Galal Yafai claims Team GB’s first boxing gold of Tokyo Olympics

James GoldmanSaturday 7 Aug 2021 

Galal Yafai of Team Great Britain punches Carlo Paalam of Team Philippines during the Men’s Fly (Picture: Getty)

Galal Yafai claimed flyweight boxing gold for Great Britain after a split decision win over Carlo Paalam of the Philippines.

The 28-year-old floored his opponent in the opening round with a straight left and edged a high-octane contest to secure the verdict.

It concluded a stunning run of form for the Birmingham boxer, who was competing in his second Olympics having lost his second bout at Rio 2016.

Galal Yafai knocked his opponent to the canvas in the opening round (Picture: Getty)

All five of the judges gave Paalam the last round of the contest but Yafai had built up enough of a lead to secure the win on four of the five judges’ cards.

The 28-year-old came into his own in Tokyo, negotiating a tough route to the gold medal match, starting with a convincing stoppage win over Koryun Soghomonyan of Armenia in his preliminary bout.

A tight win over the crude Zambian Patrick Chinyemba provided a timely opportunity to refocus, and Yafai reaped the benefit in his following bout when he beat Cuba’s former world champion Yosbany Veitia.

Rank	Country				Total
1	China	38	29	17	84
2	United States	33	36	32	101
3	Japan	24	12	16	52
4	Great Britain	19	20	21	60
5	ROC	17	24	22	63
6	Australia	17	6	21	44
7	Germany	10	11	16	37
8	Italy	10	10	18	38
9	Netherlands	9	10	12	31
10	France	7	12	9	28
11	New Zealand	7	6	7	20
12	Hungary	6	7	6	19
13	Canada	6	6	11	23
14	Republic of Korea	6	4	9	19
15	Brazil	6	4	8	18
16	Cuba	6	3	4	13
17	Poland	4	4	5	13
18	Czech Republic	4	3	2	9
19	Jamaica	4	1	3	8
20	Spain	3	6	5	14
21	Switzerland	3	4	6	13
22	Croatia	3	3	2	8
22	Kenya	3	3	2	8
24	Norway	3	2	1	6
25	Belgium	3	1	1	5
25	Slovenia	3	1	1	5
27	Sweden	2	6	0	8
28	Georgia	2	5	1	8
29	Chinese Taipei	2	4	6	12
30	Denmark	2	3	4	9
31	Turkey	2	2	8	12
32	Islamic Rep. of Iran	2	2	2	6
33	Serbia	2	1	4	7
34	Bulgaria	2	1	2	5
35	Uganda	2	1	1	4
36	Ecuador	2	1	0	3
37	Uzbekistan	2	0	2	4
38	Greece	2	0	1	3
38	Qatar	2	0	1	3
40	Bahamas	2	0	0	2
40	Kosovo	2	0	0	2
42	Ukraine	1	5	10	16
43	Belarus	1	3	2	6
44	Romania	1	3	0	4
44	Venezuela	1	3	0	4
46	Hong Kong, China	1	2	2	5
47	Philippines	1	2	1	4
47	Slovakia	1	2	1	4
49	South Africa	1	2	0	3
50	Austria	1	1	5	7
51	Indonesia	1	1	3	5
52	Portugal	1	1	2	4
53	Ethiopia	1	1	1	3
54	Tunisia	1	1	0	2
55	Ireland	1	0	2	3
55	Israel	1	0	2	3
57	Estonia	1	0	1	2
57	Fiji	1	0	1	2
57	Latvia	1	0	1	2
57	Thailand	1	0	1	2
61	Bermuda	1	0	0	1
61	Morocco	1	0	0	1
61	Puerto Rico	1	0	0	1
64	Colombia	0	4	1	5
65	Dominican Rep.	0	3	2	5
66	India	0	2	3	5
67	Armenia	0	2	2	4
68	Kyrgyzstan	0	2	1	3
69	Azerbaijan	0	1	3	4
69	Mongolia	0	1	3	4
71	Argentina	0	1	2	3
71	San Marino	0	1	2	3
73	Jordan	0	1	1	2
73	Nigeria	0	1	1	2
