Markets for forest products respond to technology

New Southern Forest Outlook report now available

USDA Forest Service ‑ Southern Research Station

Asheville, NC — Technology is changing every facet of the forest products market. That may mean fewer jobs in the future as the industry shifts to labor-saving technology, with the steepest declines in the pulp and paper sector, according to a new report released by the USDA Forest Service’s Southern Research Station and Southern Region, as well as the Southern Group of State Foresters.

“From how trees are cut, to how they are processed at sawmills, and every step in between, technology is changing the industry,” said Forest Service scientist Jeff Prestemon who specializes in forest economics. “Researchers are partnering with the forest products industry to find ways to recycle and use materials that typically would be discarded as waste.”

Prestemon co-authored the report – Markets in the Southern Forest Outlook – with economist Jinggang Guo from Louisiana State University.

The new report analyzes six scenarios for the future and how each might impact the forest products markets in the South. The analysis considers how changes in income, population, climate, technology, and trade openness could affect markets.

The report also found:

• The South is projected to continue to be a net exporter of forest products.
• Prices of industrial roundwood are projected to rise, reversing recent downward trends.
• If mass timber were more widely used, the southern softwood market would strengthen.
• Additional trade barriers would enhance softwood exports and reduce hardwood exports.
• Most scenarios project a growth in wood pellet production in the South.

The report is part of a regional assessment, known as the Southern Forest Outlook. Its goal is to inform forest sector decision makers and the interested public about observed trends, anticipated futures, and critical issues based on authoritative synthesis and interpretation of existing science, data, and projections. This is the first of four reports that will be released in the coming months. A report on water is expected next month.

For decades, Forest Service scientists have conducted region-wide assessments of natural resources in the South. In fact, results from past assessments were used to develop research priorities for the Southern Research Station, including fire, water, markets, and restoration. The Southern Research Station and the Forest Service’s Southern Region work closely with the Southern Group of State Foresters, and the results of the markets report are organized by state.

The Southern Forest Outlook relies on the same core scenarios as the 2020 Resources Planning Act Assessment, which in turn relies on climate projections developed by the 2014 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The four main scenarios vary along two axes: high, moderate, or low amounts of economic growth and warming. The research team modified two scenarios to explore how markets would be affected if mass timber became more widely used in construction and if existing forest product trade restrictions were tightened.

“Wood is actually a new trend in sustainable building,” said Prestemon. “Mass timber, as it’s called, is produced to be strong enough to replace concrete or steel. If mass timber continues to catch on, then the South’s softwood market would grow.”

In all scenarios, the number of jobs across forest product sector is projected to decline. The steepest declines are projected for the paper manufacturing sector, due to labor-saving technologies and reduced demand for newsprint and printing and writing paper. The pulp and paper sector also includes packaging and sanitary papers, which is closely related to economic growth and are generally not projected to decline, and wood pellets. Wood pellet production is projected to rise across all southern states except in the scenario that combines high warming and low economic growth. The chapter also includes a section on the market effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The new report builds on the Southern Forest Futures Project, which was completed in 2012. Since then, the southern forest products sector has experienced significant changes including rising timber inventory, declining softwood timber prices, increased barriers to international trade, and continued contraction of the forest sector workforce despite growth in production.

Read the report. 

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About Us 

The Southern Research Station, headquartered in Asheville, N.C., is comprised of more than 100 scientists who conduct natural resources research in 20 locations across 13 Southern states, from Virginia to Texas. The station’s mission is to create the science and technology needed to sustain and enhance southern forest ecosystems and the benefits they provide. Learn more about the Station.

The Forest Service’s Southern Region oversees 14 national forests and two special units in 13 states and Puerto Rico, working with states and private landowners to sustain the health, diversity and productivity of forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations. Learn more about the Southern Region.

The Southern Group of State Foresters represents state forestry agencies within the 13 Southeastern U.S., and the U.S. territories of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Its members collectively provide leadership, coordination, expertise and resources to sustain the economic, environmental, health and societal benefits of Southern forests. Learn more about the Southern Group of State Foresters.

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DOI

10.2737/SRS-GTR-275 

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Markets: An Analysis to Support the Southern Forest Outlook

Article Publication Date

14-Nov-2024

The monkeys that science has experimented on for over a century

Daniel Bellamy
Sun, November 10, 2024 

EURONEWS 


The rhesus macaque monkeys that managed to escape lab this week are among the most studied animals on the planet.

