It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Ugandan court convicts LRA rebel leader of war crimes in landmark trial
Former Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel commander Thomas Kwoyelo was found guilty of 44 offences, including crimes against humanity, on Tuesday in Uganda’s first trial of an LRA member, marking a historic moment for the East African country.
Issued on: 13/08/2024 - 1
Suspected LRA (Lords Resistance Army) member Thomas Kwoyelo is pictured during a pre-trial session at the High Court in Kampala on Februay 1, 2017. A Ugandan court on Tuesday, August 13, 2024 convicted Thomas Kwoyelo, a former commander of the feared Lord's Resistance Army militia, for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
A Ugandan court on Tuesday found a former commander in the feared Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) guilty of multiple counts of crimes against humanity after the first such war crimes trial in the East African country.
Thomas Kwoyelo, who was charged for crimes committed during a bloody two-decade LRA rebellion in northern Uganda, had been waiting for years behind bars for a verdict in the landmark case.
“He is found guilty of the 44 offences and hereby convicted,” lead judge Michael Elubu said at the International Crimes Division (ICD) of the high court in the northern city of Gulu.
They included murder, rape, torture, pillaging, abduction and destruction of settlements for internally displaced people, the judge said.
He said Kwoyelo was found not guilty of three counts of murder, and that “31 alternate offences” were dismissed.
Kwoyelo, who was abducted by the LRA at the age of 12, had denied all the charges against him.
A low-level commander in the militia, Kwoyelo was arrested in March 2009 in the Democratic Republic of Congo during a sweep by regional forces against LRA rebels who had fled from Uganda two years earlier.
He was put on trial in July 2011 before the ICD, but was freed two months later on the orders of the Supreme Court, which said he should be released on the same grounds as thousands of other fighters who were granted amnesty after surrendering.
But the prosecution appealed the decision and he was put on trial again, though the case was repeatedly delayed.
The LRA was founded by former altar boy and self-styled prophet Joseph Kony in Uganda in the 1980s with the aim of establishing a regime based on the Ten Commandments.
Its rebellion against President Yoweri Museveni saw more than 100,000 people killed and 60,000 children abducted in a reign of terror that spread from Uganda to Sudan, the DRC and the Central African Republic.
Kony is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for rape, slavery, mutilation, murder and forcibly recruiting child soldiers. ‘Painfully inadequate accountability’
“Accountability for LRA war victims has been painfully inadequate and opportunities for improvement are increasingly slim, making processes in Uganda all the more important,” Human Rights Watch said in a January statement on the case.
According to court documents, “all attacks by the LRA which took place in Kilak County, Amuru District between 1987 and 2005, the subject of charges in this indictment, were either commanded by him or were carried out with his full knowledge and authority”.
His lawyer Caleb Alaka told AFP in May that Kwoyelo “has been consistent that he is innocent and looking forward to the court ruling”.
After the LRA was driven out of Uganda, it spread across the forests of the DRC, the Central African Republic, South Sudan and Sudan.
In 2021, Dominic Ongwen, a Ugandan child soldier who became a top LRA commander, was sentenced by the ICC to 25 years in prison for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The civil war effectively ended in 2006 when a peace process was launched, but the LRA’s founder Kony has evaded capture.
The ICD was set up in 2009 by the Ugandan government as part of efforts to implement peace agreements signed the previous year between the Ugandan government and the LRA.
(AFP)
Myanmar: War crimes escalating 'substantially,' UN says
DW
August 13, 2024
A UN report has found evidence of an intensification of war crimes being committed in Myanmar. Investigators cited examples of torture, rape and arbitrary detention.
The UN report said the junta carried out frequent airstrikes without a clear military target
Image: AP Photo/picture alliance
The military junta in Myanmar is increasingly committing war crimes, including torture and sexual violence, in an attempt to suppress opposition, the UN said in a report released on Tuesday.
"We have collected substantial evidence showing horrific levels of brutality and inhumanity across Myanmar," said Nicholas Koumjian, chief of the UN's Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM).
The report, which covers July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, said the conflict had "escalated substantially" and "at an alarming rate." Reports of torture and arbitrary violence
Investigators said they found evidence of torture, sexual abuse and abuse against children "with reports of more frequent and brutal crimes committed across the country."
They cited physical mutilations against detainees, beheadings and public displays of disfigured and sexually mutilated bodies.
The report found violent war crimes had intensified, with reports of aerial attacks on schools, religious buildings and hospitals which did not appear to have a military target.