75	Lithuania	0	1	0	1
75	Namibia	0	1	0	1
75	North Macedonia	0	1	0	1
75	Turkmenistan	0	1	0	1
79	Kazakhstan	0	0	7	7
80	Egypt	0	0	4	4
80	Mexico	0	0	4	4
82	Finland	0	0	2	2
83	Burkina Faso	0	0	1	1
83	Côte d'Ivoire	0	0	1	1
83	Ghana	0	0	1	1
83	Grenada	0	0	1	1
83	Kuwait	0	0	1	1
83	Malaysia	0	0	1	1
83	Rep. of Moldova	0	0	1	1
83	Syrian Arab Rep.	0	0	1	1
91	Afghanistan	0	0	0	0
91	Albania	0	0	0	0
91	Algeria	0	0	0	0
91	American Samoa	0	0	0	0
91	Andorra	0	0	0	0
91	Angola	0	0	0	0
91	Antigua & Barbuda	0	0	0	0
91	Aruba	0	0	0	0
91	Bahrain	0	0	0	0
91	Bangladesh	0	0	0	0
91	Barbados	0	0	0	0
91	Belize	0	0	0	0
91	Benin	0	0	0	0
91	Bhutan	0	0	0	0
91	Bolivia	0	0	0	0
91	Bosnia Herzegovina	0	0	0	0
91	Botswana	0	0	0	0
91	Brunei Darussalam	0	0	0	0
91	Burundi	0	0	0	0
91	Cambodia	0	0	0	0
91	Cameroon	0	0	0	0
91	Cape Verde	0	0	0	0
91	Cayman Islands	0	0	0	0
91	Central African Rep	0	0	0	0
91	Chad	0	0	0	0
91	Chile	0	0	0	0
91	Comoros	0	0	0	0
91	Congo	0	0	0	0
91	Cook Islands	0	0	0	0
91	Costa Rica	0	0	0	0
91	Cyprus	0	0	0	0
91	D.R. Congo	0	0	0	0
91	Djibouti	0	0	0	0
91	Dominica	0	0	0	0
91	DPR Korea	0	0	0	0
91	El Salvador	0	0	0	0
91	Equatorial Guinea	0	0	0	0
91	Eritrea	0	0	0	0
91	Eswatini	0	0	0	0
91	Gabon	0	0	0	0
91	Gambia	0	0	0	0
91	Guam	0	0	0	0
91	Guatemala	0	0	0	0
91	Guinea	0	0	0	0
91	Guinea-Bissau	0	0	0	0
91	Guyana	0	0	0	0
91	Haiti	0	0	0	0
91	Honduras	0	0	0	0
91	Iceland	0	0	0	0
91	Iraq	0	0	0	0
91	Kiribati	0	0	0	0
91	Lao P.D.R.	0	0	0	0
91	Lebanon	0	0	0	0
91	Lesotho	0	0	0	0
91	Liberia	0	0	0	0
91	Libya	0	0	0	0
91	Liechtenstein	0	0	0	0
91	Luxembourg	0	0	0	0
91	Madagascar	0	0	0	0
91	Malawi	0	0	0	0
91	Maldives	0	0	0	0
91	Mali	0	0	0	0
91	Malta	0	0	0	0
91	Marshall Islands	0	0	0	0
91	Mauritania	0	0	0	0
91	Mauritius	0	0	0	0
91	Micronesia	0	0	0	0
91	Monaco	0	0	0	0
91	Montenegro	0	0	0	0
91	Mozambique	0	0	0	0
91	Myanmar	0	0	0	0
91	Nauru	0	0	0	0
91	Nepal	0	0	0	0
91	Nicaragua	0	0	0	0
91	Niger	0	0	0	0
91	Oman	0	0	0	0
91	Pakistan	0	0	0	0
91	Palau	0	0	0	0
91	Palestine	0	0	0	0
91	Panama	0	0	0	0
91	Papua New Guinea	0	0	0	0
91	Paraguay	0	0	0	0
91	Peru	0	0	0	0
91	Refugee Olympic Team	0	0	0	0
91	Rwanda	0	0	0	0
91	S Tome & Principe	0	0	0	0
91	Saint Kitts & Nevis	0	0	0	0
91	Saint Lucia	0	0	0	0
91	Samoa	0	0	0	0
91	Saudi Arabia	0	0	0	0
91	Senegal	0	0	0	0
91	Seychelles	0	0	0	0
91	Sierra Leone	0	0	0	0
91	Singapore	0	0	0	0
91	Solomon Islands	0	0	0	0
91	Somalia	0	0	0	0
91	South Sudan	0	0	0	0
91	Sri Lanka	0	0	0	0
91	St Vincent & Gren.	0	0	0	0
91	Sudan	0	0	0	0
91	Suriname	0	0	0	0
91	Tajikistan	0	0	0	0
91	Tanzania	0	0	0	0
91	Timor-Leste	0	0	0	0
91	Togo	0	0	0	0
91	Tonga	0	0	0	0
91	Trinidad & Tobago	0	0	0	0
91	Tuvalu	0	0	0	0
91	Uruguay	0	0	0	0
91	Utd Arab Emirates	0	0	0	0
91	Vanuatu	0	0	0	0
91	Vietnam	0	0	0	0
91	Virgin Isl., British	0	0	0	0
91	Virgin Islands, US	0	0	0	0
91	Yemen	0	0	0	0
91	Zambia	0	0	0	0
91	Zimbabwe	0	0	0	0