So far just one of the 43 that were bred for medical research - and that escaped from the lab - has been recovered unharmed, officials said on Saturday.

Many of the others are still located a few yards from away, jumping back and forth over the facility’s fence, police said in a statement.

An employee at the Alpha Genesis facility in Yemassee hadn't fully locked a door as she fed and checked on them, officials said.

For more than a century, they have held a mirror to humanity, revealing our strengths and weaknesses through their own clever behaviours, organ systems and genetic code.

The bare-faced primates with expressive eyes have been launched on rockets into space. Their genome has been mapped. They have even been stars of a reality TV show.

Animal rights groups point out that the species has been subjected to studies on vaccines, organ transplants and the impact of separating infants from mothers. At the same time, many in the scientific community will tell you just how vital their research is to fighting AIDS, polio and COVID-19.

FILE - In this May 13, 2019, photo, a mirror is held up to Izzle, a rhesus macaque, at Primates Inc., in Westfield, Wis. - Carrie Antlfinger/Copyright 2019 The AP. All rights reserved

In 2003, a nationwide shortage of rhesus macaques threatened to slow down studies and scientists were paying up to 9,000 euros per animal to continue their work.

“Every large research university in the United States probably has some rhesus macaques hidden somewhere in the basement of its medical school,” according to the 2007 book, “Macachiavellian Intelligence: How Rhesus Macaques and Humans Have Conquered the World."

“The U.S. Army and NASA have rhesus macaques too,” wrote the book's author, Dario Maestripieri, a behavioural scientist at the University of Chicago, “and for years they trained them to play computer video games to see whether the monkeys could learn to pilot planes and launch missiles.”

Research begins in the 1890s

Humans have been using the rhesus macaque for scientific research since the late 1800s when the theory of evolution gained more acceptance, according to a 2022 research paper by the journal eLife.

The first study on the species was published in 1893 and described the “anatomy of advanced pregnancy," according to the eLife paper. By 1925, the Carnegie Science Institute had set up a breeding population of the monkeys to study embryology and fertility in a species that was similar to humans.

One reason for the animal's popularity was its abundance. These monkeys have the largest natural range of any non-human primate, stretching from Afghanistan and India to Vietnam and China.

“The other reason is because rhesus macaques, as primates go, are a pretty hardy species,” said Eve Cooper, the eLife research paper's lead author and a biology professor at the University of Colorado-Boulder. “They can live under conditions and they can be bred under conditions that are relatively easy to maintain.”
NASA rockets and the Salk polio vaccine

In the 1950s, the monkey's kidneys were used to make the Salk polio vaccine. NASA also used the animals during the space race, according to a brief history of animals in space on the agency's website.

For example, a rhesus monkey named “Miss Sam” was launched in 1960 in a Mercury capsule that attained a velocity of 1,900 kph and an altitude of 14.5 kilometres . She was retrieved in overall good condition.

“She was also returned to her training colony until her death on an unknown date,” NASA wrote.

Mapping the human genome

In 2007, scientists unravelled the DNA of the rhesus macaque. The species shared about 93% of its DNA with humans, even though macaques branched off from the ape family about 25 million years ago.

In comparison, humans and chimpanzees have evolved separately since splitting from a common ancestor about six million years ago, but still have almost 99% of their gene sequences in common.

The mapping of the human genome in 2001 sparked an explosion of work to similarly decipher the DNA of other animals. The rhesus macaque was the third primate genome to be completed,

‘They’re very political'

For those who have studied the behaviour of rhesus macaques, the research is just as interesting.

“They share some striking similarities to ourselves in terms of their social intelligence,” said Maestripieri, the University of Chicago professor who wrote a book on the species.

For example, the animals are very family oriented, siding with relatives when fights break out, he told The Associated Press on Friday. But they also recruit allies when they're attacked.

“They're very political,” Maestripieri said. “Most of their daily lives are spent building political alliances with each other. Does that sound familiar?"

Maestripieri was a consultant for a reality show about some rhesus macaques in India called “Monkey Thieves.”

“They basically started following large groups of these rhesus macaques and naming them,” the professor said. “It was beautifully done because these monkeys essentially act like people occasionally. So it’s fascinating to follow their stories.”

43 lab monkeys escaped in South Carolina. They have a legal claim to freedom.

