Wind-Powered Ro-Ro Neoliner Origin Proves 70% Fuel Reduction in First Year

Image courtesy Neoline

By The Maritime Executive 2026-11-11

The wind-powered ro-ro Neoliner Origin has completed its first full year of commercial service between Europe and North America, and its owner says it cut fuel use by a remarkable 70 percent in 2026. That number approaches but does not quite reach the 80 percent savings target the vessel was expected to deliver when it entered service in October 2025, and the owner said that it expects to achieve better performance next year. 

French shipowner Neoline said the 136-meter (446-foot) ship's first year was marked by technical problems, the difficulties of commissioning a first-of-its-kind vessel and a disrupted transatlantic trade environment.

Even so, the company says Neoliner Origin has shown that wind-powered cargo shipping can work at an industrial scale. Measured against the GLEC (Global Logistics Emissions Council) fleet reference, the ship saved 3,502 tonnes of fuel over the year. That is an average reduction of 66 percent since it entered service, and 70 percent for 2026 alone. Neoline says the fuel saved equals 11,228 tonnes of CO2 avoided. Neoline also compared the ship with a simulated conventional vessel of the same size without sails, running the same 2026 routes at 15 knots. Against that benchmark, the savings ranged from 62 to 67 percent.

Neoliner Origin at Port of Baltimore, 2026 (Port of Baltimore)

Neoliner Origin uses two SolidSail rigs as its main source of propulsion. It sails on a transatlantic service from Montoir-de-Bretagne, near Saint-Nazaire, with calls at Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, Baltimore and Halifax. In its first year, the ship covered more than 62,000 nautical miles and completed nine commercial round trips. It carried 1,845 cargo units, about 12,063 tonnes and 55,889 cubic meters of cargo, including vehicles, containers, out-of-gauge cargo, industrial machinery and refrigerated goods.

Built by RMK Marine in Turkey, the vessel also carried more than 170 passengers during the year. It has six double cabins and can take up to 12 passengers.

Neoline said problems with the sail system kept the ship from reaching the 80 percent target. Neoliner Origin has shown it can regularly sail at more than 15 knots on wind alone, and it hit a peak of 16.6 knots in June with its engine stopped. But faults in the rig cut the time the sails could be used, especially with all of them set.

The company is working with Chantiers de l'Atlantique, which designed the SolidSail rig, to fix the problems so the ship can rely on its sails far more in 2027. Its new target is a fuel reduction of at least 78 percent against the GLEC reference, a standardized index for carbon emissions from freight transport. The ship is due for a maintenance period in February 2027 that should bring the rig back to full use.

“This first year of operations confirms the potential of wind propulsion to significantly reduce fuel consumption and CO2 emissions in maritime transport,” said Jean Zanuttini, Neoline's chairman and CEO. He added that as a prototype, the ship had taught the company valuable lessons that will be critical to improving its performance.

“We are confident in our ability to approach, and potentially exceed, 80 percent fuel savings as early as 2027,” he said.

Neoline was founded in 2015 to develop low-carbon shipping with wind as the main source of propulsion. Since Neoliner Origin entered service, the company has signed commercial partnerships with CMA CGM and CEVA, and in September it added a call at Zeebrugge.

 

Salvage of the MSC Baltic III Wreck Prepares to Remove Final Stern Sections

Two final stern sections from the wreck of the MSC Baltic III will be pulled ashore in Newfoundland (Canadian Coast Guard)

By The Maritime Executive 2026-11-06 14:15:14

The salvage efforts in Newfoundland, Canada, to clear the wreck of the containership MSC Baltic III continue to report strong progress. In the latest update, the Canadian Coast Guard reports that Resolve Marine is preparing for pulling operations for the final two portions of the stern that remain in the water.

Clearance of the wreck got underway during the summer of 2026, nearly a year and a half after the 33,767-dwt containership blacked out and was driven ashore in Ceder Cove, Newfoundland, near Corner Brook, in February 2025. The 207-meter (679-foot) vessel, which had a capacity for 2,478 TEU, had about 400 containers aboard. Canadian forces airlifted the crew from the ship without injury. 

