Consumed traces the life cycle of a variety of common consumer products from their origins, across supply chains, and waste streams. The circular economy is an attempt to lessen the pace and impact of consumption through efforts to reduce demand for raw materials by recycling wastes, improve the reusability/durability of products to limit pollution, and […]
Two tropical cyclones have barreled through Asia, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people in the Philippines and India.
Severe tropical storm Trami (local name Kristine) triggered heavy rainfall as it made landfall in the Philippines in the early hours of Oct. 24. It caused widespread flooding and landslides as it rampaged through the country, leaving at least 46 people dead as of the morning of Oct. 25. Many casualties were people who drowned in badly hit provinces.
A government report said 3.3 million people are affected, with almost half a million people forced to seek shelter in evacuation centers or with family and friends. Hundreds of cities and towns experienced power interruptions and thousands of port passengers were stranded.
The latest government weather bulletin as of 5 p.m. on Oct. 25 showed that Trami has sustained winds of up to 95 kilometers per hour (59 miles per hour) and gusts of up to 115 kph (32 mph). It exited the Philippines on Oct. 25 afternoon, but the state weather bureau said Trami might “loop” over the sea west of the Philippines on Oct. 27 and 28 and possibly return to land, depending on the behavior of a tropical cyclone east of the country.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in a speech on Oct. 25 promised assistance for those affected by the storm. “Unfortunately, Kristine is just a sample of how frequent our storms and cyclones have become. [Intense cyclones] used to be a hundred-year occurrence [but are] now happening at greater frequency and ferocity due to climate change,” he said.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources also wrote that the storm “underscore[s] the links between climate change and extreme weather, affecting our communities and ecosystems.”
In a statement, Greenpeace called the tropical storm “the third highly devastating weather event to batter the country this year.”
Meanwhile, India’s eastern states were pummeled by severe cyclonic storm Dana as it moved inland from the Bay of Bengal early on the morning of Oct. 25. Dana flooded coastal areas and triggered storm surges 1.15 meters (3.75 feet) high. It uprooted trees, snapped power lines and damaged agricultural lands as heavy rainfall inundated affected areas.
Reports say more than a million people have been evacuated, while numerous trains and flights have been canceled. India’s government said it has set up cyclone centers and deployed rescue and medical teams.
The India Meteorological Department reported on the morning of Oct. 25 that Dana had wind speeds of 100-110 kph (62-68 mph) and gusts of up to 120 kph (74 mph). It was expected to weaken into a storm by noon of the same day.
An Associated Press report cited climate scientists saying that intense storms are forecast to become more frequent in South Asia due to climate change.
Banner image of tropical storm Trami via PAGASA.
Polar bears are suffering paw injuries likely driven by the warming Arctic: Study
Mongabay.com25 Oct 2024
What’s new
At least two populations of polar bears in the high Arctic are developing paw injuries, possibly because of shifting sea ice conditions in a warming environment, according to a new study. Such injuries have not been reported in these areas previously, the study’s authors write.
What the study says
Between 2012 and 2022, researchers studied two populations of polar bears (Ursus maritimus) in the high Arctic. They tranquilized several bears to record their age, sex, reproductive status and health.
During the health checkups, the scientists observed various injuries on the bears’ footpads, including cuts, hair loss, skin ulcerations and ice buildup. In two severe cases, the adult bears had thick ice blocks, 30 centimeters (1 foot) in diameter, stuck to their paw pads and surrounding fur, causing deep, bleeding cuts. “The two most-affected bears couldn’t run — they couldn’t even walk very easily,” lead author Kristin Laidre, a scientist at the University of Washington, U.S., said in a statement. “[T]he chunks of ice weren’t just caught up in the hair. They were sealed to the skin, and when you palpated the feet it was apparent that the bears were in pain.”
The researchers write that such injuries “have not been observed during previous research in these areas or reported in the scientific literature.” The scientists also interviewed 22 Indigenous subsistence hunters from the region who said they, too, had not observed such injuries until recently.
The study’s authors speculate that the warming Arctic could be contributing to the bears’ paw injuries. Increased rain-on-snow events, when rain falls on existing snow, causes snow to melt more quickly. Wet snow could be clumping on the bears’ paws, then refreezing into solid balls of ice as temperatures fall. Warming is also causing the surface snow to melt, then refreeze into hard crust when the temperature drops again. Heavy polar bears, while walking, might be breaking through the crust and slicing their paws on the sharp edges. Local hunters reported similar conditions lead to paw injuries in their sled dogs.
Why it matters
The researchers say they’re unsure how the injuries will affect polar bear populations, but they speculate the injuries could reduce the bears’ “ability to hunt and travel successfully.”
Recent research suggests the Arctic is warming nearly four times faster than the global average. Winter warming and rain-on-snow events have also been increasing as a result, the authors write. Continued warming will likely create “challenging surface conditions for polar bears to travel on” and make the polar bears, which are considered vulnerable to extinction, more prone to injuries, they add.
