Sunday, September 24, 2023

Six young activists devote years to climate fight with 32 governments. Now comes their day in court

Siblings Sofia Oliveira, 18, and Andre Oliveira, 15, pose for a picture at the beach in Costa da Caparica, south of Lisbon, Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2023. They are two of the six Portuguese children and young adults set to take 32 European governments to court on Wednesday, Sept. 27, for what they say is a failure to adequately address human-caused climate change in a violation of their human rights.

(AP Photo/Ana Brigida)

BARRY HATTON and HELENA ALVES
Sat, September 23, 2023

COSTA DA CAPARICA, Portugal (AP) — Sofia Oliveira was 12 years old when catastrophic wildfires in central Portugal killed more than 100 people in 2017. She “felt it was now or never to raise our voices” as her country appeared to be in the grip of deadly human-caused climate change.

Now a university student, Sofia and five other Portuguese young adults and children between 11 and 24 years of age are due on Wednesday at the European Court of Human Rights, where they are accusing 32 European governments of violating their human rights for what they say is a failure to adequately address climate change. It’s the first climate change case filed with the court and could compel action to significantly slash emissions and build cleaner infrastructure.

Victory for them in Strasbourg would be a powerful instance of young people taking a legal route to force their governments to adopt a radical recalibration of their climate measures.

The court’s rulings are legally binding on member countries, and failure to comply makes authorities liable for hefty fines decided by the court.

The courts are increasingly seen by activists as a way of sidestepping politics and holding governments to account. Last month, in a case brought by young environmental activists, a judge in the U.S. state of Montana ruled that state agencies were violating their constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment by allowing fossil fuel development.

When the Portuguese group decided in 2017 they would pursue legal action, Sofia wore braces on her teeth, stood taller than her younger brother André and was starting seventh grade at school. The braces are long gone and André, who is now 15, is taller than her by a few centimeters (an inch or so).

The past six years, André noted in an interview with The Associated Press, represent almost half of his life.

What has kept them going through the piles of legal documents gathered by the nonprofit group supporting them and through lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic is what they call the pressing evidence all around them that the climate crisis is getting worse.

The Praia do Norte beach at Costa da Caparica near where Sofia and André live, just south of the Portuguese capital Lisbon, was about 1 kilometer (3,000 feet) long when his father was his age, André says. Now, amid coastal erosion, it measures less than 300 meters (1,000 feet). Evidence like that led him to attend climate demonstrations even before he became a teen.

The other four members of the Portuguese group — Catarina, Cláudia, Martim and Mariana — are siblings and cousins who live in the region of Leiria in central Portugal where summer wildfires are common.

Scientists say the climate of the Sahara is jumping across the Mediterranean Sea to southern European countries like Portugal, where average temperatures are climbing and rainfall is declining. Portugal’s hottest year on record was 1997, followed by 2017. The four driest years on record in the country of 10.3 million people have all occurred since 2003.

It’s a similar story across Europe, and the legal arguments of the six Portuguese are backed by science. The Earth sweltered through its hottest Northern Hemisphere summer ever measured, with a record warm August capping a season of brutal and deadly temperatures, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

The world is far off its pledge to curb global warming, scientists say, by cutting emissions in line with the requirements of the 2015 Paris climate accord. Estimates say global average temperatures could rise by 2 to 4 degrees Celsius (2.6 to 7.2 Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times by 2100 at current trajectories of warming and emissions reductions plans.

Among the specific impacts listed by the young Portuguese are being unable to sleep, concentrate, play outside or exercise during heat waves. One of their schools was closed temporarily when the air became unbreathable due to wildfire smoke. Some of the children have health conditions such as asthma that makes them more vulnerable to heat and air pollution.

They are being assisted by the Global Legal Action Network, an international nonprofit organization that challenges human rights violations. A crowdfunding campaign has drawn support from around the world, with messages of support coming from as far away as Japan, India and Brazil.

Gerry Liston, a GLAN legal officer, says the 32 governments have “trivialized” the case. “The governments have resisted every aspect of our case … all our arguments,” he said.

André describes the governments as “condescending.” Sofia adds: “They don’t see climate as a priority.”

Portugal’s government, for example, agrees the state of the environment and human rights are connected but insists the government’s “actions seek to meet its international obligations in this area” and cannot be faulted.

At the same time, some governments in Europe are backsliding on commitments already made.