The upper works of the containership were stripped away, including the accommodation block and the cargo hatches and gear. Upper portions of the hull were also removed before the operation began pulling sections of the vessel forward onto the beach to be cut up and trucked away for recycling.

Portion of the stern of the MSC Baltic III pulled shore for recycling (Canadian Coast Guard)

The latest update shows that the bow section of the MSC Baltic III wreck is fully ashore and removed from the beach. The Canadian Coast Guard also reports that one section of the vessel’s stern has been pulled ashore, deconstructed, and removed from the shoreline.

Critically, the salvage operation reached six heavy fuel oil tanks, which the Coast Guard said were a priority to end the pollution risks. These tankers were cleaned and have been recycled. The Coast Guard says that while intermittent oil sheening continues to be observed in Cedar Cove, it has significantly decreased since the bow section was removed from the water.

The Canadian Coast Guard and Environment and Climate Change Canada continue to conduct shoreline, on-water, and aerial pollution surveillance and monitoring, weather permitting. 

To date, Resolve has removed 9,282 tonnes from the MSC Baltic III wreck. It equated to approximately 84 percent of the vessel's total tonnage.

After all the vessel has been salvaged, there will be a final clean-up of the sea floor and coastline in Ceder Cove. Resolve has also committed to coastline restoration as the final stage of the salvage operation.

An Ocean of Services

From towing and wreck removal to firefighting and oil spill response, a salvor’s work is never done.

By Pat Zeitler 2026-11-08 12:52:00

(Article originally published in Sept/Oct 2026 edition.)

For more than a century, you could gauge the state of the marine salvage industry by the number of Lloyd’s Open Form (LOF) cases.

A simplistic explanation of a typical LOF case is a vessel calling a salvor to perform a rescue operation. The agreement constitutes a blank check for the salvor to provide whatever equipment, labor and services necessary to complete the operation. Known familiarly as a “no cure, no pay” contract, the operation must first be completed, and an arbitrator then reviews the case and decides on the appropriate billable amount for the services provided.

Salvors take most of the financial risk while vessel owners have a mechanism for the rapid initiation of emergency services. Historically, the annual number of LOF cases was the best measure of the health of the marine salvage industry. For the past two decades, however, this number has been in sharp decline. Yet salvors like Donjon Marine, Resolve Marine, Global Diving & Salvage and Vanguard Tech have expanded their services far beyond LOF cases. 2026 has demonstrated that marine salvage is a strong, healthy industry that includes oil spill response, lightering, vessel removal, towing, firefighting and an ocean of other emergency services.

Donjon Marine

It’s been just over a year since U.S.-based Donjon Marine was acquired by the private equity Tallvine Group, and Donjon CEO John Witte, Jr. says it’s more like a partnership than an acquisition. Tallvine and Donjon have since added a West Coast affiliate and are looking at another “bolt-on” towing organization on the Gulf coast.

Thus far in 2026 the industry has not had a major rescue operation like the Costa Concordia, Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore or Golden Ray. “Our salvage work to date in 2026 has involved removal of numerous hazards in support of the U.S. Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Navy, small barge salvage, emergency towing and other localized events,” Witte explains.

Donjon also has a shipyard in Erie, Pennsylvania and is expanding into the Great Lakes.

Stevedoring and construction support work may not be the first things that comes to mind when thinking about salvage, but they’re keeping Donjon busy as port infrastructure continues to grow and change. Vessels are built larger with more variation in cargoes, resulting in the industry-wide need for upgrading standard salvage assets.

When a request would come for an open ocean emergency towing case, a tug with 70 to 90-ton bollard capacity could be dispatched without concern. Today, capacity limit is not a given and must always be considered prior to mobilization. It’s not just towing that’s affected. Pumping, marine firefighting and heavy lift capabilities, and the appropriate labor force to meet the response are increasing as well.