Who owns the escaped monkeys now? It’s more complicated than you might think.


by Angela Fernandez and Justin Marceau

Nov 11, 2024

VOX

Monkeys at the Alpha Genesis research facility in Yemassee, South Carolina. Anadolu via Getty Images

Last week, 43 monkeys, all of them young female rhesus macaques, escaped from the Alpha Genesis research laboratory in Yemassee, South Carolina, when an employee failed to properly secure the door to their enclosure.


It wasn’t the first time something like this happened at Alpha Genesis, a company that breeds and uses thousands of monkeys for biomedical testing and supplies nonhuman primate products and bio-research services to researchers worldwide. In 2018, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) fined the facility $12,600 in part for other incidents in which monkeys had escaped. “We’re not strangers to seeing monkeys randomly,” a nearby resident and member of the Yemassee town council told the New York Times.


Alpha Genesis is now working to recapture the macaques, who are each about the size of a cat; over the weekend, 25 of them were recovered. Meanwhile, the animal protection group Stop Animal Exploitation Now, which for years has filed federal complaints against the facility, has called on the USDA to prosecute Alpha Genesis as a repeat violator of its duty to keep the animals secure.


“The recovery process is slow, but the team is committed to taking as much time as necessary to safely recover all remaining animals,” a Facebook post from the Yemassee Police Department said, attributing the comment to Alpha Genesis CEO Greg Westergaard.


In one way, this is a story about what looks like a corporate failure. But there is another way to understand this situation, both legally and morally. What if these intrepid macaques, who the lab has said pose no threat to the public and carry no infectious diseases, have a legal claim to freedom?


The legal status of wild animals is more contested and malleable than ever, evident in the recent court case arguing that Happy, an elephant living at the Bronx Zoo, was a legal person entitled to freedom, the phasing out of animal use at entertainment venues like circuses, and the end of US lab experimentation on chimpanzees. While Alpha Genesis may have a strong financial incentive to recapture the escaped monkeys, longstanding legal doctrines suggest that the 18 monkeys still at large may not belong to the company as long as they remain free and outside of its custody. State officials, or perhaps even members of the public, might even be legally protected in rescuing these monkeys from a fate of cage confinement and invasive experimentation and bringing them to a sanctuary. Such an outcome would matter not just for these monkeys but also for the rights of captive animals more broadly.

When a captive animal becomes free


For many people, the idea of a lost animal becoming the property of another person might seem absurd. Certainly, no one would imagine forfeiting the companionship of a beloved dog or cat because the animal got out of the yard and was found by someone else. Neither law nor morality treats the escape of a domesticated animal as tantamount to a forfeiture of all claims to the animal.


But when it comes to wild animals, the law is different.


When a captive wild animal escapes, their captor generally remains liable for any damage the escaped animal creates to persons or property, but they may lose ownership of the animal, especially if the creature integrates into an existing wild population (sometimes called “reverting to the common stock”). That might sound unlikely for rhesus macaques in the US — the species is native to South and Southeast Asia and has been exported around the world for lab testing. But it turns out that it’s perfectly possible to live as a free-roaming rhesus macaque in South Carolina, where a more than four-decade-old population of the monkeys resides on the state’s Morgan Island, also known as “Monkey Island.”


Originally relocated from Puerto Rico between 1979 and 1980, the Morgan Island macaques now serve as a kind of reservoir of lab monkeys for the US government. Last year, Alpha Genesis won a federal contract to oversee the monkey colony there — in fact, the 43 escaped macaques had originally lived as “free-range” monkeys on the island before they were taken to be used for testing and research purposes, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told CBS News in a statement. While these monkeys may not be able to rejoin the Morgan Island colony on their own, the fact that they came from a wild population strengthens the view of them as animals who not only can live in the wild but who deserve to be free.

Rhesus macaques on Morgan Island. The State/Getty Images

A macaque sits in a cage in a University of Muenster laboratory in Muenster, Germany, on November 24, 2017. Friso Gentsch/picture alliance via Getty Images


Our modern understanding of animals’ legal status derives from 19th-century American common law cases, which adopted the classical Roman legal approach to wild animals, or ferae naturae. Under that system, wild animals were a special type of property known as “fugitive” property because they could move freely and weren’t owned by anyone before being captured by a human. This created unique legal challenges — for example, conflicts between two hunters claiming the same animal — that can help us understand the case of the escaped monkeys.


