Invasive Termites Dining In Our Homes: Soon A Reality In Most Cities

 May 6, 2024  

By Eurasia Review

With climate change continuing its relentless march, the world faces not only rising temperatures and extreme weather, but also an insidious threat to our homes: invasive termites. And the bill could be steep – invasive termites currently cost over 40 billion USD annually.

In a new study published in the open-access journal Neobiota, PhD student Edouard Duquesne and Professor Denis Fournier from the Evolutionary Biology & Ecology lab (Université libre de Bruxelles) unveil the unsettling reality of invasive termites’ potential expansion into new territories.

Their research reveals that as temperatures rise and climate patterns shift, cities worldwide, from tropical hotspots like Miami, Sao Paulo, Lagos, Jakarta or Darwin to temperate metropolises like Paris, Brussels, London, New York or Tokyo, could soon find themselves under siege by these tiny yet destructive pests.

But how do termites, typically associated with tropical climates, find their way into cities far beyond their natural habitat? The answer lies in the interconnectedness of our modern world. Urbanisation, with its dense populations and bustling trade networks, provides the perfect breeding ground for termite invasions.

Moreover, the global movement of goods, including wooden furniture transported by private vessels, offers unsuspecting pathways for these silent invaders to hitch a ride into our homes.

“A solitary termite colony, nestled within a small piece of wood, could clandestinely voyage from the West Indies to your Cannes apartment. It might lurk within furniture aboard a yacht moored at the Cannes Film Festival marina,” say the researchers.

“Mating is coming. Termite queens and kings, attracted by lights, may initiate reproduction, laying the groundwork for new colonies to conquer dry land,” they continue.

Duquesne and Fournier’s research emphasises the need for a paradigm shift in how we approach invasive species modelling. By integrating connectivity variables like trade, transport, and population density, their study highlights the importance of understanding the intricate interactions that facilitate termite spread.

In light of these findings, the researchers urge swift action from policymakers and citizens alike. Major cities, regardless of their climate zone, must implement strict termite control measures to protect homes and infrastructure.

“Citizens can play a crucial role by leveraging technology, such as AI-assisted apps like iNaturalist, to detect and report potential termite sightings, turning ordinary residents into vigilant guardians of their environment,” say the researchers.

“As we confront the challenges of a rapidly changing climate, awareness and proactive measures are our best defence against the creeping menace of invasive termites,” they conclude.

Workers and soldiers of the invasive termite Reticulitermes. Credit: David Mora (https://www.pasiontermitas.com/). CC-BY4.0

Study Explores Biology, Impact, Management And Potential Distribution Of Destructive Longhorn Beetle

 May 6, 2024  

By Eurasia Review

A new study, published in the Journal of Pest Science, explores the biology, impact, management, and potential distribution of the invasive, red-necked longhorn beetle (Aromia bungii) which has recently invaded Japan, Germany, and Italy.

The review is mainly based on Chinese literature and intended to reveal the rather concealed but present knowledge to a wider audience, especially for those countries that were recently invaded or are at threat to be invaded.

The insect is regarded as one of the most destructive longhorn beetle pests of fruit trees in lowland areas of China where economic losses to Prunus species, such as apricot and peach, can be substantial and threaten economic development and food security.

In Italy, the UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) states, Aromia bungii has severely damaged or killed several hundred apricot, cherry and plum trees that have succumbed to larval attack that leads them to become more susceptible to disease.

Aromia bungii is native to the south-eastern Palaearctic and Oriental regions. It is recorded from China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, and the Russian far East.

Sustainable control tools are needed

Scientists from the MARA-CABI Joint Laboratory for Biosafety and European Laboratory joined colleagues from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Agroscope and the Institute of Plant Protection, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) on the study which highlights that sustainable control tools are needed for the management of this emerging pest.

The study further demonstrates the great international, intercontinental collaboration for this review involving scientists from China, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, and Canada.

Dr Tim Haye, Head Arthropod Biological Control at CABI, and an author of the paper, said, “The pest exhibits an adaptable lifecycle, a high reproductive output, and the larvae live concealed under the bark of invested trees, which are traits that promote its invasiveness.

“Detection and monitoring of A. bungii currently rely upon visual identification of infested trees that are usually already damaged, which is inefficient and not target-specific.”

Dr Haye said current control methods rely upon the labour-intensive physical removal of infested trees. Although native parasitoid natural enemies of A. bungii provide control in Chinese orchards, none are appropriate for classical biological control in invaded areas due to biosafety concerns surrounding their broad host ranges. However, entomopathogenic fungi and nematodes may provide viable options for biological control in invaded ranges.