“Maybe we should modify the phrase, ‘bigger is better’ to ‘bigger is necessary,’” Witte quips.

The longtime joint venture between Donjon and Smit Salvage Americas continues to be busy providing OPA-90 services in the U.S. as well as contributing to salvage efforts in the Strait of Hormuz area. “When a salvor is required to work in a war zone,” Witte says, “it becomes an entirely different situation and much more than a difficult commercial response. While absolutely necessary, we all hope that it ends very, very soon.”

Vanguard Tech

Vanguard Tech is a U.K.-based, intelligence-led maritime risk, response and recovery partner that supports shipowners, operators, insurers and their representatives globally. Vanguard clients have a partner managing a situation’s intelligence, casualty monitoring and physical response – all within a single operational structure.

Its business has developed from maritime risk, intelligence and crisis management to the broader area of casualty response and salvage capability. “Our focus is on remaining nimble, adapting to what the market needs and continuing to support our clients and the wider industry as that operating environment evolves,” says Matthew Cooke, Senior Salvage Manager & Americas Lead.

2026 has been a particularly active year for Vanguard’s casualty response team with a significant number of simultaneous operations in and around the Strait of Hormuz. To preserve confidentiality and without identifying individual vessels or clients, these cases have included emergency towage operations involving disabled tankers and other large commercial vessels including a laden vessel that had lost steering and required the rapid mobilization and coordination of suitable towage assets.

“The salvage landscape is ever-changing,” Cooke states, “from regulation and safety culture to larger vessels and new operating environments. 2026 has also become a year of wartime vessel incidents, bringing a very different set of risks and operational challenges.”

A response in a war zone often takes the form of recent Vanguard operation. The vessel required a combination of emergency services working in a fluid and seamless manner including towage, divers performing subsea patching, engine-room and aft-peak dewatering, structural stabilization and the coordination of ship-to-ship cargo discharge operations – the kind of variables that Donjon’s Witte described and politely understated as “much more than a difficult commercial response.”

Resolve Marine

A global leader in maritime response, recovery and compliance, U.S.-based Resolve Marine also understands that the business of marine salvage is as diverse as the waters of the vast oceans.

“Our customers range from mom-and-pop fishing owners to technology companies literally pushing the limits of space,” states Daniel Dettor, Director of Business Development. “Time and again they rely upon Resolve Marine to solve their maritime challenges. It doesn’t get any better than that!”

Resolve has been busy this past year. The team responded to an oil rig that suffered a catastrophic leg failure off the coast of Trinidad. The multi-phase project consisted of stabilizing the compromised rig and mitigating environmental risks including the removal of hydrocarbons and hazardous drilling materials.

The team then dismantled and removed the rig’s topsides, rig mat, drill floor and derrick using the salvage barge RMG 1000 equipped with two American 450-ton cranes. The topsides were transferred to a submersible barge fitted with custom-engineered grillage, enabling the structure to be safely transported for final disposal.

Currently, the Resolve team is working on several interesting projects including the wreck removal of a containership in Newfoundland, Canada, removal works on behalf of the U.K. government on an American Liberty ship that sank during World War II in the Thames Estuary outside London, and a fire on an LNG-fuelled car carrier in the Pacific.

It’s impossible to forecast what the future of marine salvage will be, but one area everyone seems to agree on is specialized marine firefighting. The transport and use of lithium-ion batteries in containers and cars has been a concern for several years now, and Dettor says, “I don’t see these types of casualties abating anytime soon. What most people don’t realize is the work scope that follows extinguishment of the fire.” This includes damage to cargo, hazardous material recovery, wastewater management and fire damage remediation.

A good example was the response to the Francis Scott Key bridge collapse. The public and stakeholders know that removing the containership Dali and reopening the port of Baltimore was managed in just 55 days. What people didn’t see was the laborious tasking of dealing with the damaged cargo and the associated regulatory hurdles.

