserts could be one answer to the carbon-capture problem.

The authors argue that we could transform arid ecosystems into efficient carbon-capture systems with improved soil health, enhanced photosynthetic efficiency, and larger root biomass by engineering ideal combinations of plants, soil microbes, and soil type to facilitate a naturally occurring biogeochemical process called the oxalate-carbonate pathway to create below-ground carbon sinks.

"Re-greening deserts by restoration of ecosystem functions, including carbon sequestration, should be the preferential approach," writes the research team, led by senior author and plant scientist Heribert Hirt of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. "The advantage of reclaiming arid regions for re-greening and carbon sequestration is that they do not compete with lands used in agriculture and food production."

The method takes advantage of arid-adapted plants that produce oxalates—ions containing carbon and oxygen that might ring a bell if you're unlucky enough to suffer from kidney stones or gout. Some soil microbes use oxalates as their sole carbon source, and in doing so, they excrete carbonate molecules into the soil. Carbonate usually breaks down quickly, but if these plant-microbe systems are grown in alkaline- and calcium-rich soils, the carbonate reacts with calcium to form stable deposits of calcium carbonate.

Carbon naturally cycles between the atmosphere, oceans, and terrestrial ecosystems, but human actions have resulted in the accumulation of excess CO2 in the atmosphere. Even if we can reduce CO2 emissions, the researchers write that the "...climate effects of elevated CO2 will remain irreversible for at least 1,000 years unless CO2 can be sequestered from the atmosphere."

Trees are considered an ideal system for carbon capture, but reforestation competes directly with agriculture for arable land. In contrast, arid lands, which constitute approximately one-third of terrestrial surfaces, are not utilized for agriculture.

Currently, arid ecosystems support very little plant life, with the lack of water being the biggest limiting factor. However, some plants have adapted to arid life by evolving different mechanisms for coping with the lack of water and extreme temperatures.

Some arid-adapted plants have special root systems for reaching deep into the soil to tap hidden water sources while others use different forms of photosynthesis that allow them to minimize water loss during the hottest parts of the day.

Yet others, so-called "oxalogenic" plants, produce large amounts of oxalates that they can convert into water during times of drought. Some of the carbon from these oxalates is deposited below-ground as carbon deposits when oxalogenic plants are grown under certain conditions, and it's this mechanism that the authors want to exploit for carbon sequestration.

"Overall, in this form of carbon sequestration, one out of every 16 photosynthetically fixed carbon atoms might be sequestered into carbonates," the authors write.

Amplifying this naturally occurring biogeochemical process in arid lands could convert these currently unproductive and degraded ecosystems into carbon sinks with healthier soil and plants, the authors say. They suggest beginning with "fertility islands"—small pockets of re-greened habitat from which the plants and microbes can spread to form a carpet of vegetation.

The authors estimate that these approaches could result in significant increases in both plant and soil carbon sequestration in less than ten years. However, they note that the success and speed of the proposed method will depend on the rate of plant growth (which tends to be slow under water-scarce conditions) and "...will also depend on the financial and political means to apply this technology in various arid countries."

More information: Engineering carbon sequestration on arid lands, Trends in Plant Science (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.tplants.2023.08.009

Journal information: Trends in Plant Science 

Provided by Cell Press Increased droughts are disrupting carbon-capturing soil microbes, concerning ecologists

 

Peru's Operation Mercury stopped most illegal gold mining in one biodiversity hotspot—then the COVID-19 pandemic hit

by Dartmouth College

A former mining camp shows where shallow mining ponds have overwhelmed a former

 river system in the La Pampa region of Madre de Dios, Peru. 

Credit: Jason Houston  (iLCP Redsecker Response Fund/CEES/CINCIA))

Artisanal and small-scale gold mining is a lifeline for many who live in Madre de Dios, a region in southeastern Peru, where poverty is high and jobs are scarce. But the economic development in this part of the Amazon basin comes at a cost, as it causes deforestation, build up of sediment in rivers, and mercury contamination in nearby watersheds, threatening public health, Indigenous peoples, and the future of the biodiversity hotspot. And much of the mining activity is unauthorized.

Seeking to eliminate illegal artisanal and small-scale gold mining activity and its many negative impacts, the Peruvian government deployed "Operation Mercury" (Operation Mercurio) in February 2019 in the La Pampa region, an area where gold mining is banned in most places. La Pampa straddles the Interoceanic Highway. North of the highway, mining is mostly legal in mining concessions. However, south of the highway mining is strictly prohibited in the buffer zone of the Tambopata National Reserve.