Powered by Olympic Data Feed

A medal duly guaranteed, Yafai went one better with a thrilling performance in his semi-final against Kazakhstan’s Saken Bibossinov.

In Paalam, however, he faced an opponent with arguably an even more impressive path than his own, including a split decision win over Ireland’s Brendan Irvine, plus a split decision victory over reigning Olympic champion Shakhobidin Zoirov in a quarter-final bout that was abridged due to injuries.

Paalam’s is an extraordinary story in itself, a former scavenger on the rubbish tips of the Filipino capital Manila, who was persuaded to enter his first boxing bout at the age of seven and used the money to buy rice for his family.

He clearly was not going to go down without a fight, landing a crisp left hand in the dying seconds of the contest, but it was not enough to deny Yafai the victory.

‘Demented clown’ Trump blasted for ‘rooting against America’ with unhinged statement attacking US women's soccer team

John Wright
August 05, 2021


President Donald Trump delivers angry remarks at the White House/MSNBC screen shot

Echoing a MAGA chorus three days later, former president Donald Trump attacked the U.S. Women's National Team on Thursday, calling the players "leftist maniacs" and claiming they didn't win a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics because they are "woke."

After a disappointing loss to Canada in the semifinals on Monday, the U.S. team captured the bronze medal with a victory on Thursday. Longstanding right-wing attacks on the team began to resurface when members participated in a protest against racism at the start of the Olympics.

In his statement, shared by spokeswoman Liz Harrington on Twitter, Trump singled out an old nemesis, Megan Rapinoe, who incidentally scored two goals in the bronze medal victory over Australia — in what may have been her final Olympic game.

"If our soccer team, headed by a radical group of Leftist Maniacs, wasn't woke, they would have won the Gold medal instead of the Bronze," Trump said. "Woke means you lose, everything that is woke goes bad, and our soccer team certainly has. There were, however, a few patriots standing. Unfortunately, they need more help than that respecting our Country and National Anthem. They should replace the wokesters with Patriots and start winning again. The woman with the purple hair played terribly and spends too much time thinking about Radical Left politics and not doing her job!"

'Real sad': US soccer player targeted by Trump slams his 'rooting for' team's failure to win gold

Brad Reed
August 06, 2021

Megan Rapinoe (Screen Capture)

US women's soccer star Megan Rapinoe was taken aback when she saw former President Donald Trump mocking her and her "woke" teammates for failing to win the gold medal at this year's Summer Olympics.

In an interview with Nexstar Media Wire reporter Jack Doles, Rapinoe said it was strange to hear a former president cheering on a defeat of his own country's team at the Olympics.