Targeted natural enemy surveys

Dr Jinping Zhang, of the MARA-CABI Joint Laboratory for Biosafety, said, “Recent advancements in semiochemical baited traps may provide sustainable, target-specific, and efficacious methods to monitor and control A. bungii.

“There remains much to learn about the biology and control of A. bungii, and continued advancements in the study of sustainable control tools are needed for the management of this emerging pest.”

The scientists argue that classical biological control against A. bungii may not be viable due to biosafety risks, but targeted natural enemy surveys would provide greater clarity on the potential for this approach.

Dr Haye added, “This review ultimately provides a source of reference for A. bungii that can be used by scientists, regulatory agencies, and industry to direct future research and implementation of management options.”

Aromia bungii is regarded as one of the most destructive longhorn beetle pests of fruit trees (Credit: Tim Haye).

OPINION
In the dock: Pivotal climate change testimonies in US

BY ANASTASIA MOLONEY/BOGOTA

LAST EDITED MAY 06, 2024 | 01:14 AM

A resident of El Bosque cries in front of what is left of her house as rising sea levels are destroying homes built on the shoreline and forcing villagers to relocate, in El Bosque, Mexico. (Reuters)

From Mexicans left homeless by rising seas to Colombians affected by coral bleaching, hundreds of people are telling the top human rights court in the Americas what climate change means to them in an historic case that could shape international law.

Environmental lawyers also hope the hearings at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), which were requested by Colombia and Chile, will define the duties of states to confront the climate crisis and stop it infringing on human rights.

As well as receiving submissions from climate victims, the Costa Rica-based court, which started its inquiry in Barbados in April, will hear from UN agencies, legal experts, grassroots environmental campaign groups, and youth groups.

The next sessions are due to be held in Brasilia and then Manaus, Brazil at the end of May, and an advisory opinion is expected by May 2025.

“We’re hoping that the court’s legal opinion is a guide and reference for Mexico, and other states, to develop public policies from a climate justice perspective,” said Nora Cabrera, a lawyer and head of Our Future, a Mexico-based youth climate justice campaign group.

“And that it includes loss and damage compensation for affected communities, and adaptation policies for those not yet directly affected by climate change,” said Cabrera, who will be speaking at the next hearing in Manaus.

In January, Colombia and Chile asked the IACHR to issue the advisory opinion, saying that they were experiencing the “daily challenge of dealing with the consequences of the climate emergency,” including fires, landslides, droughts and floods.

“These events reveal the need for an urgent response based on the principles of equity, justice, co-operation and sustainability, with a human rights-based approach,” they said in their petition.

“There is a close relationship between the climate emergency and the violation of human rights,” they added.

It is this link between climate change and human rights that the IACHR will seek to define, while also examining how climate change affects migration and looking at the disproportionate effect on children, women and Indigenous people.

Chile and Colombia also asked the court for clarification on a state’s duties to protect environmental activists.

Latin America is the most dangerous place in the world for environmental and land defenders, according to advocacy group Global Witness. Around 90% of the 177 killings of environmental activists recorded in 2022 took place in the region.

“The hearing aims to ask for clarity about human rights obligations and the climate crisis,” said Jacob Kopas, senior attorney at the Earthjustice environmental group, one of a group of lawyers who spoke at the Barbados hearing on April 26.

“It will help to create a more concise framework to guide state behaviour and policy to confront the climate crisis and protect human rights,” said Kopas.

Among those submitting testimonies will be the residents of the El Bosque fishing community in Tabasco, Mexico, where rising sea levels caused by climate change have swept away about 200 meters of coastline.

Since 2019, the school and more than 50 homes have been destroyed, forcing about 200 people to leave.

El Bosque community leader, Guadalupe Cobos, said she and 10 neighbours will probably have to leave within a year and resettle in an area about 12km away, where new homes are being built by the government.

“We depend on the sea but coastal erosion has affected our way of life. It’s important for the court to know that we’re living climate change now and that this isn’t something that will happen in the future in 20 or 50 years’ time,” said Cobos.

“We want the court to hear our experiences and to know that our rights have been violated, that we have been forced to migrate,” Cobos told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The court’s advisory opinion could have important implications for climate litigation across Latin America and the Caribbean and make it easier for communities living with the effects of global warming to take legal action.

The opinion will apply to all signatories of the American Convention on Human Rights, most of whom are members of the Organization of American States. The United States and Canada have not ratified the treaty however.

The advisory opinion will help shape the region’s legal systems as many countries incorporate its jurisprudence into their laws and constitutions.