Global Diving & Salvage

Seattle-based Global Diving & Salvage has been part of the Moran Group since 2019. Its core service lines include commercial diving, marine construction, marine casualty response, and environmental and emergency services.

Those services sprang into action when Category 5 Hurricane Lowell hit Kauai in early September. Within days of the storm, the Global team mobilized to address a vessel that had been damaged at its slip in a small boat harbor. After deploying a containment boom and confirming the vessel’s stability, divers accessed its fuel tanks and recovered 1,000 gallons of fuel, sealing all vents and fills and preventing further discharge.

Like the Francis Scott Key bridge response, there were plenty of challenges on the overlooked back end of the project. With inter-island logistics strained, demobilization took real coordination, moving equipment from Kauai to Oahu to Maui and finally back to Seattle.

The Global approach to disaster response is fast mobilization, close coordination with agencies and the flexibility to adapt mid-operation while keeping safety and environmental protection front and center

Global Vice President Aaron Harrington says “You can’t fake safety, and you can’t fake respect. Every project we take on comes down to the same thing: Work together with purpose, treat everyone on that job site the way you’d want to be treated, and commit to doing it right, every time.”

Dive instructor and retired USCG reserve officer Pat Zeitler is a regular contributor to The Maritime Executive.

The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.

‘Time for Some Accountability’: Advocate Says Democrats Must Subpoena Corporate Price-Gougers

“Haul in corporate CEOs. Put them under oath. Make them answer for the rip-offs,” said Groundwork Collaborative president Lindsay Owens after the midterm elections.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), ranking member of the US House Judiciary Committee, speaks during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on February 23, 2026.
(Photo by Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Nov 05, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

After receiving a resounding mandate to act on America’s cost-of-living crisis, Democrats are considering bringing corporate executives before Congress in January.

The Washington Sun reported Thursday that House Democrats on the Judiciary and Oversight committees are examining a 181-page dossier created by Groundwork Collaborative, a consumer advocacy group that has chronicled “price gouging” by grocery chains and retailers like Walmart.

According to the Sun, the document singles out some of “the biggest tech giants, artificial intelligence labs, natural gas firms, private prisons and nursing home operators, among dozens of others,” including for their alleged roles in driving up prices for cash-strapped Americans in recent years.



Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who is expected to take over as chair of the House Judiciary Committee in January, told the Sun that his staff had been examining potential investigations, but he remained vague about his plans.

“We’re not targeting particular corporations,” Raskin said. “We’re targeting systems and networks of corruption, and to the extent corporations are involved, they are subject to the oversight project of Congress and our subpoena authority like everyone else.”

Democrats steamrolled across the map in Tuesday’s midterms, with 48% of voters saying that the cost of living was the single most important issue motivating them, according to a pre-election survey by Reuters/Ipsos.

Lindsay Owens, Groundwork’s president and CEO, said that, to fulfill their campaign-trail promises to fight for “affordability,” Democratic lawmakers must relentlessly pursue accountability for corporate greed.

“Last night made it pretty clear: People are sick and tired of corporate America scheming its way to record profits while the rest of us get stuck with the bill,” she wrote on social media Wednesday. “Haul in corporate CEOs. Put them under oath. Make them answer for the rip-offs. Time for some accountability.”

In a Tuesday podcast appearance with Theo Von before the election, Owens said Democrats must zero in on what she has called corporate America’s “reinvention of the rip-off” over the past five years, which has involved increasingly targeted and sophisticated methods—including algorithmic price-fixing, junk fees, and subscription traps—to squeeze every possible cent out of consumers.



Rather than focusing solely on investigating President Donald Trump and his administration, Owens said Democrats also need to bring in “everyone from corporate America” and take them to task for their pricing tactics.

“Put the CEO of Walmart in the hot seat and [say], ‘Tell me what’s going on with Sparky,’” she said, referencing an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot the company launched last year. Executives have boasted during an earnings call that consumers who use the shopping assistant spend an average of 40% more per order than those who do not.