"Thousands of people have been arrested and many tortured or killed in detention," the IIMM said, with opponents of the regime being arbitrarily detained and given "manifestly unfair trials." Resistance groups also accused of war crimes
The military returned to power in February 2021 after only a decade of civilian rule since the previous military junta held power.
The IIMM was launched in 2018 by the US Human Rights Council to collect evidence pertaining to the worst crimes that had been committed in the country, including crimes against the Rohingya minority, much of which took place under civilian rule.
The investigators have focused mostly on crimes perpetrated by the military, but have also found evidence of crimes committed by resistance groups.
"This includes summary executions of civilians suspected of being military informers or collaborators," the investigators said.
ab/nm (AFP, dpa)
Nord Stream sabotage: Germany issues arrest warrant — report
A Ukrainian national who was living in Poland is the subject of a German arrest warrant, according to media reports. The Russian-European gas pipelines were attacked in September 2022.
German authorities believe the suspect may have planted explosive devices on the gas pipelines running from Russia to Germany
Image: Swedish Coast Guard/AP/dpa/picture alliance
German authorities have issued an arrest warrant over the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines nearly two years ago, according to German news outlets ARD, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Die Zeit.
In an investigation published Wednesday, the outlets reported that the suspect is a Ukrainian national, named only as Volodymyr Z. for privacy reasons.
It is alleged he attacked the pipelines in tandem with at least two others, who are also believed to be Ukrainian citizens. What happened to the Nord Stream pipelines?
The Nord Stream 1 and the not-yet operational Nord Stream 2 were major conduits in the Baltic Sea for Russian gas into Europe, particularly Germany. Their use was always controversial for their role in making the EU reliant on Russian energy, and became even more so after Moscow's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
On September 26, 2022, several explosions were detected along the pipelines, leading to gas leaks.
Germany, Denmark, and Sweden all opened investigations into the incident, but the Danish and Swedish probes were closed without pinpointing a suspect.
The explosions attracted worldwide media attention, fueling speculation about who could be responsible. Russia and the West have accused each other of being behind the blasts. It was immediately suspected that Ukrainians were involved, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has strongly denied the state played a role. What did the German investigation find?
According to German authorities, Volodymyr Z. and two others approached the driver of the German-flagged yacht Andromeda, which docked in the northern island of Rügen.
ARD reported that Volodymyr Z. directed the driver out to the location of the pipeline, and two of the three suspects donned diving gear and went underwater.
The driver has reportedly identified Z. from a photo array shown to him by police. According to the report, a white van suspected of being used to transport diving material was caught on a traffic camera on Rügen in September 2022 with a passenger "strongly resembling Z."
A German court issued an arrest warrant for Volodymyr Z. in June.
The suspect was last known to be living in a village outside of Warsaw, Poland. However, he is believed to have gone into hiding.
It is not known why Poland did not honor the European arrest warrant within the legally required 60 days. ARD pointed out that there have long been accusations from German authorities that while Warsaw did not participate in the attack, it tacitly condoned it afterward.
No links between the suspects and the Ukrainian government have been found.
The two other suspects, a married couple who do not have warrants issued in their names, have denied knowing Z. and said that they were on vacation in Bulgaria when the attack took place.
“First South West’s parent company is raking in profits of £204 million while bus drivers at First South West are some of the lowest paid in the country.”
Mick Lynch, RMT General Secretary
By the RMT Press Office
RMT bus driver members working for First South West took further solid strike action against low pay today (Monday August 12) at depots across Cornwall and Somerset.
Speaking from a picket line at Penzance, RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said that it was the fourth day of action in the dispute which had prevented buses from operating across the region.
“This union has put forward three different proposals following local consultations to prevent further strike action, but the bus company has refused to negotiate to end to the dispute.
“First South West’s parent company is raking in profits of £204 million while bus drivers at First South West are some of the lowest paid in the country.
“It is time for the company to recognise the level of anger amongst its workers and sit down to work out a settlement based on the contribution these essential workers make to the region,” Mick Lynch said.
Angela Rayner has pledged “a new era of partnership” following a meeting between the government, trade unions and business leaders to discuss Labour’s plans to strengthen workers’ rights and “make work pay”.
The deputy Prime Minister met today with representatives from organisations including the TUC, UNISON, Unite, the British Chambers of Commerce and the Confederation of British Industry, alongside Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds.