"It's a real sad dig," Rapinoe she said. "I'm just like, 'You're rooting for people to do bad?' Yikes."

Rapinoe led the U.S. women's soccer team to a gold medal at the 2012 Olympics in London and has twice led the United States to championships at the FIFA Women's World Cup.

Also, despite Trump's allegations that Rapinoe played "terribly," she actually scored two of her team's four goals in its final game at the Olympics.

In a statement released earlier this week, Trump bizarrely claimed that the women's team only lost because of their political leanings.

"If our soccer team, headed by a radical group of Leftist Maniacs, wasn't woke, they would have won the Gold medal instead of the Bronze," the twice-impeached one-term former president said. "Woke means you lose, everything that is woke goes bad, and our soccer team certainly has."

       THE CANADIAN'S WERE JUST AS WOKE

  CANADA'S FIRST TRANSEXUAL 

OLYMPICS WOMEN'S SOCCER PLAYER

WRASTLING

Helen Maroulis didn't need history-making bronze to prove Olympic success isn't measured in medals

Chris Bumbaca, USA TODAY 

When she was around 12 years old, she wrote something along the lines of "Win two Olympic wrestling medals: one freestyle, one folkstyle."

“I did accomplish the goal, I guess,” Maroulis said, although folkstyle isn't on the Olympic program. “It’s a dream come true.”


After winning a bronze medal in the women's 57kg freestyle on Thursday, Maroulis became the first woman in U.S. wrestling history to win two medals.

In Rio, the medal was gold, as Maroulis shocked the field and emerged a champion. She had no idea what the next five years had in store for her.

“I have such a peace about (bronze)," she said. "And I’m like ‘Man, why am I not more sad?' I spent four years trying to get back, my wrestling, just to not have fear.

“That is the biggest gift.”

The Rockville, Maryland native has been to the top and to what she’s called rock bottom. A bronze medal is certainly nothing to be ashamed of in her eyes.

© Mandi Wright, USA TODAY Sports Helen Maroulis celebrates her bronze medal in the women's freestyle 57kg.

Maroulis endured debilitating concussions and battled post-traumatic stress disorder during the ensuing quadrennial after Rio. At one point, she heard voices in her head, as the Washington Post detailed earlier this week. Opponents have targeted her head nonetheless.

She disregarded all of that on her way to a technical superiority (11-0) victory against Mongolia’s Khongorzul Boldsaikhan for a bronze.

“I thank God so much just for making me healthy,” she said after standing on the podium.

Winning in Rio was the hardest thing she’d ever done – or so she thought.

“I had to ask everything of myself," she admitted. "I was at the breaking point.”

She was all-in at the time and knew the upcoming quad was going to be harder. Then came the concussions and the expectations. She couldn’t sit in a room with the lights on, yet people were counting on her to trot out to the mat. She couldn’t make eye contact with people.

“If you told me in 2016 what I would have had to go through,” she said, “I probably would’ve retired right then. This was harder. This was harder. This was harder for sure. There were really deep, dark, dark moments. But this is way more rewarding.”

She felt healed – mind, body, soul – by the time she left for Tokyo.

Had she wrestled in her previous “sloppy” form, she said, and won gold, she wouldn’t be capable of savoring the experience the way she did Thursday night inside Makuhari Messe Hall.

“I’d rather take the bronze medal but wrestle the way that I did," Maroulis said.

Regrets only come when you’re not at the top of your own game, she added.

“If you go out there and you lose and you feel like you were a little bit timid or held back, that’s the worst feeling. Because you can’t ever go back and re-do that moment.”

Over the past five years, Maroulis has learned a lot about herself. She's a stronger person now. Maybe she lacked certain qualities when she was a gold-medalist, she said.

“My mindset was different then," she said. "Maybe I took wrestling for granted, because I never knew what it was like to not have wrestling, to not have my health, to not have a lot of things that I just always had. This is really special.”

The adversity didn't simply go away when she returned to serious training after the concussions. Maroulis took up dancing during the pandemic but a knee injury forced her to stop. A harp player, doctors told her to stop playing because it was causing forearm tightness.