She said the CEO of DoorDash should also be called to testify over its planned “agitation index,” which would have monitored users’ scrolling speed, jerky movements, battery level, and other variables to adjust what they see on the app. The company withdrew its patent application for the technology two days after Owens testified before the US Senate, warning it could be used to hike prices on hungry customers.

The CEO of Uber, she said, should also be brought in to explain why customers have been charged dramatically different fares for the same route using algorithms that the company has said are based on what a consumer is willing to pay.

Much of what has already been documented about these practices comes from publicly available sources, such as patent filings and “the stuff they’re stupid enough to say to their investors” on earnings calls, Owens said.

But with control of House and Senate committees, she said, Democrats will have the power to force companies to “turn over their books, their algorithm... all of the stuff that they don’t want us to see.”

She said, “That will require ticking off some companies and ticking off some lobbyists and doing business a little differently than Washington has done business in the past.”

Incoming House Oversight Chair Has Two Words for ‘Trump Crime Family’ and Their Allies: ‘Lawyer Up’

“They are going to need to plant new forests for all of the subpoenas we’ll be printing,” said Sen. Ed Markey.


Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, speaks to the media as Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates testifies during a closed-door interview with the committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on June 10, 2026.
(Photo by Tom Brenner/Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Nov 04, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

After Democrats took back both chambers of the US Congress Tuesday, Rep. Robert Garcia, the incoming Democratic chair of the House Oversight Committee, had two words for President Donald Trump and his family: “Lawyer up.”

With solid majorities in the House and Senate, Democrats will have much greater power to conduct hearings, demand documents, and summon witnesses to testify under oath beginning in January.

“They are going to need to plant new forests for all of the subpoenas we’ll be printing,” said Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.).

Democrats are expected to aggressively probe the depths of what Garcia (D-Calif.) called “an unprecedented amount of corruption” by the “Trump crime family.”




Trump has added billions of dollars to his personal wealth during his second term. Garcia said Democrats plan to examine Trump’s cryptocurrency empire and whether foreign governments and businesses have used it to purchase political favors.

He said Democrats intend to investigate Donald Trump Jr.'s personal investments and his involvement with companies that have received government contracts. The business dealings of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who has been accused of using foreign diplomacy to line his own pockets, will also be investigated.

Responding to voter concerns about the cost of living, which fueled Democratic wins across the map on Tuesday, Garcia said “any CEO that has been ripping off the American public” should prepare to face scrutiny, particularly those whose companies have engaged in price gouging, abused government contracts, or financially benefited from their relationships with Trump.

Punchbowl News noted several powerful executives and officials who could be under the gun:
Expect the tech executives closest to [Trump], including SpaceX’s Elon Musk, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, to be early targets for House Oversight, [the House Energy and Commerce Committee], and [the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee]. Democrats will also want to grill OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei about their [artificial intelligence] products.

“Anyone who has been in bed with the Trumps” is going to have “no choice but to respond to our questions,” Garcia said of businesses alleged to have gotten favorable treatment due to their relationship with the president’s family.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) will also face scrutiny over its handling of the investigation into the late sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein. A report last month by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee said the DOJ “appears to be covering up” evidence of Trump’s relationship with the billionaire predator and laid out accounts involving 11 women who connect Trump to Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking operation—five of them have accused the president of sexual assault in Epstein’s presence.

Garcia said Tuesday that in contrast to the closed-door hearings conducted under Republican control, he plans to hold “real public hearings” that “center the survivors” of Epstein’s abuse.

Abuses by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will also be examined.

At least 62 people have died in ICE custody since Trump returned to office, while federal immigration agents have opened fire on people in at least 32 incidents, killing nine and injuring 15, including US citizens and immigrants who appeared to pose no threat. Agents have also been documented committing widespread civil rights violations, using excessive force, and engaging in racial profiling.

“Oversight Democrats have documented hundreds of incidents of abuse and misconduct by DHS immigration enforcement agents, and every single one of them deserves a full investigation,” Garcia said in April in a statement with Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.).