The Department for Business and Trade said attendees “agreed to wipe the slate clean and begin a new relationship of respect and collaboration” to help deliver on the Labour government’s mission to kickstart economic growth.
The department said the meeting covered Labour’s employment rights bill, details of which were set out in the King’s Speech last month, as well as the party’s wider ‘Plan to Make Work Pay’, the new title of its long-pledged New Deal for Working People.
Commenting on the meeting, Rayner said: “Our Plan to Make Work Pay will bring together workers and businesses, both big and small and across different industries, for the good of the economy.
“This first-of-its-kind meeting has kicked off a new era of partnership that will bring benefits to everyone across the country striving to build a better life.”
The Department for Business and Trade said “further engagement” is planned to discuss the detail of the Plan to Make Work Pay, which will see trade unions and business representatives invited to similar meetings and able to share insights through upcoming consultations.
Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said: “For too long, the valuable insights of business and trade unions have been ignored by government, even on past decisions which have directly impacted them.
“Business and workers will always help to shape the ambitions of government including our Plan to Make Work Pay, to ensure it boosts economic growth and creates better working conditions for all.”
Meeting attendee Paul Nowak, general secretary of the TUC, said: “The government’s Plan to Make Work Pay, including the introduction of an employment rights bill within its first 100 days, can set our economy on a path towards higher growth and better living standards.
“Today’s meeting was an important chance for unions and businesses to discuss the shared gains that the government’s reforms will bring, and we look forward to continued close working as ministers implement their plans.
“Together, we can raise the floor so that every job has the pay and security that families need to thrive, workers have access to unions, and good employers are not undercut by the bad.”
Fellow attendee Jane Gratton, deputy director of public policy at the British Chambers of Commerce, said: “It was important to be in the room today to represent the views of business, and to emphasise that the government needs to genuinely listen as it develops its plans.
“Our members are clear that their employees deserve high standards of protection, but it’s important to guard against any unintended consequences of the proposed changes.
“This will require thorough and detailed consultation with firms of all sizes. The government must take its time, engage with employers and ensure that any changes are proportionate and affordable for businesses.”
UK
Liz Truss storms off stage after being humiliated by lettuce banner prank
“Liz Truss is on a pro-Trump speaking tour. So we dropped a strategically-positioned remote-controlled lettuce banner.”
Former Prime Minister Liz Truss stormed off stage at an event where she was promoting her book, after a banner featuring a lettuce with the words ‘I crashed the economy’ was unfurled behind her as part of a stunt by a campaign group.
Truss, whose premiership ended in disaster after her mini-budget crashed the economy and sent mortgage costs soaring, was speaking at the event about why she supported President Trump and why Americans were struggling with the economy.
The stunt, carried out by campaign group Led by Donkeys, was a reference to the challenge set by the Daily Star newspaper in October 2022 to see if Ms Truss’s premiership could outlast the shelf life of a head of iceberg lettuce.
Truss was booted out of office after just 49 days, making her the country’s shortest serving Prime Minister in history, with the salad leaves lasting longer than her premiership.
Sitting in a green dress, as the banner was unfurled behind her, Truss told the audience: “I support Trump and I want him to win… But the, it’s what I was saying about incumbents, I think the average American is not doing well.”
As the banner was slowly lowered on the stage behind her, she continued: “I think it was Bill Clinton’s adviser who said ‘it’s the economy stupid’, so I think that he will probably win.”
She hadn’t noticed the banner until someone pointed it out to her, upon which Truss said “that’s not funny”, before collecting her belongings and leaving the stage.
A video of the stunt was shared online by led by Donkeys, with the caption: “Liz Truss is on a pro-Trump speaking tour. So we dropped a strategically-positioned remote-controlled lettuce banner.”
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
Some private biobanks overinflating the value of umbilical cord blood banking in marketing to expectant parents
Regenerative medicine experts warn companies are suggesting “unrealistic” applications for umbilical cord stem cell treatments
Some private UK biobanks may be misleading expectant parents about the value of storing umbilical cord blood to treat life-threatening diseases that may arise in their child in the future, reveals an investigation by The BMJ, published today.
Over the past decade growing numbers of parents have chosen to store blood from the umbilical cord, which contains stem cells, in case their infant develops a condition that could be treated with stem cell therapy.
Parents must use a private biobank which charges around £550 to £3000 for freezing a baby’s umbilical cord blood. On top of this, parents must pay an annual storage fee of over £100 to keep samples frozen.
