A pilot with the Chilean government and the IDBs Natural Capital Lab, funded by IDB Lab and EIT Climate-KIC, OpenSurface uses authoritative land records in conjunction with satellite imagery and ground- sourced data to help prioritise resource allocation. The platform combines fourth-generation technologies such as artificial intelligence, secure ledgers, remote sensing, and the internet of things to automatically compare planned, authorised activities with how forests are actually being managed or depleted. It then intelligently alerts staff at CONAF (Corporacin Nacional Forestal) whenever and wherever the two diverge.

According to the special report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), emissions from agriculture, forestry, and land clearing make up around one quarter of the worlds greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Improvements in land management could not only offer drastic cuts in global emissions, but also enhance agricultural sustainability, improve food security, and safeguard biodiversity.

OpenSurface stands for next-generation digital MRV in land management. Outcomes can be linked to alerts or payments creating accurate, timely, and automated services for different stakeholders, says Nick Beglinger, CEO of Cleantech21, the foundation that brought the OpenSurface team, winners of Hack4Climate at COP23 in Bonn, together.

This can scale globally, making monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) more effective and affordable than ever before. This allows for new levels of trust between governments, companies and projects internationally, continues Patrick Brgi, Co-founder of South Pole, a global climate solutions provider and the Executing Agency behind the multi-partner international initiative that gave rise to OpenSurface. It can be a platform for exploring new ways to integrate diverse data sources, and new kinds of cooperation the more data, the greater the possibilities.

This is an exciting project for CONAF, and indeed for Chiles natural capital and climate commitments. Its a great opportunity and we are looking forward to using this pioneering technology to improve the monitoring of forest activities, says Jose Antonio Prado Donoso, Head of the Chilean governments Climate Change and Environmental Services Unit. The OpenSurface platform will be an important tool to reduce deforestation, and particularly forest degradation the main problem affecting native forests in Chile. We hope, and would support and encourage, other governments to join us.

OpenSurface represents real innovation in MRV. It has potential to scale rapidly, and opens the opportunities for better governance, protection and eventual investments into land use and sustainability, says Riyong Kim, Director, Decision Metrics and Finance at EIT Climate-KIC.

Funded by IDB Lab and EIT Climate-KIC, with support from ETH Zurich and initiated by Cleantech21, OpenSurface is a collaboration between an international team of developers and climate experts, including South Pole Carbon Asset Management, DS3 Lab and Scout Impact R&D. Interested parties are invited to get in touch at opensurface.io to collaborate or to become pilot partners.

View post:
OpenSurface land-use tracking platform launches at COP25 - Daily Planet`

IN 1965, AS A MONSOON LASHED the Malaysian island where Tengku Azam's family had lived for more than a half century, his grandfather led them across a lagoon and through a swampy forest to drier ground inland. The tree canopy was thick, and when the family settled about a mile away from their slowly eroding island, they named their new home Dark Landing.

Tengku, who was 17 at the time, had spent his childhood learning about the marine life that swirled around Dark Landing's mangroves and nipa palms. When he retired from fishing as he neared 70, he set up a school to educate local fishermen's children about the same clams, fish, and painted terrapins at which he had once marveled in the lagoon, the ones that had adapted over centuries to its brackish waters. "It's my responsibility to make sure our fishing heritage is protected," Tengku, who has the agility of a man half his age, told me recently on his front porch. (In Malaysia, as in China, names are typically rendered surname first.)

Wetlands in Malaysia's Setiu District

Tengku's ethic of stewardship also spurred him to convince the authorities in his native state of Terengganu to formally protect part of the local wetlands. The result was Setiu Wetlands State Park, which was established in 2018 near the lagoon and the adjacent South China Sea. It is about the size of New York's Central Park and includes both the island where Tengku was born and the mangrove forest through which his grandfather once led the family to Dark Landing.

The park is a small part of what scientists say may be the most ecologically interesting complex of wetlands in Malaysiaone that has faced severe environmental threats for much of Tengku's adulthood. For decades, the Setiu District has experienced a steady encroachment of palm-oil plantations and sand-mining operations as well as upstream logging in the highlands that lie inland from the swamp. All that development has created profits for Malaysian conglomerates and jobs for local workers but has strained the hydrological systems that regulate the delicate balance of fresh and salty water in Setiu's lagoon and estuaries. It has also fueled erosion, both in upstream forests and along a wide sandbar that separates the lagoon from the sea.

The Belt and Road Initiative is so enormous that its impacts could erode the gains that China and other countries have made in recent years in fighting climate change.