In June at the Poland Open, where she lost 13-0, Maroulis said that if anyone pulled at her knee, her MCL would have been seriously injured. There'd be no Tokyo Olympics. But she needed to feel international competition.

“Yeah it sucked to lose," she said. "But I thought ‘I’ll lose this battle to win the war.’ Poland was the biggest game-changer for me. It just gave me clarity.”

That vision led to training in Arizona with an emphasis on strength.

Meanwhile, social media trolls messaged that she was washed up. That she didn’t look like herself since the concussions.

“But you don’t see what I see,” she said.

Maroulis isn't sure about her future in wrestling. She loves the sports, obviously. Loves where her form is at. But she’ll need another sign.

God gave her a promise about the 2020 Games, she said, the day after her winning gold in Rio.

“If I didn’t have that, I would have quit so many times throughout this whole quad. I really held onto that. I know I made a commitment,” she says.

“I’m taking a lot of things back with me,” she added. “Including a medal.”

Follow Chris Bumbaca on Twitter @BOOMbaca.

Olympics: Namibia’s sprinters highlight a flawed testosterone testing system

Beatrice Masilingi (left) celebrates with her Namibian teammate and silver medal winner Christine Mboma at the Tokyo Olympic Games. Ryan Pierse/Getty Images

August 6, 2021 10.17am EDT

Namibian athletes Christine Mboma and Beatrice Masilingi began to make headlines in 2021 for their exceptional 400-meter sprint times. In July, it was confirmed that the 18-year-old athletes had been barred from the 400m event at the Tokyo Olympics because of too-high natural testosterone levels according to World Athletics’ track and field rules. (The rules don’t apply to the 200-meter sprint and they both qualified for this, with Mboma finishing second.) This ongoing ‘sex testing’ controversy also dashed South African star Caster Semenya’s hopes of defending her 800-meter Olympic title. Dr Nana Adom-Aboagye from the Centre for Sport Leadership at Maties Sport (Stellenbosch University) researches African women and gender equity in sport. We asked her what issues the tests raise for African athletes.

What are the testosterone rules?

Testosterone testing in sport is about gender verification. Gender verification of female athletes lends itself to the ongoing and rigid framework of socially constructed expectations about physiological sex.

To break it down, testosterone is a naturally occurring hormone, a chemical affecting the body’s growth and development. Testosterone is associated with males, but men and women all have varying levels of testosterone. In recent years, discussions around the perceived advantage of high testosterone levels and their perceived impact on performance has placed the spotlight on female athletes in particular.

World Athletics (formerly the International Amateur Athletics Federation or IAAF) responded by designing rules (updated in 2018) to deal with the dilemma presented by female athletes who were born with testosterone levels higher than the typical female range. These athletes are banned from competing at certain events unless they agree to artificially lower their testosterone through medication or surgery, an option for which there is currently no scientific data on the long-term effects.

The real question is how we got here. The debate and push for testosterone rules started over a decade ago, when a few within the athletics (track and field) fraternity started raising questions as to what it means to be ‘female’ and ‘a woman’ in sport. This has led to a fractious period, seemingly spearheaded by World Athletics, where, based on masculine-seeming features and good performances, women are being singled out and subjected to sex testing in order to verify their sex. Some of these women have naturally high occurring testosterone levels, such as the Namibian athletes. Others, like Caster Semenya, soon learn that they have Differences of Sexual Development – called DSD – and are considered intersex.

How have the rules impacted African women athletes?

There have been claims that high testosterone occurrence mostly affects women from Africa and South Asia. There is, however, not enough scientific data at present to justify these claims. The appearance of women with high testosterone coming from these areas is likely due to more women from these regions being identified for sex testing by athletics officials.

This raises two issues in particular around which there isn’t clarity and that have not been explored in depth. Firstly, why do testosterone levels seemingly differ among women of different racial groups and different geographic regions? Secondly, why does World Athletics refuse to share their identifying criteria for choosing certain female athletes over others when they enforce sex testing?