Then-US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on March 3, 2026, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Garcia has stressed that “it can’t just be the agents” who face accountability, but anyone “involved in the abuses of ICE.”

“The agents are taking direction in some cases from others, and policy is being written to encourage that level of activity and that level of elimination of due process,” he said, adding that he wants “accountability at all levels, and that starts at the top.”

Garcia signaled that top DHS officials, including former Secretary Kristi Noem and her top aide Corey Lewandowski, could face scrutiny over a $220 million taxpayer-funded advertising campaign featuring Noem and allegations that she and Lewandowski used their positions for personal gain. The DOJ was reported in October to have opened a criminal investigation into Lewandowski over whether he personally profited from his government role.

Garcia will likely oversee only a fraction of the inquiries into Trump and his allies’ conduct launched by a Democratic Congress.

Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the incoming chair of the House Armed Services Committee, is expected to dig into Trump’s decision to launch an unauthorized aggressive war against Iran, as well as its financial cost, attacks on civilians, and the administration’s shifting justifications for the now eight-month-old conflict.

He also said he would examine the legality of Trump’s unauthorized strikes on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, which have killed at least 243 people and have been described as illegal extrajudicial assassinations by human rights groups. He also called for more transparency surrounding the Trump administration’s regime change operation and commandeering of oil in Venezuela, and its crippling blockade and threats to invade Cuba.

President Donald Trump shakes hands with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth during a ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, on September 11, 2026. (Photo by Finn Gomez/Getty Images)



Smith, who has served in Congress for nearly three decades, described Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as less transparent than anyone who previously held the position.

“Since I became ranking member, I have had the cellphone number of every single secretary of defense,” he told The Washington Post earlier this week. “Hegseth does not speak to me.”

He has said, “There are Republicans who would support impeaching Hegseth who might not support doing it to Trump.”

But that doesn’t mean Trump is safe. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the incoming chair of the House Judiciary Committee, said Tuesday that he would not rule out pursuing a third impeachment of Trump, though he cautioned that Democrats would have to weigh it against their other priorities.

Raskin, who managed Trump’s historic second impeachment, called it “one of the people’s major instruments of constitutional self-defense against a president who continues to act like a king or an emperor.”

‘Impeach Trump Again’: After Midterm Blowout of GOP, Campaign Pushes New Congress to Ready Proceedings

“Those in control of the House have the power and responsibility to hold this lawless president accountable through impeachment.”

President Donald Trump points to the last piece of steel being hoisted for construction of the White House ballroom as he speaks to members of the media during an event on November 4, 2026 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Brad Reed
Nov 04, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

A campaign launched on Wednesday is urging Democrats to use their new majorities in the US House of Representatives and Senate next year to impeach and remove President Donald Trump.

In announcing its “Time to Impeach” campaign, nonprofit legal advocacy organization Free Speech For People said impeachment proceedings against the president should begin on the very first day of the next Congress.

The group noted that 147 House Democrats in September voted to advance impeachment articles against Trump filed by Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), who accused the president of abusing his powers by letting federal immigration enforcement officials run roughshod over people’s constitutional rights.

Free Speech For People also said it has already gathered more than 1.1 million signatures for its online petition to impeach the president.

“Members of Congress swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution,” said Alexandra Flores-Quilty, campaign director at Free Speech For People. “When the new Congress convenes in January, those in control of the House have the power and responsibility to hold this lawless president accountable through impeachment.”

John Bonifaz, president of Free Speech For People, said impeachment was the only acceptable remedy “to address a corrupt and dangerous executive who tramples on the Constitution and the rule of law.”

“If Congress fails to act, it will set a dangerous precedent that Trump—and any president hereafter—can operate above the law,” Bonifaz stressed. “The Constitution demands that we impeach and remove Trump from public office.”

Despite the group’s advocacy for aggressive action, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) signaled that he is not in any rush to begin impeachment proceedings.