“We’re hoping that the court makes the link between the climate crisis and human rights violations and that it recognises climate displacement,” said Cabrera, whose organisation has been supporting the El Bosque community.

The IACHR is known for its progressive stance on climate justice and human rights.
In March, it recognised that citizens in Peru have the right to a healthy environment when it ruled in favor of people living in the Andean mining town of La Oroya, who had suffered from decades of environmental pollution.

Other courts are also breaking new ground in this sphere.

In Colombia in April, in response to a lawsuit filed by a farming couple who were driven out of their home by flooding caused by heavy rains, the country’s constitutional court recognised the links between environmental disasters and climate change and people being forcibly displaced.

Across the world, other top courts are also examining the connection between human rights and climate change. On April 9, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that the Swiss government had violated the human rights of its citizens by failing to do enough to combat climate change.

Two other courts - the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Seas (ITLOS) — are also expected to give advisory opinions on international legal obligations of states regarding climate change.

Kopas said the IACHR ruling could lead the way by delivering a “forward-reaching and progressive” advisory opinion.

“It’s historic because of the climate crisis we are in. This is the crisis of our lifetime and of all future generations.” 

— Thomson Reuters Foundation

Malaysia’s Michelle Yeoh Awarded US Presidential Medal Of Freedom

 May 6, 2024  

By BenarNews

Oscar-winning Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh was among 19 people who were awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom here on Friday for their “exemplary contributions” to the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors.

U.S. President Joe Biden, presented Yeoh, 61, and her 18 fellow honorees with the medal – the nation’s highest civilian honor – during a ceremony at the White House in the late afternoon.

“Over four decades and on and off the screen, [Michelle] Yeoh … has shattered stereotypes and glass ceilings to enrich, enhance American culture,” the president said in introducing the Malaysia-born film star. 

“Her roles transcend gender, cultures and languages, from martial arts to romantic comedies to science fiction, to show us what we all have in common. As the first Asian actor to win an Oscar as Best Actress, she bridges cultures, not only to entertain but also inspire and open hearts. And that’s what she keeps doing,” Biden said. 

As he introduced her, he fumbled Yeoh’s first name and referred to her as “Michael” before quickly correcting his error. Moments later, Biden draped the blue-ribboned medal around Yeoh, who was dressed in black. 

With all 19 recipients honored in alphabetical order, she was the last to receive the medal. 

Last year, Yeoh, who was born in Ipoh, won the Oscar for best actress for her starring role in “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” which also won Best Picture and Best Director honors at the 95th Academy Awards.

It took Yeoh only a little under 40 years of perseverance to shatter the stereotypes that President Biden mentioned. 

During a period in the late 1990s, she refused so many films – all the roles offered were of stereotypical Asian characters – that she found herself out of work for two years, Yeoh has said in interviews.

“At that point, people in the industry couldn’t really tell the difference between whether I was Chinese or Japanese or Korean or if I even spoke English,” she told People magazine in March 2023.

“They would talk very loudly and very slow,” she said. 

This was after her international breakthrough role in a James Bond franchise film, “Tomorrow Never Dies.” In it, she plays Wai Lin, an action-oriented Chinese spy who speaks English. Yeoh is fluent in English, Malay and Cantonese.

The actress didn’t just buck Asian stereotypes, she also refused to be cast in films in which an actress was just a pretty prop, or a damsel in distress. And she did this at the start of her career, not after she had established herself.

The roster of 19 who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Friday featured pioneers and record breakers from the fields of arts and entertainment, education, civil rights, sports, and aerospace.

Apart from a bevy of big-name American politicians, Yeoh’s fellow honorees included TV talk show personality Phil Donohue; Ellen Ochoa, the first Hispanic woman to travel into space; Medgar Evers, an icon of the civil rights movement who was assassinated in 1963; Swimmer Katie Ledecky, a 21-time gold medalist at the world championships; and the late Jim Thorpe, an athlete who excelled at multiple sports and was the first Native American to win a gold medal at the Olympics.

From Hong Kong to Hollywood    

A former Miss Malaysia, Michelle Yeoh got her break in a Hong Kong film with international action and martial arts superstar Jackie Chan – they would work in about a dozen more films together. In her debut movie, Yeoh told People magazine, she did play a woman who needed to be saved.

However, that was probably the last time she took a role of that nature. A year later, in 1985, she was offered her first lead role, an action-oriented one, as a cop in Hong Kong. She barely knew any Cantonese, so she learned the language. And she did her own stunts – another stereotype broken.