World Athletics also uses what some scholars and scientists deem to be flawed criteria in identifying which particular events should be included in a ban. This issue becomes even more strained and contentious as scholars and scientists – such as South Africa’s world renowned sports scientist Ross Tucker – challenge that high testosterone alone cannot justify ‘unfair’ advantage among elite sportswomen. Tucker argues that the current debates around high levels of testosterone in female athletes is a complex issue that will challenge the scientific community with respect to ethical merits versus sound research. There is insufficient scientific proof supporting current testosterone rules.

Read more: Do naturally high testosterone levels equal stronger female athletic performance? Not necessarily

What this has led to, is the appearance of World Athletics ‘targeting’ African women, based on their supposed masculine features, once they start excelling on the global stage. It seems especially true if they are from developing countries or marginalised backgrounds.
So this is also a human rights issue?

It is a human rights violation because many of these women – and, recently, young girls – are being subjected to public scrutiny and often ridiculed by sectors of society that do not know better. These females are either being forced into testing or not told what they are being tested for. This means, ethically, they have not given consent. All of this in order to justify their existence. And once their ‘advantages’ have been publicly shared, they are forced to alter their natural genetic make up, change athletics events or give up on athletics altogether, which many have chosen to do. This not only impacts on their means of earning a living, but on their mental health as well. All of this goes against the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The perceived infringement on basic human rights and the legal implications and breach by World Athletics’ testosterone rules led Professor Steve Cornelius from the University of Pretoria to tender his resignation as a member of the World Athletics (then IAAF) Disciplinary Tribunal. He went on to join Semenya’s legal team in challenging the regulations.

Read more: Sex testing at the Olympics should be abolished once and for all
What needs to be done about it?

The case of Beatrice Masilingi and Christine Mboma, the latest and youngest females to be targeted by this issue, just before the greatest moment in their careers, is indicative of a need for changes in sport, especially in World Athletics. Instead of having their performances heralded in the women’s 200-meter final, global headlines are focusing on whether or not they should be allowed to be who they are.

What is needed, urgently, is a collective stand by African sport practitioners, scientists and scholars in lobbying the current issue as a political agenda. This could lead to much needed state support and involvement in challenging the direction that sporting history seems to be taking. A unified and lobbied approach from Africa, with government support, could highlight the urgency needed in requesting that the issue of testosterone levels in women’s sport be explored in depth by a multidisciplinary, independent and representative team.

Education is also needed on what it truly means to have high levels of testosterone as a woman in (elite) sport. Through public education people become aware of the science of the issue, the human rights involved, and what is truly fair and unfair in sport. African sport can contribute towards hearing the voices of African female athletes in order for change to happen for future generations.

A webinar titled Testosterone & Women’s Sport: An Understanding and Way Forward for Africa will be co-hosted by the author on 18 August 2021. To register, email nadom-aboagye@sun.ac.za

Author

Nana Adom - Aboagye
Postdoctoral research fellow, Stellenbosch University

Disclosure statement
Nana Adom - Aboagye does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Partners
Stellenbosch University provides funding as a partner of The Conversation AFRICA.

A Decisive Victory for the Most Important Coastal Law You’ve Never Heard of

Audubon won a lawsuit to prevent sand mining on protected beaches and plans to expand this powerful policy.


By Jessica GrannisInterim Vice President, Coastal Conservation, National Audubon Society
August 06, 2021

Birds in This Story
Piping Plover
Latin: Charadrius melodus
peeplo calls



Greater Yellowlegs

Latin: Tringa melanoleuca
song

Greater Yellowlegs. Photo: Melissa James/Audubon Photography Awards
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Write to your legislators today and ask them to support the Sustaining America’s Fisheries for the Future Act.
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Last month, we received some exciting news for birds and communities on our coasts. One year since Audubon filed suit against the Trump Administration’s illegal rule to allow sand mining on beaches protected by the Coastal Barrier Resources Act, the Biden Administration reversed this rule.

This is a crucial victory to keep our pristine, undeveloped beaches intact, where they provide a home for coastal birds and a buffer for nearby communities from storm surges and rising seas. But if you’ve never heard of the decades-old Coastal Barrier Resources Act (CBRA) or why it’s so important, you’re not alone.