Now comes a new threat: a 400-mile, cross-country railroad financed by the Chinese government that is scheduled to cut through Setiu. Biologists say that the railroad would likely disrupt the waters that flow from the mountains into the lagoonin the process potentially pushing the wetlands toward their ecological breaking point. Changes in salinity could kill freshwater flora and fauna, they say, while the reduced water flow could exacerbate erosion on the sandbar, allowing the South China Sea to overwhelm the lagoon.

The multibillion-dollar project, known as the East Coast Rail Link, is one of many that fall within China's Belt and Road Initiative, a colonial-style endeavor that links infrastructure loans with geostrategic diplomacy. The BRI is part of China's larger effort to project its own institutions as alternatives to the Western-led order represented by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Some see the initiative as a 21st-century riposte to the Marshall Plan, the postWorld War II American campaign to finance infrastructure and maintain a US military presence in parts of Europe that were not under Soviet control.

The BRI is deeply rooted in Chinese politics. Since the 1990s, China's economic boom has been driven in part by state-financed investments in domestic infrastructure. Chinese engineers have built the world's largest high-speed rail network, with over 15,000 miles of dedicated track completed since 2008. But as the Chinese economy slows, and as Beijing and Washington square off in a bitter trade war, China's ruling Communist Party is pursuing overseas infrastructure projects as a way to keep domestic business churning.

Tengku Azam is a retired fisherman who spearheaded the effort to create Setiu Wetlands State Park.

It would be difficult to overestimate the BRI's scale. The project, which launched in 2013, could end up involving as many as 125 countries and costing $8 trillion by 2049. Top Chinese officials have described it as a vast network of roads, rail lines, and maritime shipping routes that will radiate outward from China's land and sea borders like a spiderweb. It will eventually include oil and gas pipelines in Myanmar, Russia, and Kazakhstan; highways in Pakistan; a railroad in Kenya; hydropower dams in Cameroon and Zambia; and dozens of other projects across Asia, Africa, and Europe.

The Belt and Road Initiative is so enormous that its impacts could erode the gains that China and other countries have made in recent years in fighting climate change and other pressing environmental problems. China has significantly tightened its domestic environmental laws since the 1990s, and it says that the BRI will hew to the same rules. Yet many Chinese companies apply weaker environmental standards abroad than they do at home, and many conservation experts are skeptical about Beijing's assurances. William Laurance, an authority on the BRI at James Cook University in Australia, wrote that the project is part of a global "tsunami" of infrastructure development that is mostly driven by China. He warns that it threatens to "open a Pandora's box of environmental crises, including large-scale deforestation, habitat fragmentation, wildlife poaching, water pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions."

CHINA'S RISE is the geopolitical story of the 21st century; its infrastructure plans outline the ambitions of a nascent superpower. The Belt and Road Initiative is also a signature of the age of Xi Jinping, the country's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong. He launched it the year after coming to power and has called it the "project of the century."

Amaleea Hayu, a Malaysian shop owner, supports the rail project.

The BRI is designed to speed the movement of goods to and from China while boosting investments by state-affiliated companies in steel plants, coal-fired power stations, and other markers of Beijing's expanding industrial footprint. China also plans to diversify its energy sources and reduce its need to move oil through geopolitical hot spots like the Persian Gulf and the South China Sea.

Malaysia's East Coast Rail Link, scheduled for completion in 2026, fits perfectly into China's larger plans. It will connect two parts of Malaysia that don't have much in commonthe cosmopolitan west and the conservative eastand allow cargo to move from the capital, Kuala Lumpur, toward Kuantan, an eastern port city on the South China Sea. From there, the railroad will head north up the rural east coast, passing Setiu, and end at Malaysia's border with Thailandbut not before stopping at a billion-dollar industrial park in Kuantan that opened in 2017 and is dominated by Chinese companies.

When protected areas are bisected by infrastructure projects, they tend to be vulnerable to secondary threats like poaching and illegal logging.

When China invests in so-called frontier economies like Malaysia's, the parameters of its infrastructure projects are often fixed once they have been financed and approved, said Alex Lechner, a landscape ecologist at the University of Nottingham's Malaysia campus who studies the BRI. "Millions of dollars have been invested, and the environment becomes an obstacle to be overcome," he told me. That may be true for Setiu, where the railroad company's Chinese contractor has already built a giant factory in the swamp. Even Tengku has not been told where the tracks will goor whether the contractor plans to do environmental mitigation in the area.

When protected areas are bisected by infrastructure projects, they tend to be vulnerable to secondary threats like poaching and illegal logging.