Yeoh soon established herself as a top regional star with her Hong Kong films. Then Hollywood came calling in 1997, with the Bond film, after which she didn’t work for two years.

Director Ang Lee, who had made a name for himself in Hollywood with “Sense & Sensibility,” offered Yeoh the role of a warrior – one of the three main roles – in the martial arts film “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”

The film was a massive hit and for Yeoh, a landmark in her career – she won a best actress nomination from BAFTA (The British Academy of Film and Television Arts). In February 2023, when the movie was released in a restored 4k version, Time magazine declared that “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon proves Michelle Yeoh has always been criminally underrated.”

This martial arts film led to offers from Hollywood, again, but this time the roles were worlds better than before. Yeo then starred in several notable films, such as “Memoirs a Geisha,” “Sunshine,” and “Crazy Rich Asians.”

Finally, sometime in 2018, the Daniels – the director duo of Daniel Scheiner and Daniel Kwan – offered her the lead role in “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” a film set in a multiverse.

The whacky film was the one that had been eluding Yeoh – the one with an Oscar-winning role. 

Playing a Chinese-American immigrant owner of a laundromat who alone could save existence, Yeoh became the first Asian woman to win the best actress Oscar.

She referred to her historic feat in her acceptance speech.

“For all the little boys and girls who look like me watching tonight, this is a beacon of hope and possibilities,” she said.

“This is proof that … dream big, and dreams do come true.”

U.S. President Joe Biden awards the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to Malaysia-born actress Michelle Yeoh. Photo Credit: White House video screenshot

BenarNews mission is to provide readers with accurate news and information that reflects the complex and ever-changing world around them. With homepages in Bengali, Thai, Bahasa Malaysia, Bahasa Indonesia and English, BenarNews brings timely news to its diverse audience. Copyright BenarNews. Used with the permission of BenarNews

 

It Will Take 880 Years to Achieve UN Ocean Conservation Goals, at This Rate (Commentary)

He plans to say that ocean conservation has lost momentum toward protecting 30% of the ocean by 2030 and that a lot more needs to be done to address the human dimensions of conservation, including guaranteeing access rights, equity, and justice.

May 5, 2024 by Mongabay 

 

By Angelo Villagomez

• Indigenous conservationist Angelo Villagomez will speak at the Our Ocean conference, one of the largest and highest profile conferences of its kind, this week in Athens, Greece.
• He plans to say that ocean conservation has lost momentum toward protecting 30% of the ocean by 2030 and that a lot more needs to be done to address the human dimensions of conservation, including guaranteeing access rights, equity, and justice.
• “At this rate, raising the area of global ocean protection from 8% to 30% will take an additional 880 years,” he argues in a new op-ed.
• This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

The ninth Our Ocean conference takes place this week in Athens, Greece. It is the largest and highest profile conference of its kind, and attracts presidents and celebrities, who all try to outdo one another with bigger and stronger conservation commitments.

This year I was invited to attend and will be speaking about my 20 years of experience working as an Indigenous Chamorro scientist to protect the ocean. I plan to call attention to the fact that ocean conservation has lost momentum toward protecting 30% of the ocean by 2030 — and that a lot more needs to be done to address the human dimensions of conservation, including guaranteeing access rights, equity, and justice.

According to the World Database of Protected Areas, at the start of the global COVID-19 pandemic in February 2020, 7.91% of the ocean was protected. That number stands at 8.01% today — an increase of only 0.1% over the last four years.

At this rate, raising the area of global ocean protection from 8% to 30% will take an additional 880 years. Put another way, achieving these goals by 2030 would require that marine-protected areas be designated at a rate nearly 150 times faster than what’s happening now.

To put this in perspective, the Biden Administration is working feverishly to designate the proposed Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary. Through the America the Beautiful for All Coalition and the National Ocean Protection Coalition, nearly the entire weight of the American conservation movement is throwing support behind this singular designation. To achieve 30×30 on the ocean globally will require designating 2.2 Chumash-sized protected areas every day between now and the last day of 2030.

Ocean conservation growth wasn’t always so stagnant. A common refrain at the start of the last decade was that “less than 1% of the ocean is protected,” but many millions of square kilometers of ocean were protected in the following years. At the 2016 Our Ocean event, leaders announced the designation or expansion of some of the largest and most iconic marine-protected areas in the world — including the Northwest Hawaiian Islands, Ross Sea, Northeast Canyons and Seamounts, Saint Helena, and the Galapagos. At the end of the year, the United Nations put out a statement announcing that 5% of the ocean was protected.