“I haven’t had a single member of the House Democratic caucus talk to me about impeachment,” Jeffries told reporters on Wednesday. “We’ve been relentlessly focused on affordability and accountability. Because the House is a separate and coequal branch of government... and the days of the House of Representatives functioning like a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump administration are over.”



Jeffries emphasized this means that Congress under his leadership will “serve as a check and balance on an out-of-control executive branch.”

In an interview with the Baltimore Banner published Wednesday, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who is in line to take over as chair of the House Judiciary Committee next year, would not take a third impeachment of the president off the table.

“We’re not afraid to impeach Donald Trump,” said the Maryland Democrat. “We’ve done it twice. He has 50% of all the presidential impeachments in American history.”

Raskin also addressed critics who said that impeaching Trump a third time should be off the table given there is little chance of him being convicted in the US Senate.

“[Impeachment] cannot be a fetish, but it also can’t be a taboo either,” Raskin said. “It is one of the people’s major instruments of constitutional self-defense against a president who continues to act like a king or an emperor.”

 

Research news from the Ecological Society of America’s journals

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Research published in Ecosphere shows that people and climate together influence when, where and how much land burns across India’s wildlife reserves.

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Credit: Narendran Kodandapani

The Ecological Society of America (ESA) presents a roundup of five research articles recently published across its esteemed journals. Widely recognized for fostering innovation and advancing ecological knowledge, ESA’s journals consistently feature illuminating and impactful studies. This compilation of papers explores what island snails can teach us about biodiversity, why winter recreation may be stressing wildlife in the Alps, how people and climate jointly drive wildfire patterns in India, how communities are restoring neglected urban forests, and whether ecological experiments conducted in a single bog can accurately predict ecosystem change across thousands of miles.

 

From Ecological Monographs:

At a snail’s pace, cracking island biodiversity
Author contact: Konstantinos Proios (konproios@biol.uoa.gr)

What determines how many species can thrive on an island? To help answer one of biogeography's oldest questions, researchers analyzed data from 727 islands worldwide to examine how 14 factors, from island size and climate to isolation and human presence, shape the diversity of land snails. Land snails were chosen because they are among the most diverse and highly endemic island animals, making them especially useful for studying how biodiversity arises and is maintained. Including such a wide range of variables greatly improved the analysis, collectively explaining up to 84% of the differences in endemic snail diversity among islands, far more than traditional approaches based mainly on island area or energy availability. The study also found that different groups of snails respond to island conditions in different ways: species found only on one island or island group were strongly shaped by factors such as area, isolation, climate, and habitat diversity, whereas native species that also occur elsewhere appeared to be influenced more by broader regional species pools and colonization processes. Overall, the results show that the same major forces known to shape island plants and vertebrates also govern the diversity of land snails, helping extend long-standing theories of island biogeography to the invertebrates that make up most of Earth's animal species.

Read the article: A global analysis of land snail diversity on islands

From Ecological Applications:

Black grouse are poor sports in winter
Author contact: Luca Nelli (luca.nelli@glasgow.ac.uk)

While zooming downhill on skis may be thrilling for humans, it may not be so enjoyable for local wildlife. To better understand how winter recreation affects mountain animals, researchers focused on black grouse, a bird that is highly sensitive to human disturbance and is already declining across much of Europe. Analysis of 235 black grouse poop samples, collected from the birds’ snow burrows in Italy's Gran Paradiso National Park, revealed elevated levels of stress hormones when large numbers of skiers were present on nearby slopes. Chronic stress, combined with the grouses’ energetic costs of fleeing high-traffic areas, threaten the survival of a species already challenged by climate change, habitat loss and other human pressures. Based on their findings, the researchers developed an interactive web app that maps predicted grouse stress under different skiing and environmental scenarios, giving scientists and ski resort managers a practical tool for identifying disturbance hotspots and exploring ways to minimize impacts on local populations. The study is a further reminder that even seemingly peaceful winter recreation can leave a measurable mark on wildlife.