Poland last month filed legal challenges aimed at annulling three of the European Union’s main climate change policies. Last week, the British government announced it is delaying by five years a ban on new gas and diesel cars that had been due to take effect in 2030. The Swedish government’s state budget proposal last week, meanwhile, cut taxes on gas and diesel and reduced funding for climate and environmental measures.

Amid those developments, the courts are seen by activists as a recourse.

The London School of Economics says that globally, the cumulative number of climate change-related cases has more than doubled since 2015 to more than 2,000. Around one-fourth were launched between 2020 and 2022, it says.

The Portuguese activists, who are not seeking any financial compensation, will likely have to wait some more. The verdict in their case could take up to 18 months, though they see the court’s decision in 2020 to fast-track the proceedings as an encouraging sign.

A precedent is also giving the activists heart. The Urgenda Foundation, a Dutch organization that promotes sustainability and innovation, brought against the Dutch Government the first case in the world in which citizens argued that their government has a legal obligation to prevent dangerous climate change.

In 2019, the Dutch Supreme Court found in Urgenda’s favor, ruling that the emissions reduction target set by the government was unlawfully low. It ordered authorities to further reduce emissions

The government consequently decided to shut down coal-fired power plants by 2030 and adopted billion-euro packages to reduce energy use and develop renewable energy, among other measures.

Dennis van Berkel, Urgenda’s legal counsel, accused governments of choosing climate change targets that are “politically convenient” instead of listening to climate scientists. Judges can compel them to justify that what they are doing on climate issues is enough, he said.

“Currently there is no such scrutiny at any level,” he told the AP. “That is something incredibly important that the courts can contribute.”

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Associated Press writers Samuel Petrequin in Brussels and Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen contributed to this report.

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Was the freak 'medicane' storm that devastated Libya a glimpse of North Africa's future?

by Mike Rogerson, Belkasem Alkaryani and Mahjoor Lone, The Conversation

Storm Daniel landed on the Libyan coastal town of Toukrah in the early hours of September 10 and started moving east. Soon the wind was rising and heavy rain falling, forcing people to stay indoors. By afternoon the rain was clearly out of the ordinary.

Albaydah city on the coast would receive 80% of its annual rain before midnight, according to records from a local weather station that we have accessed. In less than 24 hours, thousands of people were dead, hundreds of thousands were missing, and towns and villages across Jebel Akhdar (the Green Mountain) in north-eastern Libya resembled a Hollywood disaster movie.

Storm Daniel was a Mediterranean cyclone or hurricane (a so-called medicane) which struck Greece, Bulgaria, Libya, Egypt and Turkey over the course of a week. Medicanes are not rare. Such large storms happen in this part of the world every few years. But Daniel has proved to be the deadliest.

At the time of writing, the World Health Organization estimates that at least 3,958 people have died across Libya as a result of the floods, with more than 9,000 people still missing.

Daniel was not an exceptionally big storm though. The medicane with the highest wind speeds was medicane Ianos in September 2020, which killed around four people and caused more than €224 million (£193 million) of damage. So what made Storm Daniel different?

Less frequent, but stronger

Like tropical cyclones, medicanes form in hot conditions at the end of summer. Most medicanes form to the west of the islands of Corsica and Sardinia. As they tend to strike the same regions each time, the people living in the western Mediterranean, southern Italy and western Greece, have built structures to deal with these storms and the occasional downpours they bring.

Daniel formed relatively far to the east and struck north-eastern Libya, which is rare. Dozens of people were killed in communities across Cyrenaica, the eastern portion of the country.

In the mountain gorge above the city of Derna, two dams failed in the middle of the night. Thousands of people, most of whom were asleep, are thought to have perished when the wave of water and debris swept down to the coast, destroying a quarter of the city.

Since medicanes are formed in part by excess heat, events like this are highly sensitive to climate change. A rapid attribution study suggested greenhouse gas emissions made Daniel 50 times more likely.

Despite this, the sixth assessment report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that medicanes are becoming less frequent but larger. Storm Daniel suggests where medicanes form and make landfall might be more important than their frequency and size.

So does Libya need to brace itself for more of these events in the future than it has in the past, even if they affect the western Mediterranean less often?

Clues from the past

An important clue might lie deep underground, inside caves within north-eastern Libya. Although the caves are often dry today, they contain stalagmites which formed when rain passed through the soil, into the rock and dripped into the cave below thousands of years ago.