The 1805 New York Supreme Court case Pierson v. Post, sometimes considered the most famous property case in American law (and about which one of us has written a book), is the starting point for understanding who legally owns a wild animal. In a dispute between two hunters, one who had been in hot pursuit of a fox and one who swooped in to kill the animal, the case held that the property interest of the latter was stronger. The court made clear that a definitive capture, and not pursuit alone, was necessary to establish and retain ownership of a wild animal.


In 1898, another New York case, Mullett v. Bradley, went further by recognizing that capture alone is not sufficient to claim ownership of a wild animal if the animal is able to escape and regain their liberty. The court found that a sea lion who had been brought by rail from the Pacific Ocean to the East Coast and later escaped from an enclosure in Long Island Sound was legally free until he was captured by a different person two weeks later. Cases like these gave rise to a doctrine that legal scholars now call “the law of capture,” which holds that if a captive wild animal escapes and control over them is lost, they no longer necessarily belong to the party who had previously captured them.


This line of legal reasoning generally works to the detriment of animals, ensuring that each generation of law students learns that animals are ours to possess and use for our own ends. But in the case of the escaped South Carolina monkeys, the law of capture raises doubt about whether the lab retains ownership of the animals unless and until it recaptures them.


A more recent Canadian case suggests that the law of capture may indeed offer a path to rescue for escaped animals like the South Carolina lab monkeys. In 2012, Darwin, a Japanese snow macaque, became a worldwide media sensation when he was found roaming through an Ontario Ikea store wearing a shearling coat and a diaper. While Darwin had been kept as a pet, a Canadian court ruled that he was a wild animal, and his owner lost her rights to him after he escaped from her car. Toronto Animal Services captured Darwin inside the store and transferred him to a primate sanctuary, where he could live among other macaques.


Still, one could argue that the escaped lab monkeys in South Carolina are effectively domestic animals who belong to their owner. Alpha Genesis has put resources into housing and raising them, including managing the monkey population on Morgan Island. But unlike pets who have been domesticated over many generations to live safely among humans, these rhesus macaques retain their wild instincts — they’ve been described as skittish, and food is being used to lure them into traps.


If the monkeys were to return on their own, like a house cat coming home after a day of adventure, the legal case for viewing them as domestic animals would be stronger because wild animals, once they stray, must have no animus revertendi, or intention to return. So long as these monkeys express their desire to remain free by evading capture, they should be considered wild animals. A 1917 Ontario court case, Campbell v. Hedley, involving a fox who had escaped a fur farm, established a similar principle, finding that the animal remained wild and thereby became free after fleeing the farm because they belonged to a species that “require[d] the exercise of art, force, or skill to keep them in subjection.”


There are, to be sure, cases in which common law courts have found losing control of an animal does not result in a loss of ownership. A 1927 Colorado case, Stephens v. Albers, held that a semi-domesticated silver fox who escaped from a fur farm still remained the property of that owner. And questions about the ownership of wild animals are infinitely debatable, as any good student of Pierson v. Post will tell you.


While these past cases offer important insight into the treatment of wild animals under common law, none of them took place in South Carolina, so courts in that state could consider them for guidance but wouldn’t be required to follow them when deciding who owns the escaped Alpha Genesis monkeys (and nothing in this piece should be construed as legal advice).

The moral meaning of animal escapes


Yet the law of capture aside, the plight of these monkeys is also interesting to us as legal scholars because it highlights one of many disconnects between the law and our moral intuitions about animals who have escaped and who are seeking or being afforded sanctuary. As journalist Tove Danovich has written, there is often great public sympathy and compassion for animals who escape painful confinement or slaughter at zoos, factory farms, or research labs — even among people who might otherwise tolerate the very systems that normalize those animals’ suffering. The public’s outrage when a single cow who escapes slaughter is gunned down by authorities is palpable and crosses ideological lines.


There is something enchanting and powerful, even romantic, about the idea of an animal escape, especially if it results in the animal’s rescue from confinement. Yet the law generally fails to recognize the moral tug that these escapes place on our collective conscience.


In a recent high-profile case in upstate New York, two cows wandered onto an animal sanctuary after escaping from a neighboring ranch. Unlike the South Carolina monkeys, these were straightforwardly domesticated animals, and the response from local law enforcement was harsh.


The sanctuary owner, Tracy Murphy, was arrested, shackled, and faced criminal liability for taking the cows in and refusing to immediately turn them over for slaughter (one of us, Justin, was defense counsel for Murphy, whose case was dismissed last month after a two-year legal battle). Her aid to two escaped cows was widely vilified by her neighbors and by local law enforcement because our legal system continues to treat many animals as property without any recognized rights or interests of their own.


The law is unlikely to swiftly abandon the archaic notion of human ownership over nonhuman animals. But we believe the law does implicitly recognize a right to rescue escaped animals, at least those who are lucky enough to make it on their own steam. We hope that the case of the escaped South Carolina monkeys will inspire conversations about the right of at least some animals to liberate themselves from exploitation and harm at human hands. Escapes are rare, but when they happen against all odds, we might ask ourselves, on both legal and moral grounds, whether the animals have a claim to freedom.

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4 years after the giant Arecibo Observatory collapsed, we finally know what happened

By Conor Feehly 

SPACE.COM

A Zinc decay was to blame for cable failures at the Arecibo Observatory, which held the title of "world's largest radio telescope.

Image credit: Ricardo Arduengo/AFP via Getty Images

What does the discovery of a binary pulsar in 1974, the discovery of the first exoplanets, and the most powerful message humans have ever sent out into space all have in common? They all happened at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.


With a spherical reflector dish that was 305 meters (roughly 1000 feet) in diameter, Arecibo held the title of world's largest radio telescope for over half a century — from its construction in 1963 until 2016. To the dismay of astronomers around the world, in 2020, Arecibo's reflector dish collapsed when support cables gave way, leading to the eventual decommissioning of one of science's most fruitful instruments.

Not long after the decommissioning, the National Science Foundation and the University of Central Florida began an investigation into the primary causes of the collapse — and after nearly four years of investigation, the Committee tasked with finding an explanation have finally released an official report detailing its findings.

In the report, the Committee writes:
You may likeThe Arecibo Observatory radio telescope in Puerto Rico has collapsed
Terrifying footage shows collapse of Arecibo Observatory's massive radio telescope

"After analyzing the data and the extensive and detailed forensic investigations commissioned by the University of Central Florida and the National Science Foundation (NSF), the committee consensus is that the root cause of the Arecibo Telescope's collapse was unprecedented and accelerated long-term zinc creep induced failure of the telescope's cable spelter sockets."

The reports details how structural failure of the telescope likely began in 2017 when Hurricane Maria hit the Observatory which "subjected the Arecibo Telescope to winds between 105 and 118 mph … the winds of Hurricane Maria subjected the Arecibo Telescope's cables to the highest structural stress they had ever endured since it opened in 1963."

According to the report, inspections were conducted after the hurricane, but no significant damage was deemed to have jeopardized the telescope's structural integrity. Still, repairs were still ordered — yet these repairs were delayed for years. And, as the investigation states, they were targeted "toward components and replacement of a main cable that ultimately never failed," which suggests the repairs would not have prevented the eventual collapse of the Observatory's reflector dish even if they weren't delayed.

Eventually, in August and September of 2020, an auxiliary and main cable failed, leading the NSF to announce the decommissioning of the telescope through a controlled demolition. More support cables gave way on Dec. 1, 2020, causing the instrument platform to collapse into the dish itself. Thankfully, no one was injured by the cable failures.

The report continued to detail how hidden outer wire failures triggered the collapse, which had fractured due to shear stress from zinc creep (or zinc decay) in the telescope's cable spelter sockets. Unfortunately, this issue was not identified during the post-Maria inspection, which meant engineers hadn't considered the degradation of these mechanisms as a source of a potential future collapse.

Despite Arecibo's discovery days being over, the observatory will be remade into a education center known as Arecibo C3. Hopefully, the decommissioned observatory can inspire the next generation of astronomers to make discoveries as impactful as those made at Arecibo during its days peering out into the universe.

Puerto Rico Elections Show Upswing of Popular and Independence Movements 

W. T. Whitney

 November 8, 2024
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Photo by Daniel Reyes

The special significance of elections taking place in Puerto Rico on November 5 was evident beforehand. A commentator detected from opinion polls that, “This election already is historic. It already marks a before and an after.”

For the first time ever, a gubernatorial candidate of the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) was successfully challenging the candidates of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party (PNP) and the pro-commonwealth Popular Democratic Party (PPD). The two parties have ruled the roost in Puerto Rico for decades.

As of November 6, with 91 precincts having reported, PNP candidate Jenniffer González was leading with 39% of the votes. Juan Dalmau, the PIP candidate for governor, had gained 33% and PPD candidate Jesús Manuel Ortiz only 21%. Conservative candidate Javier Jiménez of Project Dignity obtained 7% of the vote.

Preliminary results of voting for the resident commissioner show the PPD candidate with 44.4% of the vote followed by 35.7% for the PNP candidate and 9. 5% for Ana Irma Rivera Lassén of the MVC. The resident commissioner is Puerto Rico’s sole member of the U.S. Congress. He or she has no authority to vote on legislation.

The results of past voting for governor show a trend. Candidates of the PNP and PPD parties together shared 95% of the vote in 2012, 81% in 2016, and 65% in 2020. “These politicalparties have basically collapsed over the past ten years,” says Rafael Bernabe, gubernatorial candidate the Working People’s Party in 2012 and 2016.

The PIP has broadened its appeal.  Its candidates for governor moved from 2.5% of the vote in 2012 to 2.1% in 2016, and up to 13.5% in 2020.  That party is heir to a legacy of serious U.S. repression from police and the FBI directed at both the PIP and former Nationalist Party.

The improved electoral showing this of the PIP is due mainly to a creative work-around of the U.S. government’s prohibition of coalitions being utilized in Puerto Rican elections. By late 2023, the PIP and the Citizens’ Victory Movement (MVC) had joined in an alliance called the Country’s Alliance (Alianza de País).

The two parties created an arrangement whereby each partner would put forth its own candidate for all offices being contested, including governor and resident commissioner. The stipulation was that only one of the two candidates for each office is actually seeking votes. The other does not do so and has no intention of serving in office.

For example, PIP candidate[WW1]  for governor Juan Dalmau received votes from MCV backers and they did not vote for the MCV candidate. Likewise, Ana Irma Rivera Lassén, the MCV candidate for resident commissioner (and general coordinator of the MVC) would gain PIP votes for her candidacy and none from her own party.

The MVC, formed in 2019 and joined by the Working People’s Party and the Hostosian National Independence Movement, claims in its Party program an “Urgent Agenda … [dealing with] the rescue of public institutions; social, environmental and economic reconstruction, and decolonization of Puerto Rico.”

The MVC, whose candidate for governor in 2020 took 14 % of the vote, proposes reforms addressing a wide range of social problems and relief of class and identity-based oppression. Its program emphasizes the importance of competence, efficiency, and freedom from U.S. interference in achieving these gains. The PIP, founded in 1946, has long advanced Puerto Rico’s struggle for national sovereignty while also pushing o for social reforms.  The two parties are as one in fighting the corruption that they say permeates the PNP and PDR alike.

The PIP and MVC are each seeking a “constitutional assembly on status.” As described byRafael Bernabe, the delegates to such an assembly would study, debate, and decide on future relations with the United States. The options would be independence, statehood, or commonwealth. The U.S. government characterizes the latter as “free association.” It represents the status quo. Bernabe insists that, “the process of self-determination … should start with us.”

Any political change on the way now in Puerto Rico is responding to a step-wise process that led to disaster. The downhill course began with the U.S. government in the 1990s having withdrawn tax incentives aimed at stimulating new industry. Businesses and factories disappeared; income from taxation decreased and so too much of the government’s social programming. Public borrowing spiked to replace the lost income. The accumulated debt was unpayable

In 2016 the federal government created its Financial Oversight and Management Board in order to deliver austerity and privatization to the island’s economy. Public expenditure for human needs was put on a short leash. Grief multiplied, and more so with the ravages of Hurricane Maria in 2017. The newly privatized electrical generation system has never fully recovered.

A recent New York Times report describes an island in “ruins,” specifically with “[s]huttered schools, crumbling roads, a university gutted by budget cuts, a collapsing health system and relentless blackouts.”

This report concludes with commentary from analyst Jenaro Abraham, taken from NACLA.org: “As the naked interests of U.S. imperialism have become more evident, the conditions for political unity were forged … [The Alianza] is the product of the experiences anti-colonial movements have long endured under the brunt of U.S. imperialism…. [They have] compelled the PIP and the MVC to partake in a shared strategy that places … differences aside in service of a more immediate shared goal: uprooting the bipartisan pro-colonial stranglehold over Puerto Rico’s government.”

W.T. Whitney Jr. is a retired pediatrician and political journalist living in Maine.