Setiu sits along a coastline flanked by tin-roofed homes, wooden fishing boats, and the spires of village mosques. When I visited last summer, the coastal scenes reminded me not of western Malaysia but of rural places I had visited in poorer Southeast Asian countries like Cambodia and Myanmar. The area felt worlds away from Kuala Lumpur's garish high-rises and shopping malls.

Development has already impacted river flows.

A few rail sections were already under construction south of Setiu, mostly in and around the peatlands that run north and south along Malaysia's east coast. It was tempting to think that some of the railroad's obvious economic upsidesconstruction jobs, tourists from Kuala Lumpurwould outweigh its environmental risks. What was the harm in draining a swamp or two?

This is essentially the view of the Malaysian government and the consultancy that it paid to study the railroad's likely environmental impacts. A 138-page summary of a 2017 environmental impact assessment of the railroad's initial route talks at length about how the design would mitigate the fragmentation of forests and wildlife habitats. The word "peat" appears just three times; "swampy" once; "wetland" not at all.

But peatlands, which occur across a vast area of Malaysia, are more complex than they look. The term peatlands refers to both surface wetlands and the porous soil beneath, which forms from dead, waterlogged plants. Because peatlands store groundwater and regulate a wetland's salinity, some scientists liken them to kidneys. The environmental impacts can be substantial when they are drained.

In recent decades, developers across Malaysia have converted peatlands into palm-oil plantations, aquaculture farms, and industrial zones, while logging companies have destabilized upstream watersheds by clearcutting virgin forests. "Per hectare of land, you create more money and jobs than leaving it as a wetland," Edlic Sathiamurthy, a paleohydrologist who studies the watersheds of Malaysia's east coast, told me. "That's always the justification."

Palm oil may have earned Malaysian tycoons billions of dollars, but the peatland conversion process has been linked to severe environmental problems, including land-clearing fires that spew carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and flash flooding triggered by groundwater drainage. Edlic told me that while the East Coast Rail Link might only graze Malaysia's Central Forest Spinea network of protected areas known for their exceptional biodiversitymuch of it would be built in and around peatlands.

The Kuantan Industrial Park is dominated by Chinese companies.

Setiu is particularly vulnerable to the railroad's impacts, Edlic said, because it has a unique topography: peatlands, estuaries, mangroves, and a lagoon with high biological diversity, all jammed onto a narrow plain between the coast and a mountain range. The railroad could disrupt the area's delicate ecological balance to a point of no returneffectively destroying the habitats that once transfixed a young Tengku. "This is a very highly erodible environment," Edlic told me. "Once it gets eroded, we're not talking in terms of years. We're talking in terms of months."

OFFICIALS IN BEIJING SOMETIMES describe the Belt and Road Initiative as a modern variation on the ancient Silk Roadthe trade routes that linked merchants from imperial China to the outside world. The BRI will embody the "Silk Road Spirit," the Chinese government said in a 2015 mission statement. "Reflecting the common ideals and pursuit of human societies," it said, "it is a positive endeavor to seek new models of international cooperation and global governance, and will inject new positive energy into world peace and development."

Or perhaps not. Many economists and development experts say that China is essentially offering cheap infrastructure loans to poorer countries as a type of political coercion. One glaring example is a Sri Lankan port that a state-owned Chinese firm plowed money into despite clear signs that the local government could never afford it. China recently took over the portwhich happens to be strategically placed near India, a geopolitical rivalas debt collateral. The move prompted criticism that Beijing was engaging in a textbook example of "debt-trap diplomacy."

President Xi has denied that the BRI is a vehicle for political coercion or the expansion of the Chinese influence. "The Belt and Road Initiative is an economic cooperation initiative, not a geopolitical or military alliance," he said last year. "It is an open and inclusive process and not about creating exclusive circles or a China club." But whatever one thinks of China's ambitions, one thing is clear: The BRI's giant industrial footprint will be so vast that the environmental costs are bound to be huge.

Evaluating the environmental merits of BRI projects is tricky because many of them are shrouded in secrecy, propaganda, and endless bureaucracy. President Xi has said that he is committed to pursuing BRI projects that support "green, low-carbon, circular, and sustainable" development. Yet while China has made strides recently to flatten its greenhouse gas emissions, some climate experts fear that the BRI's sheer size will inevitably boost resource extraction and fossil fuel consumption. For example, the BRI will intensify dependence on fossil fuels by facilitating the shipment of oil and gas and financing the construction of new coal-fired power plants. Such concerns are especially acute in Southeast Asia, a region with exceptional biodiversity, a growing population, and plans to build hundreds of coal-fired power plants by 2030.

Only locals are permitted to fish in Setiu Wetlands State Park.

Biologists worry that BRI projects will cut through rainforests, peat swamps, and other ecologically sensitive areasa thousand Setiuswithout much consultation with local residents or environmental experts. Road and rail projects around the world have already severely impacted ecologically sensitive areas, and a raft of new BRI projects may push local ecosystems beyond their tipping points, seven environmental scientists wrote recently in the journal Nature Sustainability.

Not every BRI road and railroad will belch coal or destroy pristine rainforests, of course. Yet a recent study in Conservation Biology found that proposed BRI road and rail routes would overlap with biodiversity hot spots for over 4,138 animal and 7,371 plant species across Asia and Africa. That's a problem, because when protected areas are bisected by infrastructure projects, they tend to be vulnerable to secondary threats like poaching and illegal logging.

"A lot of environmental scientists feel like we're at this crossroads," Lechner, the landscape ecologist, told me. "We've got climate change that's out of control and biodiversity loss and land-use change, and in Southeast Asia we have oil palmthere are all these critical things all happening at this critical moment in time. And sometimes you think, 'Do we really need BRI to be adding to that?'"

The risks for environmental harm are particularly rife in countries with high levels of biodiversity and low standards of public transparency. Malaysia is among the most biodiverse places on Earth, and its political elites are almost cartoonishly corruptfor example, Najib Razak, the former prime minister, who first approved the East Coast Rail Link. Months after losing the 2018 election, Najib was charged in connection with a graft scheme in which about $4.5 billion was pilfered from his own government. A witness later testified that Najib had offered the East Coast Rail Link (worth about $16 billion at the time) to Chinese investors as a way to make his other debt problems disappear.

SETIU'S UNIQUE GEOLOGY has been forming since the South China Sea retreated thousands of years ago, leaving lagoons behind as if they were puddles after a rainstorm. Today, the place is an ecological gem: a series of nine interconnected ecosystems spanning sea, beach, mudflat, lagoon, estuary, river, islands, coastal forest, and mangrove forest. Scientific papers speak of Setiu in almost reverent terms. Tengku told me that when he asked the royal family in Terengganu to declare some land near the lagoon a protected area, they agreed almost immediately.

Setiu Wetlands State Park covers about 2 percent of the area's total wetlands and sits within walking distance of Tengku's home in Dark Landing. On a scorching summer day, Tengku walked me through the park, our cheeks brushing the edges of nipa palms. After about 15 minutes, we emerged at the brackish lagoon where he fished for more than a half century.

Tengku told me that he'd always been fascinated by the interdependence of Setiu's ecosystems. The lagoon is a mix of freshwater from the mountains and saltwater that enters through an inlet. Over the centuries, complex communities of fish, turtles, and mollusks have developed routines calibrated to the lagoon's salinity. "If the salinity here changes, the fish won't survive," he said.

As Tengku spoke, one of his neighbors, Panoha Nawi, waded through the water carrying a sack of clams that he had harvested from the lagoon's muddy bottom. He planned to sell his catch in a nearby town for about $12. One condition of the state park's designation was that only local fishers would be allowed to go clamming within the preserve, and Panoha said that the measure had clearly boosted the harvests. "Before, there was too much competition," he said.

Shovel Ready

The Chinese government plans to remodel the globe's architecture. Here's a snapshot.

$50 billionAmount China has already spent on BRI-related energy projects

$1.3 trillionAmount China may invest in Belt and Road countries by 2027

$8 trillionMinimum estimated cost of the BRI by 2049

105,711 milesLength of proposed BRI roads based on current plans

46,876 milesLength of the US interstate highway system

49,989 milesLength of proposed BRI rail lines based on current plans

140,000 milesLength of the US freight rail network

28,278,527Tons of cement it would take to build the proposed BRI rail lines

15%Cement productions current share of Chinas CO2 emissions

46,876 milesLength of the US interstate highway system

91,222Estimated number of protected areas that may be affected by BRI projects

265Estimated number of threatened, endangered, or critically endangered species in planned BRI corridors

Tengku said that if the state park was an example of how the area's delicate ecology could be successfully conserved, everything else that was happening in and around Setiuaquaculture, sand mining, palm-oil cultivationunderscored the threats to its future. Investors may have spent money on those activities to turn a profit, he added. "But they didn't really see into the future."

The next day, Tengku took me to see the threats. Our first stop was the shores of the South China Sea, where a local sand-mining company had built an export pier. From a distance, and through the early-morning haze, the sand-loading site looked innocuous. But the company, Terengganu Silica, has said that it can load 800 tons of sand per hour. Tengku said he worried where all that sand would come from.

From the beach, we drove a few miles inland, to a jetty on the lagoon where a fishing boat had just come in from the sea. As a heavy rain started, Tengku stood under an open-air shelter watching the fishermen unload their catch. A storm had forced them to come in early, and their haularound 44 poundswas about a quarter of what it might have been on a big day.

Ibnur Sirien, a 22-year-old fisherman on the boat, said that most of his friends had already migrated to Malaysian cities as laborers; he had stayed behind partly because his father owns the boat. Echoing a scientific consensus, Ibnur told me that the South China Sea fishery has been steadily declining in recent years. "But there's not much other work here," he said.

Our next stop was farther inland. Tengku stopped his 4x4 truck at a bridge that crossed a stream, then clambered down a bank and stood, shin deep, in the current. The stream once ran several feet higher and much cleaner at this time of year. But a few years ago, he said, a company cut the local cashew trees and replaced them with a palm-oil plantation, lowering the surface-water flow and quality. And because the stream emptied into the lagoon, the impacts were felt miles away. "The pollution here affects the whole ecosystem," he said.

Surface-water pollution isn't the only consideration. Hydrologists study "base flow," a measure of how much water seeps into a stream or river from below. It's a wonky term, and one that isn't mentioned in the environmental report on the East Coast Rail Link. But base flow matters in a place like Setiu because groundwater beneath peatlands helps to maintain surface-water salinity. And, as Tengku said, fish don't like changes in their habitat.

Edlic, the paleohydrologist, told me that because Setiu sits on a narrow coastal plain, the railroad will have to pass through it one way or another. The key question, he said, is whether the developer will pay to elevate the train tracks on stilts that extend to bedrock. The cheaper option would be to build directly on the peatlands, further impeding the base flow that moves freshwater from the mountains into Tengku's favorite lagoon. "It all depends on how they actually do the construction," Edlic said.

POWERFUL CIVILIZATIONSRome and Persia and ancient China itselfhave always built roads and other infrastructure as a way to bolster their traders and militaries. One of history's biggest infrastructure builders has been the United States, which has projected its geopolitical agenda through its controlling stakes in the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which finance road, rail, and hydropower projects across the developing world.

Shovel Ready

The Chinese government plans to remodel the globe's architecture. Here's a snapshot.

China's Belt and Road Initiative appeals to countries that are spooked by President Trump's insular "America First" vision and believe Beijing's investments will help guarantee their long-term security and prosperity. Malaysia, for one, has long been an important US ally in Southeast Asia, but it also has strategic reasons to get along with China. It has a large ethnic Chinese population and a prime position on the South China Sea, where Beijing is building military bases on artificial islands.

China has said that Malaysia is strategically located along the "Maritime Silk Road," and the East Coast Rail Link is among the largest infrastructure projects in the BRI catalog. In the run-up to Malaysia's 2018 election, Najib Razak's challenger, Mahathir Mohamad, tied Najib to the rail project to paint him as a pro-China lackey. But after Mahathir won, he decided to renegotiate the project instead of canceling it. He later said that the rail link would go ahead, for about two-thirds of the earlier price, partly because the $5 billion penalty for canceling it would be too expensive for a country with massive debts.

Mahathir's announcement included a silver lining for environmentalists: The East Coast Rail Link's revised route would mostly avoid crossing Malaysia's Central Forest Spine. But because Mahathir's government did not release its exact plans, some environmental groups continued to worry. I.S. Shanmugaraj, the executive director of the Malaysian Nature Society, told me last summer that many scientists and environmental groups remained in the dark about the project's scope.

The project's developer, Malaysia's state-owned rail operator, engaged the same outside consulting firm that studied the original route's environmental impacts in 2017. But Shanmugaraj told me that the firm was hardly impartial. "If the consultant is tied to the developer," he asked, "even though it's selected by the government and they are licensed, at the end of the day, who's the paymaster?"

(A spokesman for the firm, ERE Consulting Group, told me that he could not comment without prior approval from Malaysia Rail Link, which did not respond to an emailed request for comment. The project's principal contractor, China Communications Construction Company, also did not respond to an email. None of the three agreed to give Sierra a copy of any project documents.)

Some observers wonder if Malaysia, which is groaning under the weight of debts, really needs a new railroad. They note that an existing passenger rail line, which was built by British colonial authorities in the early 20th century, already connects Kuala Lumpur to the rural northeast.

Others, however, are eager for the new rail connection. On my trip along Malaysia's east coast, I met several people who welcomed the project. One was Amaleea Hayu, who runs a tie-dye shop in Cherating, a beach town known for its surf breaks. We spoke on a summer morning at a seaside restaurant that served coffee with roti canai, Indian-style bread with curry. It was the off-season, and business was slow. She said that a train stop in Cherating could be the perfect catalyst for attracting tourists from Kuala Lumpur. "It sounds great," she said.