These rock formations attest to times in the past when this region was considerably wetter. The caves in Libya—and in Tunisia and Egypt too—form these stalagmites when the global climate is warm.

These bygone warm periods are not quite the same as the warm periods IPCC forecasts suggest modern climate change will usher in. But the way a hot world, a relatively ice-free Europe and North America and a wet northern Africa have regularly coincided in the past is striking. Striking and difficult to understand.

That's because the experiments that suggest medicanes will become less frequent as the climate warms belong to a pattern described by IPCC climate assessments, in which wet parts of the world are expected to get wetter and dry parts drier. So it is hard to understand why stalagmites tell us warmer periods in the past involved wetter conditions across the northern margin of the Sahara—one of the driest regions on Earth.

Fortunately, scientists can learn more from the way stalagmites sometimes grow imperfectly, leaving tiny blobs of water trapped between the crystals.

The stalagmite we recovered from Susah Cave on the outskirts of Libya's Susah city, which was severely damaged in the storm, had quite a lot of water in it from wet periods dating to 70,000 to 30,000 years ago. The oxygen and hydrogen isotopes in this water are suggestive of rain drawn from the Mediterranean. This could indicate more medicanes were hitting the Libyan coast then.

Our finding that more rain was falling above Susah Cave during warm periods suggests we should get more storms hitting eastern Libya as the climate warms. This is not quite what the IPCC forecasts, with their prediction of fewer but larger storms, show.

But storm strength is measured in wind speed, not rainfall. The caves could well be recording an important detail of past storminess which we're not yet able to forecast.

Are stalagmites warning us that North Africa must prepare for future medicanes shifting further east? Our ongoing research aims to answer that question.

The pattern of ancient desert margins receiving more rain during warm periods despite the "dry gets drier" pattern of global climate models is not unique to northern Africa but found around the world. Over millions of years, globally warm periods almost always correspond with smaller deserts in Africa, Arabia, Asia and Australia.

This "dryland climate paradox" is important to unravel. Understanding the differences between climate models and studies of ancient rain will be key to navigating the future as safely as possible.

Provided by The Conversation

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

Medicanes: rare, 'supercharging' Mediterranean storms

ICYMI

The fall equinox is here. What does that mean?

by Maddie Burakoff

Fall is in the air—officially. The equinox arrives on Saturday, marking the start of the fall season for the Northern Hemisphere. But what does that actually mean? Here's what to know about how we split up the year using the Earth's orbit.

What is the equinox?

As the Earth travels around the sun, it does so at an angle.

For most of the year, the Earth's axis is tilted either toward or away from the sun. That means the sun's warmth and light fall unequally on the northern and southern halves of the planet.

During the equinox, the Earth's axis and its orbit line up so that both hemispheres get an equal amount of sunlight.

The word equinox comes from two Latin words meaning equal and night. That's because on the equinox, day and night last almost the same amount of time—though one may get a few extra minutes, depending on where you are on the planet.

The Northern Hemisphere's spring—or vernal—equinox can land between March 19 and 21, depending on the year. Its fall—or autumnal—equinox can land between Sept. 21 and 24.

What is the solstice?

The solstices mark the times during the year when the Earth is seeing its strongest tilt toward or away from the sun. This means the hemispheres are getting very different amounts of sunlight—and days and nights are at their most unequal.

During the Northern Hemisphere's summer solstice, the upper half of the earth is tilted in toward the sun, creating the longest day and shortest night of the year. This solstice falls between June 20 and 22.

Meanwhile, at the winter solstice, the Northern Hemisphere is leaning away from the sun—leading to the shortest day and longest night of the year. The winter solstice falls between December 20 and 23.

What's the difference between meteorological and astronomical seasons?

These are just two different ways to carve up the year.

Meteorological seasons are defined by the weather. They break down the year into three-month seasons based on annual temperature cycles. By that calendar, spring starts on March 1, summer on June 1, fall on Sept. 1 and winter on Dec. 1.

Astronomical seasons depend on how the Earth moves around the sun.

Equinoxes, when the sun lands equally on both hemispheres, mark the start of spring and autumn. Solstices, when the Earth sees its strongest tilt toward or away from the sun, kick off summer and winter.

It's the first day of spring: Here's what that really means

Researchers show endangered parrot species is thriving in urban areas

by Courtney Price, Texas A&M University

A Texas A&M-led research team has discovered that a population of endangered red-crowned parrots is thriving in urban areas of South Texas. The parrots are a unique case, considering that many animal species are affected negatively by the expansion of human urban areas, which can lead to deforestation and pollution of natural habitats.

