- Mongabay’s videos from June show communities in Mexico and Jordan taking up landscape restoration and reforestation projects to protect native ecosystems, and how a group of Indigenous women in the U.S. have started farming sugar kelp to fix nitrogen pollution.
- Mongabay series Problem Solved explored technology in conservation to protect endangered species from extinction. Another Mongabay series Candid Animal Cam gives us a glimpse into the lives and habits of the black bears in North America.
- Get a peek into the various segments of the environment across the globe. Add these videos to your watchlist for the month and watch them for free on YouTube.
In June, Mongabay saw how communities across the world are continuing to take things into their own hands and restore landscapes surrounding them. Watch stories from three different countries with vastly different landscapes — or seascape, in one case — where the local people are restoring native ecologies. In Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula coast, a group of women are reforesting the mangrove forests. Meanwhile, environmentalists and volunteers in Jordan have adapted a Japanese practice to reforest small patches of land in Amman. In Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast, the fishing community is fighting an invasive fish to protect their native reefs and ecosystems.
In India, sustainable solutions are on the rise. Farmers in Assam state have a new successful answer for the rampant human-elephant conflict that won’t hurt the pachyderm: lemon trees. In a very different field, students studying fashion are learning about and trying out eco-friendly and ethical textiles more suited to the country.
Mongabay series Problem Solved explored conservation technology created to save endangered species from extinction and how well they can solve the problem. Through another series Candid Animal Cam, host Romi Castagnino shows us and talks about the black bears of North America.
Mongabay-India covered the issues involved in solar energy, such as the lack of solar energy utilization in the Sundarbans and untapped solar power from rooftops in Bengaluru city, and the possible solutions to these issues.
Add these videos to your watchlist for the month and watch them for free on Mongabay’s YouTube channel.
Meet Tela Troge, from the first Indigenous-owned kelp farm on the United States’ East Coast
A group of women of the Shinnecock Nation manage the first Indigenous-owned kelp farm on the United States’ East Coast. The people of the Shinnecock Nation have lived on Shinnecock Bay, on the east end of Long Island, New York, since the end of the last Ice Age. But overdevelopment on unceded tribal land is leading to nitrogen pollution, which is killing marine life. The Shinnecock Kelp Farm is farming sugar kelp (Saccharina latissima) in hopes that it will absorb some of the water’s excess nitrogen.
Read more: ‘The return of land to Indigenous people is key’: Q&A with Shinnecock Kelp Farm’s Tela Troge
Farmers in Assam, India, use biofences to ward off elephants
Farmers living in Assam have had negative encounters with migrating elephants for over a decade. Famers have begun using lemon trees to keep elephant at bay. The lemon trees serve a dual purpose – the thorns of the lemon trees act as a barrier against elephants, and the produce of lemons adds to the farmers’ earnings.
Read more: Fences of lemon trees keep elephants away from Assam farmers’ crops and homes
RESTORATION EFFORTS BY COMMUNITIES
Pez León: How unlicensed fishers in Costa Rica are helping to control invasive lionfish
Artisanal fishers on Costa Rica’s southern Caribbean coast have been operating in a legal gray area since 2005, when the government ordered a freeze on fishing licenses pending a study on fishing sustainability. Now, however, they’ve come back into favor, thanks to their efforts to tackle the explosive growth of an invasive species: the red lionfish. The lionfish has no natural predators in these waters, and its proliferation threatens commercially important species such as snapper, lobster and shrimp.
Read more: In Costa Rica, unlicensed fishers and regulators unite over a common enemy
Meet Keila Vazquez, a restorer recovering mangroves in Mexico.
Las Chelemeras is a group of 18 women in the Mexican port town of Chelem who, since 2010, have worked to restore and protect their local mangrove forests on the northern coast of the Yucatán Peninsula. To date, they have contributed to the reforestation of approximately 50 hectares (124 acres) of mangroves, accounting for half of Chelem’s forest cover.
Read more: Dig, dump, repeat, then watch the forest grow: Q&A with mangrove restorer Keila Vazquez
How an ancient Japanese technique is helping to restore native flora in Amman, Jordan
Since 2018, a Jordanian architect and a Japanese environmentalist have planted three tiny forests in Amman, Jordan. These are some of the first forests in the Middle East to be designed according to the Miyawaki method, a technique for growing mature forests in a matter of decades at virtually any scale. In a country with just 0.03% tree cover and where tree planting is increasingly popular but knowledge about native vegetation is scattered, the effort involved extensive research and experimentation to identify and propagate native plants.
Read more: In Jordan, the Middle East’s first Miyawaki-style ‘baby’ forests take root
SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS
Farm to Fashion: How India’s institutions are integrating sustainability in curriculum
NIFT Bhubaneswar adapted the ‘Farm to Fashion’ concept in 2013, to integrate sustainable fashion into its curriculum. The textile industry, which is one of the top polluting industries globally, is currently experimenting with natural raw materials and dyes to switch to eco-friendly and ethical fashion.
Read more: Farm to Fashion: How national institutions are integrating sustainability in curriculum
PROBLEM SOLVED
Can technology help us protect species?
During what scientists are calling the Sixth Mass Extinction, animals are going extinct at roughly 1,000 times above the natural rate. Humans are largely to blame, and time is running out to save them. Species monitoring technology can help us keep track of land-based species and facilitate the establishment of protected areas, but it’s expensive and time-consuming. However, three pieces of conservation technology could help speed up this process, and at a much lower cost, according to a study.
Read more: Can conservation technology help save our rapidly disappearing species? | Problem Solved
CANDID ANIMAL CAM
The smallest bear in North America
Episode 65 of Candid Animal Cam brings you the smallest species of the three bear species found in North America: the black bear!
SOLAR ENERGY IN INDIA
Why is Sundarbans failing to harness solar energy?
Once powered mostly by solar energy, the islands in India’s Sundarbans are now home to about two dozen abandoned solar micro-grids. The micro-grids powered houses, markets, and even offices. Between 1996 and 2006, the West Bengal Renewable Energy Development Authority (WBREDA) installed 17 solar power plants with a cumulative installed capacity of 872.5 kilowatts (kW), and more were added to the list thereafter. But locals allege that none of the solar micro-grids functions today.
Read more: How the Sundarbans missed an opportunity to harness solar energy
Why rooftop solar is struggling in Bengaluru, India
Bengaluru has a high potential for generating electricity through rooftop solar but much of it remains untapped. The uncertainty associated with rooftop solar and its payoffs deters people from investing in rooftop solar. Additionally, poor policy support is holding back the city’s ambitions. Growing research on the financial returns from investing in rooftop solar and early adopters exhibiting some amount of cost savings shows some hope for tapping the potential of rooftop solar in Bengaluru.
MONGABAY WEBINARS
[Webinar] Can decentralised solutions empower India’s energy transition?
Decentralised renewable energy solutions – mainly led by solar power – are silently emerging as a game-changer in the rural energy setup in India. In India’s hinterlands and small and growing cities, companies and institutions are developing and customising decentralised renewable energy solutions to tackle everyday problems. Mongabay-India’s ninth Clean Energy Talks webinar explored the role of decentralised energy in India’s energy transition journey and how it is shaping India’s rural economy.
Banner image: A herd of elephants in a paddy field in Assam, India. Image by Kasturi Das for Mongabay.