Banner image of rear paws of a polar bear with large chunks of ice frozen onto its feet. Image courtesy of Kristin Laidre/University of Washington.
NGO takes on BlackRock over ‘sustainable’ funds that prop up oil majors
Kristine Sabillo25 Oct 2024
Environment law NGO ClientEarth has filed a complaint against asset management giant BlackRock with France’s financial markets authority for allegedly misnaming multiple retail investment funds as “sustainable.”
In its complaint to the French regulator, the AMF, ClientEarth said 18 of BlackRock’s actively managed retail investment funds provided in France included the term “sustainable” in their names but “each of the target funds has material exposure to fossil fuel companies that are developing new fossil fuel projects or capacity; and/or are not phasing out fossil fuel production consistently with the Paris Agreement temperature goals.” Retail investment funds include mutual funds designed for individual investors.
“Recent research has confirmed that greenwashing is rife among ‘sustainable’ investment funds marketed in Europe — funds which despite their name are heavily exposed to fossil fuel expansion,” ClientEarth lawyer Robert Clarke told Mongabay in an email. “This is undoubtedly a systemic issue for the integrity of financial markets in the EU and globally, but it also raises legal issues for specific investment funds and their management companies.”
Twelve of BlackRock’s funds hold investments in one or more of the world’s biggest fossil fuel companies, such as TotalEnergies, ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Eni, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Equinor, according to ClientEarth’s complaint. “Their development activities make these companies some of the most climate-damaging in the world,” it said.
ClientEarth noted that two of BlackRock’s funds, the BGF Sustainable Global Infrastructure Fund and the BGF Sustainable Energy Fund, are in breach of the European Union’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation requirements.
The NGO said it will also notify the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), an independent regulatory agency of the EU. ESMA’s guidelines on funds, ClientEarth said, address the risk that “misleading sustainability disclosures” could lead to greenwashing, and focus on particularly funds that use “sustainability-related terms in their names.”
Asked to respond to ClientEarth’s claims, a BlackRock spokesperson told Mongabay via email, “Our funds are managed in accordance with their investment objectives, that are clearly disclosed in each fund’s prospectus and on BlackRock’s website. BlackRock’s sustainable funds are managed in line with applicable regulations governing sustainable investing.”
Clarke said BlackRock’s response shows the asset manager has “a different understanding of the applicable legal rules.”
“The marketing of these funds breaches regulation that requires investor communication to be ‘clear, fair and not misleading’for the reasons set out in the complaint,” he said.
ClientEarth said it hopes the AMF will clarify “that investment in fossil fuel expansion is not ‘sustainable’” and for BlackRock to change its language when marketing its investments.
BlackRock is the largest asset management company in the world and the second-largest institutional investor in fossil fuels. So “enforcement against BlackRock by the French financial watchdog in response to this complaint, and/or a change in marketing practices by BlackRock, could have a knock-on effect on conduct by other investment managers and in other financial markets,” Clarke said.
Banner image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.
Cambodia’s once-massive national park continues to lose its forest
Shreya Dasgupta24 Oct 2024
One of Cambodia’s largest protected areas, Botum Sakor National Park, continues to lose tree cover, recent satellite data show.
Officially designated as a national park in 1993, Botum Sakor initially covered more than 182,000 hectares (450,000 acres) of evergreen, semi-evergreen and mangrove forests. Older surveys from the 1990s and 2000s show that the park was historically home to numerous wildlife, including the critically endangered Sunda pangolin (Manis javanica), and the pileated gibbon (Hylobates pileatus).
Today, Botum Sakor National Park (BSNP) is a whisper of the expansive old-growth forest it once was. From 2002 to 2023, the national park lost 30% of humid primary forest within the park’s originally designated limits, according to the Global Forest Watch (GFW) monitoring platform.
Much of the clearing has been a result of the Cambodian government handing off parcels of BSNP to tycoons closely aligned with the longtime ruling party, Mongabay has previously reported. On these concessions, the government has permitted a range of development activities, from commercial crop plantations like acacia and oil palm to hotels and infrastructure for tourism and energy projects. The Cambodian government has privatized more than 158,000 hectares (390,000 acres) of the originally designated park as of August 2023.
Recent preliminary satellite data on GFW show that between July and October 2024, there was further deforestation within the park’s boundaries, both within the concessions and inside the last remaining tracts of intact forest.
For instance, GFW recorded recent deforestation within concessions granted to the Royal Group, Cambodia’s largest conglomerate, owned by businessman Kith Meng.
The group recently received two substantial concessions in what used to be intact primary forest. In 2021, the Royal Group was granted an 8,631-hectare (21,328-acre) concession to build a special economic zone (SEZ), which was quickly followed by a spate of deforestation alerts recorded on the GFW platform, Mongabay’s Gerald Flynn reported. In 2023, the Royal Group received an additional 9,968 hectares (24,631 acres) next to the first concession, covering “a wide expanse of mostly untouched primary forest.”
The latest deforestation alerts suggest notable clearing within the new concession in the last few months. Satellite data and imagery also show recent tree cover loss within the adjoining primary forest still designated as part of BSNP.