These mostly green parrots, which have a cluster of bright red feathers on their heads, are also an unusual example of a species that has adapted well in the face of poaching and the pet trade moving them from their native areas.

The team—led by Dr. Donald J. Brightsmith and graduate student Simon Kiacz, from the School of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences' (VMBS) Department of Veterinary Pathobiology—recently published its findings in the scientific journal Diversity.

The team's documentation of the red-crowned parrot's habitat ranges and urban dependency will enable the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department and other conservationists to better protect these endangered birds.

Meet the red-crowned parrot

Red-crowned parrots were originally native to a small region of Northeastern Mexico, where they are considered endangered because of habitat loss and poaching tied to the illegal animal trade. For parrots, this process often involves poachers stealing eggs or young chicks out of nests and selling them, sometimes for hundreds of dollars each.

"Parrots are popular pets in places like South Texas and Latin America," Kiacz said. "Unfortunately, most people, even law enforcement officers, don't realize that these parrots are protected."

In fact, the animal trade is one reason that the red-crowned parrots can now be found in Texas.

"Some of them certainly flew across the border, but many were brought over during the 1980s when it was still legal to buy and sell them," Brightsmith said.

Over time, Texas has welcomed the red-crowned parrot, even giving it native species status.

"Without native species status, it would be much more difficult to provide protection for the species," Brightsmith said.

One benefit of being a native species is that Texas Parks & Wildlife took interest in research seeking to better understand whether the parrots are doing well in South Texas. That interest is what paved the way for Brightsmith and Kiacz's project.

"During data collection, I was looking for population information, trend information, the threats to the populations here in Texas, and habitat usage," Kiacz said. "We wanted to understand how these birds are doing and what we might be able to do to help them."

By counting birds and mapping their habitat ranges, the researchers eventually discovered that the red-crowned parrots appear to be doing very well in South Texas. They're especially prevalent in areas in the Rio Grande Valley, including towns like Brownsville, which even made the red-crowned parrot its official mascot.

"There are four main roosts in South Texas," Kiacz said. "Brownsville, Harlingen, Weslaco and McAllen all have a group of parrots living in those communities. We used trackers, mapping software and local knowledge to see where these birds were roosting, and then we just had to count them." He said the South Texas population is around 900 birds.

"We can get a really good idea of the population's breeding activity this way," he explained. "If there is a decrease in the number of birds at the roost in the breeding season, that's a good thing, because the females are probably nesting somewhere else with their offspring. Then in the fall, we'll see all the juveniles join the adults at the roost."

The species' success is unusual given that endangered species of plants and animals are rarely found thriving in urban environments. Most of the time, species that have adapted to urban environments—called "synanthropes"—are considered neutral, or even invasive.

Instead, it seems that red-crowned parrots are able to get along quite well with people.

"Humans have basically created the perfect environment for these parrots," Kiacz said. "They want what we want—ornamental plants with fruit and seeds that are well-watered and look attractive all year-round."

Even our habit of planting palm trees where they don't tend to survive is a boon for these birds.

"All of the palm trees that we plant in South Texas are non-native," Kiacz explained. "They eventually die, and then woodpeckers come and make holes that are perfect nesting cavities for these parrots. But they're also happy to use holes in the sides of buildings."

Since the parrots love to eat non-native species of plants, they haven't caused much competition with other local species over food sources. Currently, the only downside to the presence of these parrots is the noise.

"You'll often see these birds roosting together," Brightsmith said. "They sleep in groups of a hundred or more, and they may end up choosing someone's front yard, even right over the mailbox. Then, when it gets light outside, they'll start making noise and flying around. Some people find that to be a nuisance."

Life finds a way

If there's one thing to learn from the new research on red-crowned parrots, it's that life finds a way. As urbanization continues to spread around the globe, it's likely that more and more species will move into urban spaces, perhaps with unexpected results.

And while it isn't necessarily a good thing that these species are being forced to change their survival tactics, there may be similar unique opportunities for research in the future.

Currently, Brightsmith and Kiacz are working on new projects that will study the relationships between red-crowned parrots and sister species, like the lilac-crowned parrot, including natural hybridization that may be entangling the two species from a conservation standpoint.

For now, the pair of researchers hope that their work will raise awareness about red-crowned parrots and lead to improved conservation efforts.

"What we actually need is for people to understand how these birds live in urban environments," Kiacz said. "Instead of trying to fund large nature preserves, which you might need to do for other species, the best help we can give these parrots is to teach people how to live with parrots as neighbors.

"For example, maybe you have a dead tree in your yard that doesn't look very pretty, but it's not a danger to you or your home," he explained. "Consider keeping it so these parrots can nest there."

More information: Simon Kiacz et al, Presence of Endangered Red-Crowned Parrots (Amazona viridigenalis) Depends on Urban Landscapes, Diversity (2023). DOI: 10.3390/d15070878

Provided by Texas A&M University Canberra's superb parrots caught up in housing crisis

New Zealand probes mystery illness killing rare penguins

by Ryland JAMES

Scientists believe they have found the cause of an illness decimating New Zealand's yellow-eyed penguins — Scientists believe they have found the cause of an illness decimating New Zealand's

A mystery illness is decimating the chicks of New Zealand's endangered yellow-eyed penguins, and scientists say they may have found the cause.

The flightless birds, endemic to New Zealand, stand lower than knee-high, have pale yellow eyes and sport a band of yellow feathers around the head.

There are about 2,400 of the adult birds left, according to estimates by New Zealand's Department of Conservation.

Their status is considered "threatened—nationally endangered". It is the country's highest risk level.

The mystery respiratory illness first appeared in 20 freshly hatched chicks brought to Dunedin Wildlife Hospital in 2019.

"They were unable to hold their heads up, gasping with glassy eyes," wildlife hospital director Dr. Lisa Argilla told AFP this week.

"It was heart-wrenching to see these little chicks in such critical condition," the veterinarian said.

"All chicks that showed respiratory signs died—there was nothing we could do to save them."

During the 2020 breeding season, a third of 150 yellow-eyed penguin chicks brought to the hospital died of respiratory problems, Argilla said.

Professor Jemma Geoghegan, an evolutionary virologist, is part of a team of specialists investigating the illness.

During the 2020 breeding season, a third of 150 chicks brought to the hospital died of respiratory problems — During the 2020 breeding season, a third of 150 chicks brought to the hospital died of

"The wildlife hospital tried everything in their power to prevent it but without knowing the cause it's very hard to manage," Geoghegan told AFP.

Scientists tested tissue samples from dead penguin chicks with sequencing technology similar to that used to identify the coronavirus behind COVID-19.

'Insane operation'

"There's two diseases we have been investigating and we have found two viruses which we think are likely responsible," said Geoghegan, a professor at Otago University.

The team had identified a novel gyrovirus and a novel megrivirus, she said.

Between them, the diseases are thought to have killed around 25 percent of yellow-eyed penguin chicks—roughly 50 each year—in recent breeding seasons, Geoghegan said.

"We've identified what we think may be the cause and then there's a lot of research needed to potentially work out whether we can prevent or treat the disease," she said.

For now, chicks younger than five days are being taken from their nests to Dunedin Wildlife Hospital, where they can be reared away from the risk of infection.

In 2022, the animal hospital was able to return 90 percent of the chicks to their nests, Argilla said.

Chicks younger than five days reared at Dunedin Wildlife Hospital, away from the risk of infection — Chicks younger than five days reared at Dunedin Wildlife Hospital, away from the risk of

"Around 142 chicks were given a second chance," she said.

"If they'd been left in the nest, most of them likely would have succumbed to either disease and died."

The hospital director said it was an "insane operation" to hand-rear dozens of chicks with up to 10 people rostered each day to help with the five daily feeds.

Vets, nurses, zoo keepers and conservation rangers from all over New Zealand came to help, Argilla said.

The flightless birds live in two colonies: a mainland population centered on the southeast of the South Island, and a larger group on New Zealand's remote outer Sub-Antarctic Islands.

Conservationists say the mainland colony's population has declined 75 percent since 2008, leaving only about 200 breeding pairs, which risk disappearing in two decades.

Predators—such as the long, thin barracouta fish in the ocean, or dogs, cats, ferrets and stoats on land—along with climate change and infectious diseases have taken a toll.

Argilla said she was hopeful a vaccine would be found to help save the chicks.

"We are only an ambulance at the bottom of the hill doing our bit to save individual birds so that the population decline can hopefully slow down," she said.

Baby penguins hatched at San Diego Zoo

S.African chickens hit by 'worst' bird flu outbreak

South African poultry farmers have warned of possible chicken and egg shortages as they battle what the industry says is the worst bird flu outbreak ever to hit the country.

Producer Quantum Foods said on Friday that this year it had lost almost two million chickens—worth a total of more than 100 million rand ($5.3 million)—because of the disease.

"The bird flu outbreak is the worst that South Africa has witnessed," fellow producer Astral said in a trading update on Thursday.

"(It) has already caused short supplies of table eggs into the market, and it is expected that the supply of poultry meat into the value chain could be affected negatively in the coming months."

The outbreak has cost it 220 million rand so far, the company said.

One of the continent's major poultry producers, South Africa reported the first bird flu cases in commercial farms in April, according to an industry group.

Earlier this month, the South African Poultry Association (SAPA) said the country was contending with two different strains of the virus, the infamous H5N1 and a new strain identified as H7N6.

The latter was spreading through the northeastern provinces of Mpumalanga and Gauteng "at an alarming rate", according to Astral.

Bird flu does not typically infect humans. But H5N1 is increasingly infecting mammals worldwide, from sea lions in Argentina to foxes in Finland, raising fears it could pass on more easily to humans.

The virus has typically been confined to seasonal outbreaks, but since 2021 cases have emerged year-round, and across the globe, leading to what experts say is the largest outbreak ever seen.

SAPA said the number of avian flu cases in South Africa this year was higher than in any year since the first outbreaks were reported in commercial farms in 2017.

Bird flu kills scores of sea lions in Argentina

How the peach blossom jellyfish is spreading across North America

by Florian Lüskow, The Conversation

Invasive species are a real problem in Canada, and one species in particular, the freshwater jellyfish species of the genus Craspedacusta sowerbii—C. sowerbii, or the peach blossom jellyfish—are as widespread as they are also poorly understood.

There is anecdotal evidence that the invasive jellyfish had been present in British Columbia lakes and ponds for decades. Still, compiled data suggest that the number of sightings has increased considerably since the year 2000.

Unfortunately, however, we still have very limited information about the range of its presence in Canada, how it got here, how it spreads and what its essential impact on freshwater ecosystems across Canada may be. No mitigation and management strategy has yet been developed and many fundamental questions about the species ecology are unanswered.

Climate change and species introductions

The Craspedacusta species is a subtropical but adaptable organism that favors moderate- to high-water temperatures. While cold water temperatures have acted as a historical check on their growth and expansion, warming temperatures around the globe are helping to expand their territory.

Recent increases in sightings of C. sowerbii in B.C., across Canada and worldwide are therefore indicative of an expanding suitable habitat for the jellyfish as a result of global warming, alongside a growing public awareness and increased observational efforts leading to more effective recognition.

Current modeling shows that the peach blossom jellyfish will expand to ever higher latitudes in both hemispheres over this century and be present in freshwater systems longer in the year from spring to late autumn.

Unfortunately, the species has rarely been the focus of research. Currently, as far as I am aware, only biological oceanographer Evgeny Pakhomov and I are now researching the species and its significance for Canada.

Our research shows that this trend is not restricted to B.C., but is expected to happen in other provinces such as Alberta, Ontario and Québec too. Craspedacusta sowerbii irregularly occurs in the Great Lakes area on both sides of the Canada-United States border since the 1930s.

Small invader, unpredictable occurrence

The current state of provincial monitoring and reporting on this species is, unfortunately, lackluster.

While a number of tools and data have been shown to be effective in monitoring populations in North America and Europe, no province currently includes these in annual reports and statistics.

For example, the Invasive Species Council of British Columbia's annual report does not cunduct large-scale data synthesis on the peach blossom jellyfish. As a result of this lack of data, no evidence of seasonal or long-term population trends exists.

Compounding these difficulties is the fact that the C. sowerbii is known as a species complex, meaning that there are likely several species going undetected under the same name. The nuances of these species distinctions are not only of academic interest, but also hold the key to identifying how these species move across and between ecosystems.

Understanding all of these aspects is crucial for us to start seriously thinking about mitigation and management strategies.

We cannot manage what we don't understand

While the species is harmless to humans, it is unknown how the freshwater jellyfish interact with other lake and pond inhabitants. There is evidence that these jellyfish are a potentially rich source of food for juvenile fish and they could compete with other native species as food.

Meanwhile, not enough up-to-date information is available about the various life stages of the jellyfish and the particular impacts of each stage. Indeed, while polyps and other juvenile stages are present year-round, their exact locations, abundance and activity levels are entirely unknown.