Even Lee Chean Chung, a state legislator who has been a vocal critic of the environmental impacts of mining and logging concessions, was guardedly optimistic. Lee told me that he supported the plan because it would bring jobs and trade to Kuantan, where his constituents live. He noted that Kuantan's industrial park, built largely through Chinese investment, is a major part of the region's economic-development agenda.

"But the thing is, on the east coast, environmental concerns are generally lower," Lee told me over lunch in Kuantan. He added that while Chinese manufacturers and logging firms operating in eastern Malaysia had grown less "reckless" over the years, the local authorities still have a deplorable record when it comes to policing illegal logging and industrial pollution. "How can you make sure, when this megaproject is conducted, that you have enough people to do the checking to make sure they do not encroach onto forestlands? Or, if there is precious timber to be taken away, how do you make sure they will not try something funny?" he asked. "They are exploiting our regulations to their advantage."

BACK IN SETIU, Tengku drove farther into the wetlands and parked his truck beside a blue factory the size of an airplane hangar. The marquee read "China Communications Construction Company." Beside photos of a bridge across China's Yangtze River, a sign said "Connecting lives. Accelerating growth."

Tengku, hands on his hips, walked the building's perimeter warily, as if looking for a way inside. Near one corner, he found a Malaysian worker in jeans and sneakers, who explained that the building was a fabrication plant for making railroad equipment. The man, who declined to give his name, said that about half the workers were local and the other halfmostly managers and engineerswere from China.

The worker was loading engine oil and coolant into a generator, but only after he had wedged his truck into a ditch and tossed a hose over the factory's fence. He said it was an awkward and needlessly dangerous setup. Tengku asked why it had to be that way, and the man replied that the contractor had apparently built the walls and entrances of this factory without fully thinking through the logistics.

"They're just trying to cut costs," he said.

This article appeared in the January/February 2020 edition with the headline "The Train and the Swamp."

More:
China's Belt and Road Initiative Threatens to Pave the Planet - Sierra Magazine

KUTA, Indonesia Indonesia plans to restore more than 300,000 hectares (741,300 acres) of idle shrimp-farming ponds to boost its fisheries and reduce deforestation of the countrys mangrove ecosystems, according to a top official.

More than double that area, much of it in coastal regions rich in mangroves, have been cleared for shrimp farms, but only about 40% of the farms are in production, according to 2018 government data. We must revitalize this area thats abandoned or poorly managed over the next five years, Alan Koropitan, a deputy in the office of the presidents chief of staff, told Mongabay on the sidelines of an event in Kuta, Bali, on Dec. 11.

He said rebuilding shrimp farms on these idle lands could give a much-needed boost to the Indonesian fisheries sector. While Indonesia is a top global exporter of frozen seawater shrimps, the Southeast Asian country lags behind its neighbors in exports of freshwater shrimps and fresh, salted or smoked shrimps. Some of its top seafood exports include Asian tiger shrimp (Penaeus monodon) and whiteleg shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei).

But we dont want to clear more land either [for shrimp farms] by clearing mangroves and such, Alan said.

Shrimp farming is a major driver of the deforestation of mangroves, a crucial habitat for coastal marine life, in Indonesia. In 1999, 350,000 ha (865,000 acres) of mangroves were cleared across the archipelago to make way for shrimp ponds the highest rate of mangrove deforestation in the world, according to World Bank in 2003. Shrimp farming has also drawn criticism for degrading the quality of freshwater available for communities living in the vicinity of the ponds.

Alan said President Joko Widodo had ordered the fisheries ministry to map out the idle or abandoned shrimp farms across the country that would be feasible for revival.

Fisheries experts have welcomed the governments intention of boosting Indonesias aquaculture sector, but say the way to do it is through intensification getting greater yields from the same area of fish and shrimp ponds rather than increasing the number of such ponds.

Expansion efforts would not fit with the current state of shrimp aquaculture in Indonesia, said Susan Herawati, the general secretary of the Peoples Coalition for Fisheries Justice, an NGO.

She cited the revitalization of Bumi Dipasena, one of Indonesias main sites for shrimp fisheries, spanning 17,000 ha (42,000 acres) in Sumatras Lampung province.

Bumi Dipasena is the largest shrimp farm in Asia, maybe even in the world, Susan said. The fisheries ministry must be able to intensify the production of this site to fulfill demand.

She called for improving road infrastructure and ensuring access to reliable electricity and clean water, both to boost logistics for the Bumi Dipasena shrimp producers and to help the thousands of families living in the area.