We were so optimistic about the future of ocean conservation in 2016 that not only did we assume we were on pace to achieve the UN’s goal of protecting 10% of the ocean by 2020 — we set an even more ambitious goal of protecting 30% of the ocean by 2030, a movement sometimes referred to as 30×30. I helped write and negotiate the original 30×30 agreement in 2016, which became the source material for the UN Convention on Biological Diversity agreement approved in 2022.

Of course, numbers don’t tell the whole story, and getting to 30% is only one part of the story here. In the last four years, some protected areas were rolled back even while new ones were created, and some governments started defining “protected” with a higher standard — and thus reporting less of their waters to the database.

But hyper-focusing on size masks many other aspects of successful ocean management. There are also questions of where these protected areas are located, who carries the conservation burden when fishing is restricted, and who reaps the benefits when tourism, conservation, research, and education dollars start flowing.

See related: First ever U.S. Indigenous Marine Stewardship Area declared in California

While progress has seemingly been slow, our movement has gotten better in addressing the human dimensions of ocean conservation — what I like to call the who, how, and what. Many governments, organizations, and individuals now try to ensure their approach to ocean protection is ethical, equitable, and just. For example, the Biden Administration has written ocean justice into government policy with the release of the Ocean Justice Strategy and the Ocean Climate Action Plan, and some conservation organizations have increased their hiring of people of color.

So, all is not lost. The Biden Administration has proposed designating up to six new national marine sanctuaries, several of which involve Indigenous peoples. The administration also has the potential to deliver final management plans for marine monuments originally designated during the Bush and Obama years.

Globally, two thirds of the world’s ocean are high seas, so the recent landmark High Seas Treaty provides an opportunity to designate huge swaths of ocean beyond national jurisdiction as protected areas. But the treaty must first be ratified, and states will have to demand that regional fisheries management organizations and the International Seabed Authority come to the table, as it is not mandated in the agreement.

According to the organizers, the Our Ocean conference has mobilized more than 2,160 commitments worth approximately $130 billion since 2014. This year needs to be even bigger if we’re going to break out of this ocean conservation rut.

The attendees of Our Ocean are the right people — not just the right people to make commitments, but the right people to ensure that money and capacity are reaching on-the-water efforts in a way that is both effective at conserving ocean life and also equitable and just for communities.

Angelo Villagomez is an Indigenous Chamorro ocean advocate and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. He is also the vice chair of the Marine and Coastal Area-based Management Federal Advisory Committee and the oceans co-lead for the America the Beautiful for All Coalition.

Related audio from Mongabay’s podcast: A discussion with environmental journalist Cynthia Barnett about her book, “The Sound of the Sea: Seashells and the Fate of the Oceans,” listen here:

Will Israel’s Genocide In Gaza Cost Joe Biden The White House? – OpEd

 

Students protesting in favor of Palestine in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Photo Credit: John Doe, Wikipedia Commons

 May 6, 2024  

By Finian Cunningham

Student protests across the United States point to growing disgust among young Americans toward the Biden administration’s “ironclad” support for Israel amid the worst genocide in modern times.

Daniel Lazare is a historian of the U.S. Constitution and politics. He discusses the impact that the relentless violence in the Middle East is having on US politics and the forthcoming presidential election in November. In particular, how the complicity of the U.S. under Biden in the genocide perpetrated by Israel is alienating large numbers of youth as well as many other American voters.

The incumbent Democrat president is counting on the votes of younger citizens as he faces off with Republican contender Donald Trump in a tight election only 4 months away.

Lazare draws a parallel with the 1968 presidential election when an incumbent Democrat White House was lost because of widespread protests against the Vietnam War.

Biden is heading toward a similar fate as protests in universities and colleges spread against the genocide in Gaza that his administration is enabling with weapons supplies and political support to the Israeli regime.

Lazare believes we are witnessing a historic moment of change in the United States where the horror of Gaza is radicalizing American voters to repudiate the imperialist conduct of U.S. power.

“U.S. global power has never been so vulnerable,” he comments as the United States faces its worst internal political crisis since the foundation of the republic in 1776. Lazare points to the failure of the U.S. capitalist system at a pivotal moment when increasing numbers of its young people are more aware and critical of warmongering foreign policy.

As the university protests grow the fascistic response by the U.S. state to crush legitimate protest is only further radicalizing American youth. This is a wake-up call for radical political change in the United States (and other Western states) because all established parties are now exposed as imperialistic and opposed to any form of genuine democracy.

• This article was published at Strategic Culture

Finian Cunningham has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. He is a Master’s graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism.