Protecting South Carolina marshes means protecting Native American way of life



Sandy Edge
Mon, November 29, 2021

We have always harvested the marsh.

The Chicora of the Catawba once traversed the coast from Cape Fear, North Carolina to Savannah, Georgia, but, as the land became colonized we slowly retreated into the sacred heart of our territory, what is now Little River Neck, South Carolina.

With our people condensed to one small spot, we needed a system for survival.

So we kept the marsh like we would a garden. The marsh was divided into plots and we became the gardeners – harvesting and reseeding the saltmarsh.

This maintenance both kept the marsh healthy and provided us with food.

Until the mid-1980s, our tribe maintained these plots.

Each day we’d shuck oysters into five-quart jars and leave their shells in the marsh for new oysters to grow on. We didn’t eat the oysters ourselves, but people were crazy for them and we’d sell the oysters to them.

Us?

We were after the fish.

Mullet, spot, flounder - those were our delicacies. We’d plant fish traps near our oyster gardens or spearfish in the crystal clear water the oysters produced.

Our target size was the size of our hand, never too big, never too small.

Then, after a long day, we would split our catch among our community and sell the excess at the fish market. Those days would end around the stew pot with the smell of mullet in the air.

The next day we would wake up and work those plots again, every day, until we were too old. Then, we’d pass it to the next member of our tribe. The responsibility of stewardship and the bounty it produced was now theirs.

But we’ve been cut off from our marshes.

As people decided they wanted our land, we found we didn’t have the proof of ownership they wanted.

First were told our land was already owned under King’s Grant.

Then that land was sold and developed and we lost access. The plots that were handed down and cared for over generations were taken from us. Now they’re bisected by lawns, golf courses, and roads.

Not only has the marsh lost our stewardship, but the weather is changing. I’ve watched the rains grow heavier and more frequent in my lifetime. The water floods the manicured lawns that were once marsh and maritime forest. The rain falls onto roads and concrete and rushes into the marsh. All of this run-off, laden with fertilizer and pollution, chokes the once clear waters of our home.

The fish that were once plentiful and fed our families are scarce. Today, people catch them too small or too big, and they catch too many. Our way maintained those fish. Now those resources are depleted.

The Chicora way of life has disappeared with these resources.

If we want to eat fish, a staple of our diet, we must now buy fish from the market. The same market we used to sell fish to. I’d love to pass our traditions to my children, but the opportunity is slipping away.

We have to protect our marshes and the resources they provide.

We need to protect access to these resources as well. It’s more than a question of protecting the natural systems that protect our communities.

For me and my tribe, it’s a question of survival.

These marshes fed us and sustained our culture.

To be cut off from these marshes means to be cut off from the soul of the Chicora people.

Sandy Edge lives in Little River Neck and is a member of the Chicora family of the Catawba People

Lummi Nation declares disaster as tens of thousands of invasive European green crab found


Natasha Brennan
Mon, November 29, 2021, 6:00 AM·3 min read

The Lummi Indian Business Council has passed a resolution declaring a disaster after more than 70,000 European green crab — an invasive species — were captured and removed from the Lummi Sea Pond in recent months.

The Tribe cultivates shellfish and juvenile salmon in the 750-acre sea pond surrounded by the most productive natural shellfish beds on the reservation. The crabs threatens hatchery operations, Tribal shellfish harvests and may have larger impacts if the infestation spreads.

“The appearance of the European green crab is a serious threat to our treaty fishing rights,” Lummi Nation Chairman William Jones Jr. said in a press release.

The council passed the resolution Tuesday, Nov. 23, following a multi-agency effort led by the Lummi Natural Resources Department to remove the aggressive predator that consumes shellfish, destroys salmon habitat and is credited with the rapid decline of Maine’s soft-shell clam industry within the past decade.

The resolution establishes a task force that will confront the crisis with a comprehensive response strategy.

“Warming water temperatures due to climate change have only made things worse,” Jones said. “Unless action is taken to contain and reduce the problem, we will see this invasive species spread further into Lummi Bay and neighboring areas of the Salish Sea.”

The crab — native to Europe and northern Africa — is a highly adaptable shore crab that preys on juvenile clams before they reach harvestable age, out-competes native crab species, such as Dungeness crab, and wreaks havoc on nearshore marine and estuary ecosystems.

It is also known to burrow into marsh banks and uproot eelgrass beds, an important nursery habitat for juvenile salmon.

Given the devastating ecological impacts of the crab, the Washington Sea Grant’s Crab Team coordinated a region-wide early detection effort in partnership with the state, Tribes and volunteers in 2015.

Despite its name, the European green crabs distinguishing feature is not its color, but the five spines to the outside of the eye on the shell. Lummi Indian Business Council passed a resolution Tuesday, Nov. 23, declaring a disaster after more than 70,000 invasive European green crab were removed from Lummi Sea Pond.

Remains of one crab were found in Squalicum Harbor in May 2019 — the first confirmation of the “global invader” in Whatcom County. Later that year, the crabs were found on Lummi Nation beaches and in the Tribe’s aquaculture pond near the fish and shellfish hatchery.

In September 2020, traps caught nearly 1,000 crabs in the Lummi Sea Pond alone.

Before then, the largest numbers of the crab were found near the Makah Reservation located on the tip of the Olympic Peninsula in Clallam County.

This past June, four were found in Squalicum Harbor, marking the first time that live crabs had been discovered in the harbor in Bellingham.

Now, tens of thousands have invaded the Lummi Sea Pond — a “perfect breeding ground” with ample food, safety from predators and a stable growing environment.

The staggering, unprecedented population explosion led Lummi Nation, the Crab Team, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and the University of Washington to collaborate on the largest European green crab trapping effort since it was detected in the Western U.S.

At an October meeting with the state’s 29 federally recognized Tribes, Gov. Inslee heard from some Tribal leaders on how the crab infestation is hurting their Tribes and economies.

The crab’s impact on salmon is especially concerning, after more than 2,500 adult Chinook have died in the South Fork since September and recent flooding further disrupted their habitat.

Fanning Springs offers swimming, snorkeling and scuba diving, but tainted by nitrates

Cindy Swirko, The Gainesville Sun
Sun, November 28, 2021

Kayakers gather around to witness as scientists with the US Geological Survey net and tag sturgeon in the Suwannee River near Fanning Springs in 2015.

To look at Fanning Spring, it is difficult to reconcile the beauty of its blue water to an ugly truth — it is one of the most nutrient-rich springs in the region, with a concentration of nitrates approaching unsafe levels.

The first-magnitude spring and its state park along the Suwannee River in Levy County draws thousands of visitors a year. They must pass informational kiosks along the walkways and boardwalks down to the spring that explain how actions on land — particularly the use of fertilizers — pollute the water.

Like many other springs in the region, people have been living along Fanning for eons. Information from the Florida Park Service states that Paleo-Indian people first began drinking its water and eating its fish and animals 14,000 years ago. Several aboriginal sites have been found in the park.

Fragile Springs revisited: Salt Springs offers recreation variety in Ocala National Forest

White settlers eventually began moving to the region. A fort was built there in 1838 during the Second Seminole War. Later, a ferry across the Suwannee moved people and horses for years.

While the town of Fanning Springs did not grow much, the spring was a favorite spot to cool off for people from across the region.

Location: Fanning Springs State Park is at 18020 U.S. 19 in the town of Fanning Springs.

About: Fanning is considered a first-magnitude spring, meaning water flowed at a rate of at least 100 cubic feet per second, though that rate slowed in the 1990s. The Suwannee River Water Management District still names it as a first-magnitude.

The state bought about 200 acres surrounding the spring and its run to the Suwannee River in 1993 and it became part of the park system in 1997.

Visitors: Swimming, snorkeling and open-water scuba diving are allowed in the spring. Divers must have proper certification and are required to register with park staff before entering the water. There must be a minimum of two divers.

A 200-yard boardwalk meanders along the spring run through cypress trees to the Suwannee River. The spring at a point on the river where sturgeon often jump in the spring and summer months, a neat sight but dangerous to boaters and paddlers.

Manatees sometimes winter in the spring, where the constant 72-degree water is warmer than the Suwannee River or Gulf of Mexico.

Problems: Fanning for decades has been one of the state’s most polluted springs with nitrates as the culprit. The spring is open to swimming, but it is not the most inviting swimming hole because of the excess algae.

Current nitrate data is not available from the Suwannee River Water Management District or the U.S. The Geological Survey but it has been considerably higher than the 0.35 milligrams per liter set by the state to try to stem the pollution.

Fanning is also prone to flooding when the Suwannee River is high, which could also impact the growth of algae by altering water chemistry in the spring.

An assessment by the federal Environmental Protection Agency lists Fanning Springs as impaired for fish and wildlife propagation, fish consumption and recreation. The impairments for recreation and propagation are caused by nitrates and low oxygen. The impairment for consumption is mercury in the fish.

Future: Fanning, its downstream neighbor Manatee Springs and others are included in a Suwannee River basin management action plan triggered by the high level of nitrate.

The plans require farmers in the basin to use practices to reduce nitrates, such as cutting fertilizer use. Septic tanks on new homes can also be restricted and wastewater treatment systems can have to meet tougher standards. Incentives can be given to sports facilities such as golf courses to cut fertilizer use.

Spring advocates, including the Florida Springs Institute and the Florida Springs Council, contend the basin plans are not strong enough to reduce nitrates.

The Florida Springs Council in a legal challenge to the Suwannee basin plan gave multiple examples of shortcomings including the lack of specific requirements for reducing fertilizer use and no restrictions on new septic systems on lots of more than an acre.

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Fanning Springs offers visitors variety of fun, lessons on pollution

Ritual cups, cemetery shed light on ancient Jewish retreat at Yavne


An excavation site believed to be from the time of the Sanhedrin in Yavne

Mon, November 29, 2021, 

YAVNE, Israel (Reuters) - Archaeological finds in Israel have shed light on Yavne, an ancient town that served as the retreat for Jewish authorities after the fall of Jerusalem during a rebellion against Roman rule.

The excavation unearthed ruins of a building with cups made of chalkstone, a material deemed appropriate for Jewish religious rites, pointing to the presence of the exiled Sanhedrin legislative assembly, the Israel Antiquities Authority said.

Cited by the Roman historian Josephus, Yavne served as focal point of Jewish activity. According to Jewish scripture, the Sanhedrin was reconstituted there with Roman consent during a rebellion that led to the second century fighting in Jerusalem.

"This is a direct voice from the past, from the period when the Jewish leadership salvaged the remaining fragments from the fall of the (Jerusalem) Temple," the Authority said in a statement.

Also discovered near the site was a cemetery with dozens of graves, including sarcophagi, and more than 150 glass phials placed on top of the tombs, which the Authority said were probably used to store fragrant oils.

(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Alex Richardson)

HP Joins Lifelong Wildlife Advocate Jane Goodall on Her New Mission: Planting Trees

Trees for Jane is a grassroots effort to plant and protect one of the Earth’s most precious resources.

Northampton, MA --News Direct-- HP Inc.

Mon, November 29, 2021


By Sarah Murry


Forest protection, replanting, and restoration of the world’s trees are among the most valuable actions we can take today to bring down carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and protect the habitats of the most vulnerable species on our planet (including our own). Environmentalist icon and researcher Dr. Jane Goodall is issuing a call for everyone to participate in whatever way we can with her Trees for Jane grassroots campaign and accompanying short film, A Trillion Trees, which launched this week during the United Nations yearly Climate Week event in New York City.

The campaign aims to stop deforestation while helping to replenish the world’s dwindling stock of trees and forests through community-based protection and reforestation programs. It also empowers individuals to plant and care for their own tree or trees in their backyards, rooftops, or with local community groups.

“Trees are the foundation of our ecosystem, our planet,” Goodall says. “Protecting, restoring, and planting trees is a very tangible way to save our climate while creating a better world for all living creatures.”

There’s no time to waste. Every six seconds, our planet loses a football pitch worth of tropical rainforest to deforestation through human-driven deforestation for economic development, cattle ranching, mining, and climate-worsened droughts and wildfires. Three hundred million people worldwide live in forests and 1.6 billion depend directly on them for their livelihoods, according to WWF. One mature tree can capture an average of 0.62 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) over its lifetime. Forests and forest products currently capture and store 15% of US carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion each year, equivalent to the annual emissions from 163 million cars.

HP is a founding partner of Trees for Jane and is supporting Goodall as part of its ongoing Sustainable Impact efforts, which include its forest-positive vision for printing, a pledge to plant trees as part of the 1t.org initiative, and a partnership with WWF to restore and protect the world’s forests through the HP Sustainable Forests Collaborative.

“Climate change is a defining challenge of our time that demands immediate action and investment — NGOs, governments and the private sector must partner to drive solutions,” says Karen Kahn, chief communications officer at HP and Trees for Jane advisor. Bold steps are needed now and by many to create a lasting future.”

Goodall, whose trailblazing work 60 years ago in Tanzania changed the public’s relationship with chimpanzees, our closest primate cousins, today speaks all over the world about the threat of habitat loss, environmental degradation, and climate change. Her eponymous Jane Goodall Institute (JGI), last year committed to contributing five million trees (via replanting or restoration) through her organization and partnerships to the 1 Trillion Trees campaign. Though her message is global, she continues to urge local action, starting with encouraging everyone to plant a tree for Jane.

“There’s a very simple and practical solution that everyone can take part in. A solution that is as old as time,” she says. “We can all do our part by planting a tree or two, or supporting people who do.”

To take action, go to www.treesforjane.org, follow on Instagram @TreesforJane, and support on social with the hashtag #TreesforJane.

RELATED: When forests thrive, people and business prosper, too.

View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from HP Inc. on 3blmedia.com

View source version on newsdirect.com: https://newsdirect.com/news/hp-joins-lifelong-wildlife-advocate-jane-goodall-on-her-new-mission-planting-trees-640637586

Catholic nuns lift veil on abuse in convents





A nun walks in the San Damaso Courtyard at the Vatican

Salvatore Cernuzio poses for a photograph at the Vatican

Mon, November 29, 2021
By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - When young nuns at a convent in Eastern Europe told their Mother Superior that a priest had tried to molest them, she retorted that it was probably their fault for "provoking him".

When African nuns in Minnesota asked why it was always they who had to shovel snow they were told it was because they were young and strong, even though white sisters of the same age lived there too.

As the Roman Catholic Church pays more attention to the closed world of convents, where women spend much of their time in prayer and household work, more episodes of psychological, emotional and physical abuse are coming to light.

A new book, "Veil of Silence" by Salvatore Cernuzio, a journalist for the Vatican's online outlet, Vatican News, is the latest expose to come from within and approved by authorities.

Cernuzio recounts experiences of 11 women and their struggles with an age-old system where the Mother Superior and older nuns demand total obedience, in some cases resulting in acts of cruelty and humiliation.

Marcela, a South American woman who joined an order of cloistered nuns in Italy 20 years ago when she was 19, recounts how the indoctrination was so strict that younger sisters needed permission to go to the bathroom and ask for sanitary products during their menstrual periods.

"You are always complaining! Do you want to be a saint or not?" Marcela, who later left the convent, quotes the Mother Superior as shouting when she suggested changes in the daily routine.

Therese, a French woman, was told "you have to suffer for Jesus" when she asked to be spared physically demanding chores because of a back condition.

"I understood that we were all like dogs," recounted Elizabeth, an Australian. "They tell us to sit and we sit, to get up and we get up, to roll over and we roll over."

BURNOUT SYNDROME

Last year, Father Giovanni Cucci wrote a landmark article about abuse in convents in the Jesuit journal Civilta Cattolica, whose texts are approved by the Vatican.

He found that most of it was abuse of power, including episodes of racism such as in the Minnesota convent. Cucci said the problem needed more attention because it had been overshadowed by the sexual abuse of children by priests.

In 2018, the Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano exposed the plight of foreign nuns sent by their orders to work as housekeepers for cardinals and bishops in Rome with little or no remuneration.

It later chronicled a "burnout" syndrome, where younger women with good educations were held back by older superiors reluctant to relinquish a boot camp-style tradition of assigning them menial tasks, ostensibly to instil discipline and obedience.

"Whatever may have worked in a pyramidal, authoritarian context of relationships before is no longer desirable or liveable," wrote Sister Nathalie Becquart, a French member of the Xaviere Missionary Sisters and one of the highest-ranking women in the Vatican.

Becquart wrote in the book's preface of the "cries and sufferings" of women who entered convents because they felt a calling from God but later left because their complaints too often fell on deaf ears.

Some were stigmatized as "traitors" by their orders and had great difficultly getting jobs in the outside world.

Last year, Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz, who heads the Vatican department that oversees religious congregations, revealed that Pope Francis had opened a home in Rome for former nuns abandoned by their orders.

The cardinal, who has launched investigations into a number of convents, told the Vatican newspaper he was shocked to discover that there were a few cases where former nuns had to resort to prostitution to live.

(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Alex Richardson)

French honor for Josephine Baker stirs conflict over racism







 Entertainer and American ex-patriate Josephine Baker gestures as she discusses the American Black Power movement, 1970, in Roquebrune, south of France. this is the summary: France is inducting Missouri-born cabaret dancer Josephine Baker, who was also a French World War II spy and civil rights activist – into its Pantheon. She is the first Black woman honored in the final resting place of France’s most revered luminaries. On the surface, it’s a powerful message against racism, but by choosing a U.S.-born figure -- entertainer Josephine Baker – critics say France is continuing a long tradition of decrying racism abroad while obscuring it at home. (AP Photo, File)More

ARNO PEDRAM
Mon, November 29, 2021

PARIS (AP) — On the surface, it’s a powerful message against racism: a Black woman will, for the first time, join other luminaries interred in France’s Pantheon. But by choosing a U.S.-born figure -- entertainer Josephine Baker – critics say France is continuing a long tradition of decrying racism abroad while obscuring it at home.

While Baker is widely appreciated in France, the decision has highlighted the divide between the country's official doctrine of colorblind universalism and some increasingly vocal opponents, who argue that it has masked generations of systemic racism.

Baker’s entry into the Pantheon on Tuesday is the result of years of efforts from politicians, organizations and public figures. Most recently, a petition by Laurent Kupferman, an essayist on the French Republic, gained traction, and in July, French President Emmanuel Macron announced Baker would be “pantheonized.”


“The times are probably more conducive to having Josephine Baker’s fights resonate: the fight against racism, antisemitism, her part in the French Resistance,” Kupferman told The Associated Press. “The Pantheon is where you enter not because you’re famous but because of what you bring to the civic mind of the nation.”

Her nomination has been lauded as uncontroversial and seen as a way to reconcile French society after the difficulties of the pandemic and last year’s protests against French police violence, as George Floyd’s killing in the U.S. echoed incidents in France involving Black men who died in police custody.

Baker represented France’s “universalist” approach, which sees its people as simply citizens and does not count or identify them by race or ethnicity. The first article of the constitution says the French Republic and its values are considered universal, ensuring that all citizens have the same rights, regardless of their origin, race or religion.

In 1938, Baker joined what is today called LICRA, a prominent antiracist league and longtime advocate for her entry in the Pantheon.

“She loved universalism passionately and this France that does not care about skin color,” LICRA President Mario Stasi told The Associated Press. “When she arrived from the United States, she understood she came from a ‘communautaurist’ country where she was reminded of her origin and ethnicity, and in France, she felt total acceptance."

Universalists pejoratively call opposing anti-racism activists “communautarists,” implying that they put community identity before universal French citizenry. Radical anti-racist groups, meanwhile, say that France first needs a reckoning with systemic racism — a term that is contested here — and the specific oppression experienced by different communities of color.

The term “communautarist” is also used to describe American society, which counts race in official censuses, academic studies and public discourse, which is taboo in France and seen as reducing people to a skin color.

For Rokhaya Diallo, a French commentator on issues related to race, “universalism is a utopia and myth that the republic tells about itself that does not correspond to any past or present reality,” she told The AP. “For Black and non-white people, the Republic has always been a space of inequality, of othering through the processes triggered by colonization.”

Lawyers, activists and academics have chronicled discrimination in police violence, in housing and in employment in France, notably against people with African or Arab origins. Universalists say this isn't a structural part of French society, however, identifying racism as a moral matter and not inscribed within the state.

Kévi Donat, a Black French guide who gives tours of Black Paris, said Baker is the “most controversial” figure he highlights in his tours, in part because she initially earned fame in France for dancing in a banana belt that “played into stereotypes around Black and African people.”

“Sometimes Josephine Baker is used to say ‘in the U.S. there was racism, (but) all these Black Americans were welcomed in France,' meaning we’re ahead, that we don’t have that problem here,” Donat said.

Baker was among several prominent Black Americans, especially artists and writers, who found refuge from American racism in France after the two World Wars, including the famed writer and intellectual James Baldwin.

But Françoise Vergès, a political scientist on questions of culture, race and colonization, said “symbolic gestures” like putting Baker in the Pantheon aren’t enough to extinguish racial discrimination in France.

“In 2021, even if it’s morally condemned, racism still exists and still has power over people’s lives,” she said.

In addition to her stage fame, Baker also spied for the French Resistance, marched alongside Martin Luther King Jr. in Washington, and raised what she called her “rainbow tribe” of children adopted from around the world.

For Stasi, the LICRA president, her “fight is universalist, so nationality in some way is irrelevant. ... She perfectly inscribes herself in the (French) fight for ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.’”

“Of course there was racism in France, but it wasn’t institutionalized like it was in America during segregation,” Kupferman said.

For Vergès, this obscures France’s own history of racism and colonialism, which includes a brutal war with Algeria, a former French colony, when it fought for independence from 1954 to 1962.

“It’s always easier to celebrate people who aren’t from your country,” she said. “It avoids questioning your own situation at home.”

Verges explained that moving abroad for anyone may offer some protection from racism, simply because you are seen by locals as different anyway, more American or French or Nigerian than Black.

“A country’s racism is in relationship with its own history,” Vergès said. “You also have French Black people in the U.S. who find it less racist than France, because being French protects them from being treated like Black Americans.”

Baldwin, the American writer, noted the same thought in a 1983 interview with the French news magazine Le Nouvel Observateur.

“In France, I am a Black American, posing no conceivable threat to French identity: in effect, I do not exist in France. I might have a very different tale to tell were I from Senegal — and a very bitter song to sing were I from Algeria," he said.

The devastation of the Gatlinburg wildfires offered hope, in a way, for scientists


Vincent Gabrielle, Knoxville News Sentinel
Sun, November 28, 2021

The 2016 Gatlinburg wildfire was deadliest in the eastern half of the U.S. since the Great Fires of 1947 in Maine and the worst in the history of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Fourteen people died. 190 were injured. More than 15 square miles burned over the course of 30 days.

But the fire's aftermath is helping reveal how the forests in the storied national park have evolved to burn. And, maybe, even thrive because of fire.

Five years on, Table Mountain pine seedlings are shooting up as saplings for the first time in decades. Short, bushy oaks sprout from roots that survived the heat. Reclusive fungi pop up from the ashen soil. Huckleberry bushes creep in, attracting bears and birds.

Dead trees from the 2016 fire stand over resurgent growth along the Gatlinburg Bypass. Some of the new growth seen here is from roots that survived the fire and sprouted again.

Nature persists. It's up to us to learn from it.

Returning forests

After the burn, scientists found something rare and unexpected: a species of nearly extinct tree regrowing in the mountains on the Tennessee-North Carolina border.

"I had no idea there was so much American chestnut up there," said Jennifer Franklin, a professor of forestry at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture. Before the chestnut blight killed most of the American chestnuts in the early 1900s, they dominated eastern forests. Only a few remnant chestnuts survived. "It was amazing because everything else burned off around them."

Franklin studies prescribed burns and forestry. In the years after the fire, she has been trekking into the park to observe which plants survived and returned. She told Knox News she was surprised how quickly the forest began to regenerate even in the hottest burn spots.

The fires of 2016 did not burn equally. In some forested pockets, you could barely tell anything had happened. In the hottest places, all of the leaf litter burned away, leaving bare soil. But scientists learned the fire didn't reach the deepest roots.

"Those root systems that survived, those trees, they just came back really strongly," Franklin said. Chestnuts, oaks, shortleaf pine and Table Mountain pine all returned very quickly. "Some of them we counted over 100 sprouts from a single root system."

Tips from an insider: Best ways to spend time in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge: Tips from an insider

More: America's newest national park features a human-made marvel in West Virginia

Franklin has a keen eye for the effects of fire. She teaches up-and-coming foresters prescribed fire management.

National park personnel have been intentionally burning sections of the park since the 1990s, for conservation purposes and to thin out debris. But for a prescribed fire to work as intended it needs to mimic the effects of a natural fire.

"I thought it was interesting that the prescribed fires done in earlier years by the park staff had similar effects to wildfire," Franklin wrote in an email to Knox News. She explained that it was difficult to mimic the effects of more intense wildfire with safe, controlled fires set during the wet season. The 2016 fire revealed that it is possible to get some of the effects of a wildfire without a fire going wild.
Bears sheltered in place

Bears, largely pulled through the fire unscathed. Joseph Clark is an adjunct professor at UT who studies bears that live near humans. He happened to be following a dozen bears wearing radio collars when the fires started. Clark said he was surprised to see that, by and large, the bears didn’t flee the fire. They sheltered in place.

"The fire just seemed to roar over them," Clark said. He explained that only two bears were documented to have died from the fire, one of which was euthanized by the park service. "I think they mostly found enough cubby holes that they could just hunker down and wait for the fire to pass through."

After the fires were contained, the bears ventured into the burned areas possibly seeking carcasses to scavenge.

These behaviors were also seen among bears during and after the 1988 Yellowstone Fires, which means that North American bears may have fire survival instincts in common.

Secretive fungi appear

Perhaps the most unexpected thing the fires revealed was how they affect fungi. In the areas that burned the most intensely, rare, fire-loving fungi were among the first living things to recolonize.

Karen Hughes, a UT professor of mycology, explained that plants rely on symbiotic fungi to grow and thrive.

"Fires of that intensity are supposed to destroy microorganisms in the top eight inches of soil," Hughes said. If the soil was sterile after a fire, pine seedlings shouldn't have been able to grow. "And yet here are these little pine trees coming up."

Hughes and other researchers discovered that the roots of the young pine sprouts were covered in symbiotic fungi. .

"Fungi help modify soil in a way that helps a healthy forest to return," Hughes said.

Mycology experts aren’t sure how these fungi survive the flames. Some fungi might have been carried on the wind, others may have escaped the flames deep in the soil.

Hughes and her collaborators found some of these fire fungi live symbiotically, inside of mosses and trees. Fire rarely burns all parts of a plant evenly and some unburnt plant matter flies off in the fire’s updraft. These unburnt portions may spread the fungi over a burned area, where they later grow into visible mushrooms.

The fire completely remapped where scientists understand many fire-dependent fungi species to live. Some were even unknown in the park before the fire.

"The fact that fire has been suppressed means that we just haven't seen these fungi," said Hughes. She explained that the fire let her see the fungi that had been hiding in the soil, trees and moss. "There were so many of them that they colored the forest floor."
Evolving to burn

Great Smoky Mountains and the greater Southern Appalachians are not strangers to fire. While large blazes like those of 2016 are rare, the park's forests evolved in tandem with smaller, frequent fires. The biodiversity of the park is dependent on different types of forests that burn at different frequencies.

"Table Mountain pine is only found in the central and southern Appalachians and it has cones that have to be heated to fully open and release seeds," said Donald Hagan, an associate professor of forest ecology at Clemson University. "That says something about how long fire has been on this landscape."

Dead trees from the 2016 fire that swept through the Gatlinburg area can still be seen from the Park Vista hotel in Gatlinburg on Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2021.

Scientists track fire histories using preserved burn scars in old-growth trees and by carbon-dating fossil charcoal. These physical records show that fire used to burn more frequently through the Appalachians than it does nowadays.

Many fires were probably set intentionally. For thousands of years, indigenous people would set blazes for hunting, crop land and trail clearance, and to maintain space for important plants like giant river cane. Cades Cove, in the centuries before European settlement, was routinely burned by the Cherokee to maintain open fields.

In upland areas that regularly burned, oak and pine trees grew over open, grassy forest floors. The trees grew tall to avoid low flames. In the spring, riots of wildflowers emerged.

Each fire's effects rippled through time, felt differently by every plant, tree and animal. For example, a Smokies study found that a fire can affect which birds live where for approximately 25 years after a burn.

For most of the park’s history, both natural and human-caused fire have been suppressed by the Forest Service and the Park Service. Setting fires was discouraged and wildfires were put out.

Over the decades, the parts of the park dominated by fire-adapted species like oak and pine were colonized by moisture-loving species like maples and hemlock. These new species closed off the understory, making the forest thick, shady and moist.

Oak and pine saplings cannot compete under these conditions. Their seedlings are out-competed or never germinate. As the decades wear on they are slowly being replaced.

Many species that depend on these woodlands, like the red-cockaded woodpecker and the purple fringed orchid, are dwindling as the forests change.

"It's a feedback loop, here species encroach and it becomes harder for fire to happen," Hagan said. "That doesn't mean it can't happen but it's only going to happen under a more severe drought."
The fire cycle continues

The other consequence of thick forests is the potential for more damaging fires. During droughts, dry, decomposing leaves become fuel.

Hagan they don't have to be catastrophic fires like the worst seen in Gatlinburg to cause real damage to trees.

"Slow-burning fires feed off of decomposing leaves on the forest floor and cook the upper root systems of many trees. After several years those trees die, leaving behind standing dead trunks.

"That means they are fuel for future fires," Hagan said. "Certain parts of the landscape might be more flammable than they were in 2016."

In the future, the mountains could experience similar conditions to what was recorded in 2016. Scientists project that the Southern Appalachians will experience more intense rainstorms with long periods of drought between them as climate change worsens.

Patches of dead trees marking the fire path from the 2016 fire that swept through the Gatlinburg area can still be seen around the Park Vista hotel from the Gatlinburg Bypass on Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2021.

"We are seeing increased climate volatility," Hagan said. "There will certainly be situations where you have extreme droughts that create extreme fire events."

Hagan and other forest ecology experts think that the best way to prepare for this is to promote the natural biodiversity. By creating lots of different sections of forest at different stages of growth, park managers can conserve species and prevent sweeping fires at the same time.

And, of course, prescribed burns are one of the tools, too.

"We know the future is going to be different from the past," Hagan said. "Effectively what we are doing is hedging our bets against an uncertain future."

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Gatlinburg wildfires exposed lessons in forest life after a blaze

The oldest trees on Earth

CBSNews
Sun, November 28, 2021

High atop the remote, rocky slopes of California's White Mountains, the harsh conditions make it difficult for life to take root. But for a certain type of tree – and for those who have traveled here to study it – this place is paradise.

These gnarled bristlecone pines are the oldest individual trees in the world. Researchers like Andy Bunn have come to learn from the ancients.

Correspondent Conor Knighton asked Bunn, "Looking at this tree, would you have any idea how old this is?"

"I've been doing this long enough to not try and play the guessing game too much," he replied. "It'd be easy for this tree to be a thousand years old; it would be easier for it to be two thousand years old. Older than that would be unusual, but not impossible."

/ Credit: CBS News

There are bristlecones in this grove that are more than twice as old.

"It's remarkable to sit there and have your hand on one of those trees and know that it was growing when the Pyramids were built," said Bunn.

By taking core samples from the trunks – a process that researchers say doesn't harm the trees -- it's possible to extract their hidden history. "Dendrochronology" is the science of dating tree rings.

Matt Salzer, a dendrochronologist at the University of Arizona's Laboratory of Tree Ring Research, said, "Each annual tree ring is like a time capsule of the environment for that year from which it was formed. And it contains many different types of information – chemical information, the information on growth, climate information."

Examining a tree ring core sample. / Credit: CBS News

"If you're trying to look at people in the past through time, tree rings give you a way to do it in a way that makes sense in a human life scale," said University of Arizona professor Charlotte Pearson. She first became fascinated with the bristlecones after reading about an ancient volcanic eruption on the Greek island of Santorini. "It blew my mind that trees on the other side of the world could possibly be used to date this thing to within a single year," she said.

Massive eruptions eject so much ash that they cool the entire planet. Since bristlecones put on narrow rings during especially cold years, scientists have used those rings to help establish an eruption date of 1560 BC.

Showing Knighton a tree ring sample, Pearson said, "We're moving backwards through time here. Here we change between A.D. and B.C., and we're into the B.C. period now, going backwards through time right to the very end, where we come to 1700 B.C."

By matching up core samples from live trees with wood from dead trees, it's possible to create a record that stretches back even further.

The oldest known living bristlecone is estimated to be over 4,800 years old. Named "Methuselah," the tree's precise location inside Inyo National Forest isn't publicized, and we won't be revealing it here – scientists are worried extra attention might attract vandals. Plus, in all likelihood it's not actually the oldest.

A bristlecone pine named Methuselah is more than 4,800 years old. / Credit: CBS News

Knighton asked, Do you believe that there are older trees out there?"

"Almost certainly," Bunn replied. "It would be naïve to think that we just happened to get the oldest tree when we looked."

Age on the inside isn't always apparent on the outside. Up a long, winding dirt road from the Methuselah Grove stands the Patriarch Tree. Though it is the largest bristlecone pine known, it's a comparative youngster, at around 1,500 years old.

Bunn said, "It really does feel like you are in the presence of something magnificent. There's not a lot of places in the world where you can get the feeling of being around trees like this."

The Patriarch tree. / Credit: CBS News

What makes this place challenging for most species might be the secret to the bristlecone pine's success. Bunn said, "They live in this sort of moonscape where they have figured out a life history strategy where they can eke out a living in this incredibly difficult environment, and they don't really have to compete with other organisms."

For Bunn, the climate record written in the rings offers guidance for how we might think about what's happening in the present as we plan for the future. "What we're seeing increasingly is that a lot of the climate events that we are experiencing and living through right now have no precedent in the paleoclimate record," he said. "So, we really are moving into uncharted territory."

Like us, bristlecones mark time in years. Their lives are so long, these twisting sentinels see a far bigger picture.

Knighton asked, "Does it give you some perspective on your own lifespan?"

"Yeah, definitely," Bunn replied. "It gives me not only perspective of my own lifespan, but also on sort of human civilization. And to look back and to see everything that humanity's accomplished and to go back and read the rings of these trees and to think about what humanity was like at different periods while those trees were growing, is incredibly humbling."

For more info:

Laboratory of Tree Ring Research, University of Arizona, Tucson

Story produced by Anthony Laudato. Editor: James Taylor.

OUR FRIENDS THE FUNGI

World’s vast networks of underground fungi to be mapped for first time
Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent 4 hrs ago

Vast networks of underground fungi – the “circulatory system of the planet” – are to be mapped for the first time, in an attempt to protect them from damage and improve their ability to absorb and store carbon dioxide.© Provided by The Guardian Photograph: Biosphoto/Alamy

Fungi use carbon to build networks in the soil, which connect to plant roots and act as nutrient “highways”, exchanging carbon from plant roots for nutrients. For instance, some fungi are known to supply 80% of phosphorus to their host plants.

Underground fungal networks can extend for many miles but are rarely noticed, though trillions of miles of them are thought to exist around the world. These fungi are vital to the biodiversity of soils and soil fertility, but little is known about them.

Many hotspots of mycorrhizal fungi are thought to be under threat, from the expansion of agriculture, urbanisation, pollution, water scarcity and changes to the climate.

The new project, from the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN), will involve the collection of 10,000 samples around the world, from hotspots that are being identified through artificial intelligence technology.

Jane Goodall, the conservationist, who is advising the project, said: “An understanding of underground fungal networks is essential to our efforts to protect the soil, on which life depends, before it is too late.”

The Society for the Protection of Underground Networks comprises scientists from the Netherlands, Canada, the US, France, Germany and the University of Manchester in the UK.

The first collections will take place next year in Patagonia, and continue for about 18 months, to create maps of potential underground mycorrhizal fungi that can be used for further research. Using the maps, the scientists hope to pinpoint the ecosystems facing the most urgent threats, and partner with local conservation organisations to try to create “conservation corridors” for the underground ecosystems.

This is believed to be the first major effort to map an underground ecosystem in this way. Climate science has focused on above-ground ecosystems, and although we know that fungi are essential for soil structure and fertility, and the global carbon cycle – as ecosystems with thriving mycorrhizal fungi networks have been shown to store eight times as much carbon as ecosystems without such networks – much of the role of fungi in the soil nutrient cycle remains mysterious.

Mark Tercek, former CEO of the Nature Conservancy, and a member of the governing body for SPUN, said: “Fungal networks underpin life on Earth. If trees are the ‘lungs’ of the planet, fungal networks are the ‘circulatory systems’. These networks are largely unexplored.”

Mycorrhizal fungi create tough organic compounds that provide structure to the soil, and store carbon in their necromass, the networks that are no longer active, but remain woven into the soil.

Modern industrial agriculture adds vast quantities of chemical fertiliser which interrupts the dynamics of exchange between plants and fungi, scientists warn. Without thriving fungal networks, crops require more chemical inputs and are more vulnerable to drought, soil erosion, pests and pathogens. Mechanical ploughing in modern agriculture also damages the physical integrity of fungal networks

.

© Photograph: Biosphoto/Alamy Hotspots of mycorrhizal fungi are thought to be under threat, from agriculture, urbanisation, pollution, water scarcity and changes to the climate.

There is also increasing evidence that some combinations of fungi can enhance productivity more than others, so guarding these is critical, according to soil scientists.

Ten hotspots have been identified by the scientists involved, including: Canadian tundra; the Mexican plateau; high altitudes in South America; Morocco; the western Sahara; Israel’s Negev desert; the steppes of Kazakhstan; the grasslands and high plains of Tibet; and the Russian taiga.

Jeremy Grantham, a billionaire financier and funder of climate research who is funding the project with $3.5m (£2.6m), said: “Just below our feet lies an invaluable ally in mitigating climate change: vast hidden fungal networks. Billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide flow annually from plants to fungal networks. Yet these carbon sinks are poorly understood. In working to map and harness this threatened but vital resource for life on earth, SPUN is pioneering a new chapter in global conservation.”

LEFT WING WIN

Former first lady set to become Honduras's first woman president

Barnaby CHESTERMAN
Mon, November 29, 2021

Former first lady set to become Honduras's first woman presidentLeftist opposition candidate Xiomara Castro took a commanding lead in preliminary results (AFP)

Former first lady Xiomara Castro appeared set to become Honduras's first woman president after taking a commanding lead over the ruling party candidate, partial election results showed Monday.

With just over half of votes counted, the leftist opposition leader had taken more than 53 percent with a lead of almost 20 percentage points over the ruling National Party's Nasry Asfura, according to a National Electoral Council (CNE) live count.

Castro, whose husband Manuel Zelaya was deposed from the presidency in a coup in 2009, claimed victory late Sunday, even as the CNE said no result will be announced until the last vote is counted.

"Good night, we've won," Castro told supporters, promising to lead "a reconciliation government" in a country wracked by violent crime, drug trafficking, rampant corruption and large-scale migration to the United States.

Her statement sparked scenes of celebration in the capital Tegucigalpa, with supporters setting off fireworks and honking car horns.

It was a far cry from the deadly protests that broke out four years ago when Juan Orlando Hernandez won a second successive term amid accusations of fraud.

More than 30 people died as authorities cracked down on the month-long protest.

Reports of intimidation and violence in the buildup to Sunday's election led to fears of fresh unrest.

Castro and Asfura both called for calm as they cast their ballots, but the National Party (PN) declared victory less than an hour after polls opened, earning a rebuke from the European Union observer mission.

CNE boss Kelvin Aguirre said "historic" numbers had voted, with a turnout of more than 60 percent of 5.2 million registered voters.

But he warned that "no candidate can claim victory until the last vote has been counted."

- Olive branch -

The opposition had expressed fears the poll could be rigged to keep the PN in power, which would almost inevitably prompt street protests.

The campaign was bitter, with the PN trying to discredit Castro as a communist and attacking her support for legalizing abortion and same-sex marriage, touchy subjects in deeply conservative Honduras.

Castro, in turn, branded Hernandez a "narco-dictator."

But she took a conciliatory tone on Sunday night.

"I hold out my hand to my opponents because I don't have enemies, I will call for dialogue... with all sectors," she said.

Castro's expected victory would break 12 years of PN rule and four decades of hegemony shared with the Liberal Party.

Honduras has been hit hard by gang violence, drug trafficking and hurricanes, with 59 percent of its 10 million people living in poverty.

Washington has been keeping a close eye on the election.

Honduras has been the starting point for a wave of migrant caravans trying to reach the United States.

Some 18,000 police and as many soldiers were on duty nationwide for Sunday's vote, which took place without incident in the capital.

"Regardless of who wins, we're brothers, we're all Hondurans and need to respect each other," said Leonel Pena, 57, a carpenter in a poor neighborhood.

After more than a decade of PN rule, many voters said it was time for change.

"We've tried this government for 12 years and things have gone from bad to worse," Luis Gomez, 26, told AFP in the gang-ridden Tegucigalpa neighborhood of La Sosa. "We hope for something new."

Unemployment jumped from 5.7 percent in 2019 to 10.9 percent in 2020, largely because of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a study by the Autonomous University.

The country was also ravaged by two hurricanes in 2020.

- 'No narco-states, only narco-governments' -

The PN has been in power since Zelaya was ousted in a 2009 coup supported by the military, business elites and the political right.

Corruption and drug-trafficking scandals have engulfed Hernandez and many in his inner circle.

"Honduras is internationally known as a narco-state. But there are no narco-states, only narco-governments," said political analyst Raul Pineda, a former PN legislator.

Hernandez's brother Tony is serving a life sentence in a US prison for drug trafficking.

Drug barons whom the president helped extradite to the United States have accused him of involvement in the illicit trade.

Asfura was accused in 2020 of embezzling $700,000 of public money, and the so-called Pandora Papers linked him to influence-peddling in Costa Rica.

The third major candidate in the presidential race, the Liberal Party's Yani Rosenthal, spent three years in a US jail for money laundering.

He scored just nine percent in early results.

Hondurans also voted to elect the 28 members of the National Congress and 20 representatives of the Central American parliament.

bur/bc/mlr/to

Hondurans vote for new president as incumbent faces extradition

Grayson Quay, Contributing writer
Sun, November 28, 2021, 

nasry asfura poster Inti Ocon/Getty Images

Citizens of Honduras voted Sunday for a new president. The results of the election could remove the governing National Party from office for the first time since it took power in a 2009 military coup that ousted leftist President Mel Zelaya, who sought to align Honduras with Hugo Chavez's Venezuela.

Xiomara Castro, Zelaya's wife, currently leads in the polls, NPR reports. National Party candidate Nasry Asfura is in second place. His campaign has benefited from the National Party's entrenched political machine, which distributes cash payments and other gifts to voters, but has been marred by allegations that Asfura embezzled millions of dollars during his two terms as mayor of Tegucigalpa, the nation's capital city. The third-place candidate, Yani Rosenthal, returned to Honduras in 2020 after serving a prison sentence in the U.S. for money laundering.

Observers have expressed concerns that violence could erupt if a clear result does not emerge quickly. Twenty protestors were killed during demonstrations that followed the 2017 election. Political instability and gang activity in Honduras have already prompted some Hondurans to flee the country. Many of these refugees joined migrant caravans that traveled north through Mexico toward the U.S. border.

The incumbent president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, has been accused by U.S. prosecutors of funding his campaigns with drug money and could be extradited to the U.S. if his party loses power, according to The Washington Post. His brother, former Honduran lawmaker Tony Hernández, is already serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison following a 2019 conviction for smuggling tons of cocaine into the United States.