Earlier this month, Indonesias fisheries minister, Edhy Prabowo promised to work with other government institutions to revive Bumi Dipasena. One of the main challenges is the limited capacity of the existing shrimp ponds and infrastructure to boost yields, the minister said.

Reviving Bumi Dipasena would also require introducing community-based management and phasing out top-down corporate control of the farms, according to experts.

Operational control of the shrimp farms there previously fell under Jakarta-listed aquaculture company PT Central Proteina Prima, working under a partnership scheme with small-scale farmers. At its peak in the 1990s, Bumi Dipasena was producing 200 metric tons of shrimp a day on average, and generating an estimated $3 million a year in export revenue. But the company was secretly slashing half of the bank loans meant for the farmers, leading to the decline of the entire operation.

If the restoration program indeed takes place, then the shrimp fisheries in Dipasena would reach its optimum operation and could re-emerge as a top shrimp producer like it used be, said Dedi Adhuri, a researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI).

Not only would the farmers benefit, but also the rest of the nation, Dedi added.

Some shrimp farmers continue to work at Bumi Dipasena, but profits are narrow.

Well keep on fighting, and we urge the government to play its role, said Nafian Faiz, one of the farmers.

FEEDBACK:Use this form to send a message to the author of this post. If you want to post a public comment, you can do that at the bottom of the page.

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Indonesia to revive idle shrimp farms to boost fisheries and save mangroves - Mongabay.com

Of course we need to think about those who will be affected by mine closures, but cripes, were all affected by climate change

On the weekend I flew up to Sydney to attend a conference held by the Chifley Research Centre, the ALPs thinktank. As the plane approached Sydney, the site of the fire front in the Blue Mountains was stomach-churning. And then I got to experience the air quality of Sydney that has become news around the world.

Upon returning to Canberra, I discovered a wind change had meant the nations capital was now enveloped in a haze of smoke and expected to be so for the rest of the week.

This, I need not tell you, is not normal.

Because of climate change, areas of south-eastern Australia are going to be drier and hotter, the times for doing preventative hazard reduction burning will shrink, and as a result our fire seasons will become longer, and the fires will become more intense.

This is due to one thing climate change.

The only way to prevent this is to reduce our emissions and to pressure the rest of the world to reduce emissions as well.

We are not doing either of those things.

Last week the latest emissions projection figures came out. They show that, even with some pretty courageous hopes for electricity generation, we will still be 13% above the minimum target set by the LNP to meet our Paris objective:

And remember, those targets work off a 2005 base year that includes land use, which makes them largely a joke as much of a joke as our Kyoto target, which also included land use and worked off the base year of 1990.

If we exclude land use (which is essentially land-clearing and planting of trees), our emissions in 2030 are currently projected to be the same as our 2005 levels not 26% below, let alone the ALPs target of 45%.

Little wonder that the rest of the world are currently trying to prevent Australia from using carryover credits from our Kyoto commitment to count towards our Paris target.

This matters because the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has argued that to ensure temperatures dont rise by 1.5C we need to cut emissions by 45% by 2030.

That is real emissions, not fake emissions using dodgy land use accounting and carryover credits.

We are not even close to achieving that.

It is a failure that should shame the LNP, and yet

Heres a dirty secret there are two reasons the LNP has a joke of a climate change policy: they are full of climate change deniers, and secondly there is zero pressure from the ALP for them to develop one.

The ALP remains far more worried about looking like it is attacking people who work in coalmines than getting on the front foot on climate change.

It is 2019 and the leader of the ALP is now repeating lines about our exports of coals that Tony Abbott used.

It is 2019 and the ALP acts as if putting a price on carbon is the most radical and politically horrific idea ever conceived (and never shows any pride that the carbon price introduced under Gillard was one the biggest economic reforms of the past 40 years).

Ask yourself who in the ALP even some young backbencher or senator is pushing so hard on climate change policy that the leaders are wishing he or she might tone it down a little? Who is pushing so hard that young people are cheering when they see she or he at a climate change rally?

Much easier is to find one who tells us we need to worry about coal exports and coalminers.

The ALP cannot afford to play games on this issue. You cant say climate change is real and then ensure your messaging is about protecting coal.

Voters can tell straight away youre only trying to look like you think climate change is real, and why should they vote for that? They might as well vote for the party that is at least upfront about its denial.

Because if climate change is real, then what the hell are you talking about? Dont come at me with oh, but our coal is cleaner unless you want to sound like a coal-company spruiker, and to be honest Id prefer you wait until you leave parliament and take up that role officially than do it while still being an actual MP.