Private biobanks market their umbilical cord blood banking services to expectant parents as an investment in protecting their child’s future health alongside claims that stem cell based therapies have been used successfully to treat a wide range of potentially life-threatening diseases, from cerebral palsy to leukaemia.
But experts in regenerative medicine say many of these companies’ marketing claims are misleading.
For example, Cells4Life, which describes itself as the UK’s largest provider of cord blood banking services, claims that “umbilical cord blood is routinely used in treatments for over 80 different conditions and diseases,” including cancers, blood disorders, immune disorders, and autism. It adds that umbilical cord blood stem cells are “pure and plastic,” meaning that “they can become almost any tissue type in the body and may even be used to regrow entire organs.”
The investigation also found that Cells4Life markets its services on questionable evidence published in the Journal of Stem Cells Research, Development & Therapy. Although the journal claims to operate a peer review process, the research article referenced by Cells4Life was published in the journal just 17 days after receipt—a timescale far shorter than the 12-14 weeks typical for peer reviewed journals. The BMJ contacted two editors listed on the journal’s editorial board who said they did not in fact hold these roles.
SmartCells, another private cord blood bank service, claims on their website that the possibilities for using stem cells are endless as these cells “have the ability to repair, replace, and regenerate cells of almost any kind.” The website of another service, Future Health, lists more than 75 genetic, immune and blood disorders that can be treated.
Charles Murry, director of the Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Washington, Seattle, and Pietro Merli, a paediatrician at the Bambino Gesù Pediatric Hospital in Italy, said the list of applications is unrealistic.
Murry says the list is based on claims by people in the late 1990s that these cells have the plasticity to become almost any type of cell in the body—claims which have been “very rigorously disproven.”
He said that umbilical cord blood contains adult stem cells which limits the types of cells they can become—haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) can become blood cells, and mesenchymal stem or stromal cells (MSCs) can build connective tissue such as bone, cartilage, tendons, ligaments, muscles, and bone marrow.
Cells4Life said, “Any cursory search of published literature on future applications of perinatal stem cells demonstrates the huge potential that cord blood holds for use in regenerative medicine in the future.”
It pointed to research which suggests that MSCs can be transformed into inducible pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) which can mimic embryonic stem cells and are therefore capable of forming any tissue except germ cells (precursors of egg and sperm cells).
Murry highlighted that transforming stem cells into iPSCs requires highly trained stem cell scientists and that iPSCs can also be created from adult blood or skin cells meaning that cord blood banking is unnecessary.
Merli, who uses stem cell therapy to treat his patients, says many of the conditions he treats do not require autologous stem cells (harvested from the patient) and that allogeneic stem cells (from matched donors) can be used instead.
He said that leukaemia was one of the few conditions where doctors might use stem cells harvested from the patient, but that these could be taken from the patient’s bone marrow so there was no benefit to harvesting and storing stem cells from cord blood.
He added that in Italy it is illegal for stem cell therapy companies to make such claims in their advertising.
Neither SmartCells nor Future Health responded to The BMJ’s request for comment.
Both the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Royal College of Midwives do not recommend commercially harvesting umbilical cord blood, unless there's a specific medical reason to do so.
Cord blood banking: Experts raise concern over claims made for stem cell applications
Cook like a Neanderthal: Scientists try to replicate ancient butchering methods to learn how Neanderthals ate birds
A pilot study indicates that fire-roasted birds are easier to process, but only birds butchered raw show cutmarks — evidence that we can use to understand Neanderthal diets
Frontiers
image:
A scientist defeathers one of the birds. Image by Dr Mariana Nabais.
It's hard to know what Neanderthals ate: food preparation, especially when it comes to smaller items like birds, can leave few archaeological traces. But understanding their diets is critical to understanding these incredibly adaptable hominins, who thrived for hundreds of thousands of years in wildly varied environments. To learn what food preparation could look like in the archaeological record, scientists tried cooking like Neanderthals.
“Using a flint flake for butchering required significant precision and effort, which we had not fully valued before this experiment,” said Dr Mariana Nabais of the Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social in Spain, lead author of the article in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology. “The flakes were sharper than we initially thought, requiring careful handling to make precise cuts without injuring our own fingers. These hands-on experiments emphasized the practical challenges involved in Neanderthal food processing and cooking, providing a tangible connection to their daily life and survival strategies.”