Considerable deforestation alerts also show up in and around a concession granted to the LYP Kiri Sakor Koh Kong Special Economic Zone in 2008, located in BSNP’s northwest. Ly Yong Phat, the eponymous owner of the LYP string of businesses, was recently sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for involvement in human trafficking and cybercrimes.
Mongabay couldn’t confirm the underlying causes of these latest deforestation alerts, however, conservationists say they’re worried the rapid privatization and the ongoing loss of forest cover may not bode well for the future of the national park and its wildlife.
Near-extinct North Atlantic right whales get a small population boost
Shanna Hanbury24 Oct 2024
The population of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale increased by five individuals, bringing the estimated total to 372 in 2023, according to an Oct. 22 report.
The North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) population has declined since 2011. However, the slight rise in recent years may signal some stability for these ocean giants, which can grow up to 16 meters (52 feet) in length and weigh as much as 63 metric tons, but they remain on the edge of extinction as threats to their survival, such as fishing and ocean traffic, persist.
“To see the population estimate increasing gives us hope that what felt like a free fall over the past decade may be behind us,” Heather Pettis, chair of the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium that produced the report, said in a statement.
A bit over a decade ago, in 2011, the North Atlantic right whale population was estimated at around 483, but by 2020 it had plummeted to 358. More than a fourth of the population was lost mostly to human-induced deaths such as ship strikes and entanglements with fishing gear.
More than 80% of North Atlantic right whales have been entangled in fishing gear at least once in their lives, researchers found in a 2018 survey. But death isn’t the only risk: the stress and extra energy from entanglement reduces the likelihood that a female will successfully give birth. Many more surviving whales have visible scars.
“We are losing right whales at unsustainable rates and unfortunately, annual calving rates remain under the necessary threshold to grow the population,” wrote Kathleen Collins, the senior marine campaign manager at the International Fund for Animal Welfare. “A lasting recovery is impossible if current trends and mounting threats continue. This population of whales is unhealthy, stressed, and unable to save themselves,” she added.
Scientists detected 11 calves born in 2023, but for the species to fully recover, there need to be 50 or more calves born every year. To reach this number, the female whales need to be alive and healthy. While North Atlantic right whales can live up to 70 years, females currently reach an average age of 45.
Reducing entanglement and vessel strike risk by 25% halves the probability of quasi-extinction (a scenario where a species is doomed to extinction if there aren’t enough reproducing females to recover the species) in 100 years, a recent study found.
Whale researchers and conservationists point to measures such as introducing speed restrictions along the coast to reduce vessel strikes and deploying ropeless fishing gear to reduce injury and death for North Atlantic right whales.
Banner image: A right whale called Juno and calf sighted off Cane Island, South Carolina, U.S., on Nov. 28, 2023. Image courtesy of Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute, taken under NOAA permit #26919.
Researchers track koalas using innovative airborne DNA detection tool
Kristine Sabillo24 Oct 2024
What’s new: Researchers have successfully detected the presence of koalas and other threatened wildlife species using new tools that allow easy collection of airborne environmental DNA, according to a recent study.
What the study says:
It’s often difficult, time-consuming and expensive to collect data and observe threatened wildlife like koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus), small marsupials that live high up on eucalyptus trees in Australia. So researchers recently tested out a new strategy: capturing environmental DNA (eDNA), invisible traces of DNA that an animal sheds into the environment via fur or fluids as it moves through its habitat.
To collect airborne eDNA, the researchers created simple air filters using layers of sterile cheesecloth. They then deployed 52 of these filters at four locations with long-term koala presence in Queensland state, Australia. In parallel, the researchers carried out regular surveys to detect the animals visually.
The researchers detected the eDNA of 11 mammal species in the filtered air samples: from native wildlife like koalas, swamp wallabies (Wallabia bicolor) and ring-tailed possums (Pseudocheirus occidentalis), to invasive species like red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) and black rats (Rattus rattus), to domesticated animals like pigs, horses and dogs. Seven of these species, including dogs, foxes, pigs, horses and cows, were not detected during the visual surveys.
The researchers say in the paper that airborne eDNA not only helped them detect threatened species like the koala, but also helped them identify “potential biodiversity threats” and “problematic, invasive species.” For koalas in particular, dogs are known threats while rats, foxes and hares are considered invasive species in that habitat.
What this means:
While researchers have established tools to capture eDNA in aquatic ecosystems over the past two decades, the authors write that similar tools for land-based systems are still emerging. The airborne system used in the study shows promising results, they add.
Celine Frere, lead author of the study and associate professor at the University of Queensland’s School of the Environment, said in a statement that their noninvasive, scalable and “easy-to-deploy airborne eDNA collection tools can detect the presence of multiple wildlife species … at a fraction of the cost.”
“This technology can significantly improve the detection and tracking of endangered species, aiding in conservation efforts and the development of effective management strategies,” Frere said. “We are now working on to develop toolkits for other Australian threatened species, like gliders [Petaurus spp.].”
Banner image of a koala by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.
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