Through Operation Mercury, armed military and national police were dispatched to the region and had a sustained presence until March 2020. Miners were evicted and mining equipment was destroyed. The intervention was successful in stopping illegal gold mining activity in La Pampa but activity in legal areas spiked, triggering many of the same environmental concerns, according to a Dartmouth-led study. The results are published in Conservation Letters.

"Although illegal gold mining operations in La Pampa came to a near halt during Operation Mercury's two intervening years (2019—2020), mining activity essentially just shifted across the road to legal areas on the other side of the Interoceanic Highway," says lead author Evan Dethier, an assistant professor at Occidental College, who conducted the study while he was a postdoctoral fellow at Dartmouth.

Following Operation Mercury, mining decreased by 70% to 90%. Excavated mining pits ("mining ponds") in illegal mining areas decreased by up to 5% per year as compared to increasing by 33% to 90% per year before the intervention.

Although deforested areas experienced revegetation at a rate of 1 to 3 square kilometers per year, progress was offset by increases in deforestation in legal mining areas north of the Interoceanic Highway at a rate of 3 to 5 square kilometers per year. Most of the revegetation occurred on the edges of deforested areas, with the highest revegetation in La Pampa south. Mining pond areas outside intervention zones also saw increases ranging from 42% to 83%

"The spillover effect in areas near the intervention zone demonstrates that stronger regulations are also needed in legal gold mining areas, to help mitigate the environmental effects," says Dethier. "But this intervention did have some of the intended effects, limiting mining in a protected area for a sustained period."

To assess Operation Mercury's impact on mining activity, the research team drew on satellite data from 2016 to 2021 from the European Space Agency's Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2. Data were obtained from nine mining areas: four illegal mining areas targeted by the intervention, two legal areas to the north on the other side of the Interoceanic Highway, and three distant sites that were not part of the enforcement, which served as a control for the study.

Using the radar and multispectral data, the researchers were able to quantify changes in water, water quality, mining pond areas, and deforestation in La Pampa following Operation Mercury, by comparing data from before, during, and after the intervention.

As part of the analysis, the team examined the spectral properties of the mining ponds and changes in pond color. Mining ponds typically take on a yellow color, which acts as a marker for gold mining activity. The "yellowness" of the ponds is associated with increases in suspended sediment in the water, according to prior research led by Dethier.

Through gold mining processes, sediment is churned up from the land, creating turbid water with lower reflectance levels, while clearer water has higher reflectance. After Operation Mercury was implemented, reflectance increased in mining ponds in La Pampa south but then stabilized.

Following Operation Mercury, pond yellowness decreased rapidly after mining activity was suspended in all areas of La Pampa, except in the north. In La Pampa northwest, mining activity spiked and pond yellowness increased by 43%, as compared to before the intervention. In La Pampa northeast, yellowness remained stable due to continued mining activity.

"Like many other countries around the world with highly prized natural resources, with Peru's rich deposits of gold, it has had to determine who controls this extractable resource and how this particular mining sector will be formed," says co-author David A. Lutz, a research assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Studies at Dartmouth.

By January 2023, when this paper was under review by the journal, illegal gold mining had resumed in protected areas, as enforcement and anticorruption activities by the military and national police had ceased, once they were redeployed to focus on the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Our results demonstrate how intervention at the federal level can effectively stop illegal mining in Peru," says Dethier. "But that is just one aspect of the problem, as a multifaceted approach is necessary to address the long-term impacts of both illegal and legal gold mining activity on humans, wildlife and the environment in the Madre de Dios watershed."

Dethier says that "strong governance and conservation and remediation strategies are needed to protect this tropical biodiversity hotspot. And, as we continue to show in our related work, this challenge is a global phenomenon."

Dethier, Lutz, and others just published a related study that showed the rise of similar mining operations in 49 countries across the global tropics. They showed that as much as 7% of large tropical rivers have been degraded by these expanding mining operations.

More information: Evan N. Dethier et al, Operation mercury: Impacts of national‐level armed forces intervention and anticorruption strategy on artisanal gold mining and water quality in the Peruvian Amazon, Conservation Letters (2023). DOI: 10.1111/conl.12978

Journal information: Conservation Letters 

Provided by Dartmouth College Illegal gold mining continues to harm Amazon ecosystem