Read the article: Skiers’ footprint on wildlife stress: Tracing the impact of winter sports on black grouse with interactive mapping

From Ecosphere:

People and climate shape India’s fire patterns
Author contact: Narendran Kodandapani (svknaren@gmail.com)    

Wildfire has been studied extensively in Africa, the Americas and elsewhere, yet surprisingly little is known about prevailing fire patterns in India. To address this gap, researchers used satellite data to examine fire occurrence in 13 Indian wildlife reserves since 2002, and to assess the relationship between humans and wildfire in the world’s most populous country. The research team found that both environmental conditions and people play important roles: hot, dry weather can make vegetation more prone to burning, while human activities such as land use, resource extraction, fire management and population growth can either increase or reduce fire activity depending on the local context. Across the reserves studied, climate and human factors accounted for between 21% and 77% of annual fire activity. Fire patterns varied greatly by region, with the Eastern Ghats featuring both the highest fire activity and fastest rate of annual increase, while fire activity declined in the Western Ghats. The findings underscore that there is no single explanation, or single solution, for wildfire across India. Instead, effective management will require approaches tailored to local ecological conditions and human influences, helping safeguard forests, savannas, wildlife and nearby communities as climates and landscapes continue to change.

Read the article: Changing fire regimes in wildlife reserves of southern India: Trends, drivers, and conservation challenges

From Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment:

It takes a village to maintain urban forests
Author contact: Nancy F. Sonti (nancy.f.sonti@usda.gov)  

Small patches of forest in cities benefit biodiversity but also enhance human well-being, underscoring their value to urban wildlife and human residents alike. The authors of this study propose that management of urban woodlands is best accomplished through partnerships among concerned parties, including scientists, land managers, city officials and local communities. They present the example of Stillmeadow PeacePark, a 10-acre forest on church-owned land in Baltimore, Maryland, where partners joined forces to tackle a suite of challenges that included invasive plants, overabundant deer, widespread tree mortality caused by invasive insects, repeated neighborhood flooding and the social disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic. Rather than relying on outside experts alone, community members, researchers, government agencies and nonprofit organizations collaborated to create an “urban experimental forest,” removing hazardous dead trees, establishing tree nurseries and research plots, restoring native forest habitat and creating outdoor spaces for recreation, education and community gathering. The project also supported job-readiness and workforce-training programs that introduced local residents to careers in forestry and environmental restoration. Just as importantly, community-driven stewardship of urban forests can help ensure that historically underserved residents, communities and neighborhoods have a meaningful role in protecting urban biodiversity and shaping broader conservation efforts.

Read the article: Co-producing urban silviculture: a stone soup approach to transdisciplinary science

From Ecology:

Making a pitch for small-scale experiments   
Author contact: Lindsey A. Pett (lpett@norwich.edu)

Can ecologists trust what happens in a single experiment to reflect what happens across an entire continent? Researchers tackled this long-standing question by testing whether the effects of supplemental nutrients measured in a small, localized experiment match patterns seen across thousands of kilometers of real-world habitats. Using the self-contained aquatic ecosystem that forms inside the leaves of purple pitcher plants, they added realistic amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus to plants in a Vermont bog and measured changes in nutrients, microbes, algae and other organisms living within the pitchers. The team then compared those results with surveys of pitcher plants at 28 sites stretching from Maine to Florida. Despite the vast difference in geographic scale, the two approaches produced remarkably similar results: more than 80% of the ecological relationships observed in the experiment also appeared across the regional survey. In both cases, nutrient enrichment, especially phosphorus, increased nutrient levels in pitcher fluid and plant tissues and boosted plant growth. Although a few responses differed between the local and regional analyses, particularly among organisms higher in the food web, the overall agreement suggests that carefully designed small-scale experiments can reliably predict many ecosystem responses to nutrient deposition across broad landscapes.

Read the article: Experiment and natural variation in N and P inputs elucidate complexity in freshwater ecosystems

 

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