While governmental reporting infrastructure does exist in some provinces and territories, large-scale data have not yet been analyzed. Efforts are hampered by the lack of inclusion of the peach blossom jellyfish in regular monitoring programs.

We hope to stimulate interest and motivation to better understand this problem at all levels from federal to provincial governments and local municipalities.

This lack of data, and effort by provinces to collect them, has serious consequences for Canada's ecological security and limits the effectiveness of any management or adaptation plan in the years to come.

Provided by The Conversation

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

Invasive species of jellyfish seen off three North Carolina beaches, experts say

Arson turns Amazon reforestation project to ashes

by Joshua Howat Berger

Investigators concluded the fire, which started on September 3, was arson, according to a forensic report by federal environmental agency ICMBio — Investigators concluded the fire, which started on September 3, was arson, according to a

It was supposed to be a good-news story out of the damaged Amazon rainforest: a project that replanted hundreds of thousands of trees in an illegally deforested nature reserve in Brazil.

Then it went up in flames, allegedly torched by land-grabbers trying to reclaim the territory for cattle pasture.

Launched in 2019 by environmental research group Rioterra, the reforestation project took 270 hectares (665 acres) of forest that had been razed by cattle ranching on a protected nature reserve in the northern state of Rondonia and replanted it with 360,000 trees.

The idea was ambitious, says Rioterra's project coordinator, Alexis Bastos: save a corner of the world's biggest rainforest, fighting climate change and creating green jobs along the way.

Then, just as the scarred brown land started returning to emerald-green forest—its growing young trees absorbing an estimated 8,000 tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere in three years—the whole thing burned to the ground.

Bastos remembers the sinking feeling he got when he saw the area turned to ashes.

"It was horrible," he told AFP.

"People have no idea how much work went into restoring that forest. It was a really important, large-scale project."

Investigators concluded the fire, which started on September 3, was arson, according to a forensic report by federal environmental agency ICMBio obtained by AFP.

"The likely motive was to obstruct the process of ecological restoration in the area," it said.

Activists and officials say the area was torched by land-grabbers trying to reclaim the territory for cattle pasture.

Telltale sign

Satellite images indicate the fire traveled in the opposite direction from the wind—often a sign of arson, investigators say.

The lead prosecutor on the case, Pablo Hernandez Viscardi, said police have identified multiple suspects.

The project is located on the southwestern side of the 95,000-hectare Rio Preto-Jacunda State Nature Reserve.

It is so remote that Rioterra staff only got there on September 6, a day after satellite images alerted them to the destruction.

When they arrived, they found the access roads had been blocked by felled trees.

The project cost nearly $1 million, and directly employed more than 100 people, according to Rioterra.

Besides helping in the climate fight, it also aimed to provide a sustainable source of income to local residents by planting species such as acai palms, whose small purple berries have sparked an international "superfood" trend for their nutritional and antioxidant properties.

Bastos, 49, recalled how he and his team worked painstakingly on the project through Christmas and New Year's in 2020, the year they planted the trees, camping out on-site.

Death threats

But the project did not go down well with some in the region, home to a powerful ranching industry.

Investigators say the Rio Preto-Jacunda reserve is bordered by ranches with a record of environmental crimes, including repeated encroachments on the reserve.

Razing protected rainforest for pasture is an illegal but lucrative business in Brazil, the world's top beef exporter.

The crime often hits remote, hard-to-police nature reserves, overlapping with other organized criminal activities destroying the Amazon, including illegal logging and gold mining.

Satellite images show how the Rio Preto-Jacunda reserve's verdant jungle is bordered by razed brown land, which spills over into the supposedly protected area in several places on the southwestern side.

Bastos said Rioterra staff "constantly" received death threats over the project.

"One time the guys ambushed one of our collaborators and put a gun to his head. They said, 'Look, this is a message. But if you keep trying to recover this area, it won't be just a message next time.'"

Viscardi, the prosecutor, said Rondonia is struggling with a rash of environmental crimes by mafia that specialize in land-grabbing using hired guns and guerrilla tactics.

"Given the modus operandi, that's probably what's happening in the Rio Preto-Jacunda reserve," he told AFP.

Undeterred, Bastos vowed to start again from scratch.

"We can't let land-grabbers think this is normal, that they're more powerful than the state," he said.

"We as a society have to stop this."

Turning over a new leaf, Colombian ranchers plant trees

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