You are what you eat
Although the big game hunting practiced by Neanderthals is well known, we know less about the birds that some Neanderthals hunted. But recent discoveries and new techniques allow us to investigate this more deeply. By testing food preparation methods that Neanderthals could have used, to see what traces these might leave on bones and how those traces compare to damage caused by natural processes or the actions of other animals, the scientists created an experimental database that can be compared to real archaeological sites.
The scientists collected five wild birds that had died of natural causes from the Wildlife Ecology, Rehabilitation and Surveillance Centre (CERVAS) in Gouveia, Portugal. They chose two carrion crows, two collared doves, and a wood pigeon, which are similar to species that Neanderthals ate, and selected cooking methods using archaeological evidence and ethnographic data.
All the birds were defeathered by hand. A carrion crow and a collared dove were then butchered raw, using a flint flake. The remaining three were roasted over hot coals until cooked, then butchered, which the scientists found much easier than butchering the raw birds.
“Roasting the birds over the coals required maintaining a consistent temperature and carefully monitoring the cooking duration to avoid overcooking the meat,” said Nabais. “Maybe because we defeathered the birds before cooking, the roasting process was much quicker than we anticipated. In fact, we spent more time preparing the coals than on the actual cooking, which took less than ten minutes.”
Putting flesh on prehistoric bones
The scientists cleaned and dried the bones, then examined them microscopically for cutmarks, breaks, and burns. They also examined the flint flake they had used for evidence of wear and tear. Although they had used their hands for most of the butchery, the raw birds required considerable use of the flint flake, which now had small half-moon scars on the edge. While the cuts used to remove meat from the raw birds did not leave traces on the bones, the cuts aimed at tendons left marks similar to those on birds found at archaeological sites.
The bones from the roasted birds were more brittle: some had shattered and couldn’t be recovered. Nearly all of them had brown or black burns consistent with controlled exposure to heat. Black stains inside some bones suggested that the contents of the inner cavity had also burned. This evidence sheds light not just on how Neanderthal food preparation could have worked, but also how visible that preparation might be in the archaeological record. Although roasting makes it easier to access meat, the increased fragility of the bones means the leftovers might not be found by archaeologists.
However, the scientists cautioned that this research should be expanded to gain a fuller understanding of Neanderthal diets. Future studies should include more species of small prey, as well as processing birds for non-food products, like talons or feathers.
“The sample size is relatively small, consisting of only five bird specimens, which may not fully represent the diversity of bird species that Neanderthals might have used,” noted Nabais. “Secondly, the experimental conditions, although carefully controlled, cannot completely replicate the exact environmental and cultural contexts of Neanderthal life. Further research with larger samples, varied species, and more diverse experimental conditions is necessary to expand upon these results.”
Usewear on the flake used for butchery. Image by Dr Marina Igreja.
Credit
Dr Marina Igreja.
Bones recovered from the birds. Image by Dr Mariana Nabais.
Experimental replication of early human behaviour in bird preparation: A pilot-study focusing on bone surface modification and breakage patterns
Rare archaeological site reveals ‘surprising’ Neanderthal behaviour at Pyrenees foothills
Australian National University
image:
ANU archaeologist Dr Sofia Samper Carro says the insights found at Abric Pizarro challenge widespread beliefs that Neanderthals only hunted large animals.
An unchartered area in the foothills of the Southern Pyrenees in Spain is providing insights into a poorly known period of Neanderthal history, offering clues that could help archaeologists uncover the mystery of their downfall, according to new research from The Australian National University (ANU).
Abric Pizarro is one of only a few sites worldwide dating from 100,000 to 65,000 years ago during a period called MIS 4. The researchers have gathered hundreds of thousands of artefacts, including stone tools, animal bones and other evidence, providing significant data about the Neanderthal way of life during that time -- largely unknown in human history until now.
The findings reveal Neanderthals were able to adapt to their environment, challenging the archaic humans’ reputation as slow-footed cavemen and shedding light on their survival and hunting skills.
Lead author and ANU archaeologist, Dr Sofia Samper Carro, said that the findings show that Neanderthals knew the best ways to exploit the area and territory and were resilient through harsh climate conditions.
“Our surprising findings at Abric Pizarro show how adaptable Neanderthals were. The animal bones we have recovered indicate that they were successfully exploiting the surrounding fauna, hunting red deer, horses and bison, but also eating freshwater turtles and rabbits, which imply a degree of planning rarely considered for Neanderthals,” she said.
According to the researchers, these new insights challenge widespread beliefs that Neanderthals only hunted large animals, such as horses and rhinoceros.