The CBRA is a little-known, bipartisan law, signed by President Reagan in 1982, and upheld by every presidential administration since then. It protects one of our nation’s most unique and important resources—the long, continuous chain of barrier islands and the associated beaches and wetlands that line the Atlantic Coast, the Gulf of Mexico, Great Lakes, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The CBRA System includes national treasures like Assateague Island and Cape Hatteras, known for their huge, sprawling sand dunes and unique wildlife.

The way this law protects coastal habitats is supported not just by environmentalists but by fiscal conservatives too. It uses a market-based approach, withdrawing nearly all federal investments to discourage development in vulnerable coastal areas. That means no federally-backed flood insurance, disaster recovery grants, or other uses of federal subsidies. Over a 25-year period, researchers estimated that the CBRA has saved U.S. taxpayers $9.5 billion, and the law is projected to save between $11-109 billion over the next 50 years.

For decades, the CBRA also prevented removal or mining of sand from areas protected by the law to nourish beaches outside of the CBRA System. The drafters of the law recognized that beach nourishment—replacing sand on a beach after it has washed away—would be an expensive and never-ending undertaking in these highly dynamic, storm-prone areas of our coast. And for decades, Republican and Democratic administrations alike enforced these restrictions.

But in 2019, Trump’s Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt broke the law when he abruptly reversed this long-standing policy. Just six days after he received a letter from three Members of Congress asking him to “correct” the law, he illegally authorized sand to be taken from CBRA-protected areas, allowing the destabilization and erosion of America’s important barrier islands.

Audubon had to fight back to protect these important places birds and people rely on.

Birds like the threatened Piping Plover need these undeveloped beaches to nest and raise their young free from human and predator disturbance. In the sheltered waters behind barrier islands, marshes and lagoons provide nurseries for economically important fisheries and improve water quality.

The Bernhardt rule also put coastal communities in jeopardy. Sand mining destabilizes healthy barrier islands that serve as a nature’s “speed bumps,” breaking down the dangerous winds and waves of hurricanes before they reach the mainland. Audubon’s own research shows that Lea-Hutaff Island in North Carolina provides $12.3 million in annual storm protection and other environmental benefits, and will contribute over $278 million in total ecosystem benefits over 35 years.

Barrier islands like those protected by the Coastal Barrier Resources Act act as natural infrastructure, protecting mainland communities from the effects of coastal storms and sea-level rise. Photo: Julie Rossman/Audubon

Barrier islands are meant to shift and migrate over time. Taking sand from protected, undeveloped barrier islands starves them of the precious sediments they need to rebuild and replenish themselves and diminishes their inherent resilience. And when the sand is transported outside the System to renourish developed beaches, researchers have shown that much of the sand is carried offshore and lost to the sea.

Coastal communities have other options. Some towns have instituted fees to pay for their own beach nourishment projects. To access federal funds, many communities have used sand from offshore sites. But the CBRA is clear: a cheaper source of sand should not come at the expense of nationally important ecosystems and the communities and wildlife that depend on them.

Audubon was lucky to have several partners in support of our lawsuit to defend the CBRA, with representation from nonprofit legal organization Democracy Forward as well as a “friend of the court” brief from the fiscal conservatives at the R Street Institute. Last month, in response to our lawsuit, new leadership at the Department of Interior issued a legal memorandum rescinding the illegal Bernhardt rule. With this full-throated rebuttal of the harmful sand mining rule, the parties agreed to dismiss the lawsuit. By reinstating the full protections of the CBRA, the Biden Administration has sided with common sense and environmental protection and followed the letter of this Reagan-era law.

But our work doesn’t stop there. The CBRA does not yet protect the rocky shores, sandy beaches and other important coastal habitats along the Pacific Coast. It also needs to be expanded to include upland areas where beaches and marshes can migrate to naturally adapt to rising sea levels. Without the space to move inland, we stand to lose many of our important coastal habitats that birds rely on.

Riding on the wave of this recent victory, Audubon will continue working hard to protect and expand the important coastal habitats protected by the CBRA, as well as the birds and people who depend on them.