“Through the bones that we are finding, which display cut marks, we have direct proof that Neanderthals were capable of hunting small animals,” Dr Samper Carro said.
“The bones on this site are very well preserved, and we can see marks of how Neanderthals processed and butchered these animals.
“Our analysis of the stone artefacts also demonstrates variability in the type of tools produced, indicating Neanderthals’ capability to exploit the available resources in the area.”
Shedding light on this crucial transitional period helps archaeologists edge closer to solving a mystery that has plagued researchers for decades: what drove the Neanderthals to extinction?
According to the researchers, finding sites like Abric Pizarro, from this specific and not well-recorded period, gives information about how Neanderthals lived when modern humans were not in the area yet and shows that they were thriving.
“The unique site at Abric Pizarro gives a glimpse of Neanderthal behaviour in a landscape they had been roaming for hundreds of thousands of years,” Dr Samper Carro said.
“Neanderthals disappeared around 40,000 years ago. Suddenly, we modern humans appear in this region of the Pyrenees, and the Neanderthals disappear. But before that, Neanderthals had been living in Europe for almost 300,000 years.
“They clearly knew what they were doing. They knew the area and how to survive for a long time.
“This is one of the most interesting things about this site, to have this unique information about when Neanderthals were alone and living in harsh conditions and how they thrived before modern humans appeared.”
Thanks to modern excavation techniques, Abric Pizarro and other nearby Neanderthal sites provide fine-grain data to understand Neanderthal behaviour.
“We 3D plot every single remain found larger than one to two centimetres. This makes our work slow, and we have been excavating some of these sites for over 20 years, but it turns into a uniquely precise recording of the sites,” Dr Samper Carro said.
“We are interested in how the different data relates to each other, from stone tools to bones and hearths. This more thorough excavation gives archaeologists information on how Neanderthals lived and how long they were in an area.
“It’s not only the individual materials that give us clues, but also where exactly they are found in relation to other materials on the site that helps us understand how and when Neanderthals were visiting these sites. Were they settled there or just passing through?”
The research team also included scientists from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (CEPAP-UAB). Research in the Catalan Pre-Pyrenees is supported by The Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and the Culture Department of the Catalan Government.
If you were asked what images were depicted on each side of any of your country’s banknotes, would you be able to confidently answer?
It's a question a team of Griffith researchers has posed as a way to explore just what flora and fauna that nations around the globe choose to represent on their currency, and the opportunities they present for conservation awareness and efforts.
In the new study published in People and Nature, lead author Beaudee Newbery and his supervisors Associate Professor Guy Castley and Dr Clare Morrison, investigated the representation of native fauna on 4,541 banknotes from 207 countries between 1980 and 2017, to identify geographic hotspots and taxonomic patterns, and determine whether threatened and endemic species were more readily represented.
They found:
Native fauna depicted on 15.2% of banknotes reviewed;
These represented 352 unique species with a strong bias towards terrestrial species (89%);
A dominance of bird and mammal species (83% combined)
African banknotes had the highest mammal representation;
Birds were favoured in South America;
Globally, threatened species were commonly depicted on banknotes with 30% of all imagery representing these species.
“For many of us around the world using banknotes and coins is part of the everyday, despite the increasing trend towards digital transactions,” Associate Professor Castley said.
“But in making these transactions, do we pay any notice to the currency itself and the images and artwork that are used in these designs?
“To get a sense of the ‘value’ that countries around the world might place on their native wildlife, our paper explored how wildlife imagery was used on banknotes.
“We were interested in finding out how often wildlife, specifically native animals, were depicted, but also which species were depicted.”
The team recommended several avenues for further investigation to explore the relationships between perceived value and wildlife representation.
These included longitudinal studies of how representation changes over time; the inclusion of flora and/or coin imagery; identifying species-specific traits for selected wildlife; and examining the decision-making processes governing wildlife imagery on banknotes.
“Given the global biodiversity crisis, perhaps there may be a trend to showcase threatened species to highlight their plight and raise national awareness for these species,” Associate Professor Castley said.
“This study underscores the role that wildlife imagery on banknotes can play in shaping national identity and public perception of a country’s biodiversity.”
“By highlighting both the celebrated and threatened species, currencies around the world serve as a unique platform for promoting conservation awareness.”
The study ‘From cash to conservation: Which wildlife species appear on banknotes?’ has been published in People and Nature.