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Of course we do need to think about those who will be affected by mine closures, but cripes, there is no pressure, no impetus and no real commitment from the ALP right now on an issue that is causing children and elderly to have to stay inside because of worries about air quality.

What are they waiting for?

I suspect they are waiting for the fires to end and the smoke to blow away so that people stop worrying about the issue, because too many in the ALP have taken the position that climate change is a vote loser.

Instead it should be a rallying call.

We have real evidence, real concern, and we have the Liberal party with the most pathetic policy imaginable.

If the ALP cant make this a winner, then what hope is there for it?

At this point Ill just pause to show you some graphs. I realise these will not convince many that climate change is real, but Ill still put the facts out there.

This year will be the second hottest on record, the past five years contain the five hottest on record, the past 10 years contain eight of the hottest year on record, the past 20 years (ie every year this century) contain 19 of the hottest 20 years:

I have always tried to come up with ways to display the data so that people can grasp it personally. One way is to look at it from the perspective of your own age. (The ABC has also done some excellent work using this method).

If you were born in 1946 (ie the first lot of baby boomers), only around 40% of the first 16 years of your life was a childhood with above-average temperatures. If you were a Gen Xer like me born in 1972, then 78% of your first 16 years was a world with above-average temperatures.

If you were a child of Gen Xers, like my 16-year-old daughter, 100% of your life has been in the world with above-average temperatures:

If we use the linear trend of the past 16 years, it means we will hit 2C above pre-industrial levels in 2052. If we use the more likely exponential trend, my daughter will get to experience 2C when she is 38 years old:

I guess I could try to tell her that the climate in her life has been an aberration, but because she is not stupid she will tell me I am lying much like politicians who say we need to act but without urgency, or that we can do it in a manner that wont cause too much disruption.

This is a crisis. Be honest about what that means.

2041 is not science-fiction levels of futurism. It is as close to us as the election of the Howard government in 1996 was to now.

Time moves fast, but unfortunately our climate-change policy is not moving at all.

Greg Jericho writes on economics for Guardian Australia

Read the original:
The Coalition isn't being honest about the climate crisis. But neither is Labor - Infosurhoy

There were 128 active slaughterhouses in the Brazilian Amazon in 2016, when Imazon collected data to estimate the beef buying zones. The research team gathered information on the maximum distances from which each slaughterhouse could feasibly source cattle through phone interviews with staff or taking averages based on meat plants nearby or similar factories in the same state.

They then modelled this data against local factors, such as roads, navigable rivers and seasonal weather patterns, to estimate the maximum potential buying zone for each slaughterhouse.

Using methods designed by the non-profit sustainability project Chain Reaction Research, the Bureau mapped Nasa fire alerts archive data onto Imazons buying zones.

Fires were also found on at least three farms known to sell cattle directly to JBS slaughterhouses. Working with Reprter Brasil, the Bureau found at least one of these slaughterhouses exports beef and leather globally.

Our findings illustrate that fires and deforestation continue to take place in JBSs supply chain, despite the companys policies and commitments, said Marco Tulio Garcia, who led the research at Chain Reaction. It is of the highest urgency that JBS addresses these issues.

There is no evidence that these fires were started on or by farms supplying JBS, but the very existence of a patchwork of ranches in the rainforest could be helping to exacerbate the overall effect of fires started elsewhere. The whole local climate is drier because youre getting less evaporation from the trees, said Yavinder Malhi, professor of ecosystem science at Oxford University.

Over the summer, global attention was focused on the fires in the worlds largest and most biodiverse rainforest. Data released in August by both Nasa and the Brazilian satellite agency INPE showed 2019 had been the most active fire year for the Brazilian Amazon in nearly a decade. There were three times as many fires that month compared with the same month last year, according to INPE.

Experts say the increase in fires was directly caused by an increase in deforestation: the intentional burning of trees that had been felled months before, rather than random wildfires. Once you clear forest to make a ranch, you have lots of dead materials lying around and then the farmers wait until the dry season to burn off that material, said Professor Malhi.

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon dropped drastically in the mid-2000s, but data released in November showed it increased by 30% in the year to July 2019. The countrys pro-agribusiness, climate-sceptic president, Jair Bolsonaro, took office in January 2019.

In July the European Commission published a communication on deforestation to address the fact that the EU consumption of food and feed products is among the main drivers of environmental impacts, creating high pressure on forests in non-EU countries and accelerating deforestation.

The commission pledged, among other things, to assess the need for regulation to increase supply chain transparency and minimise the risk of deforestation and forest degradation associated with commodity imports in the EU.

The Austrian government recently blocked the Mercosur deal over concerns about the Amazon fires crisis as well as the potential damage to Austrias farming sector and the French and Irish governments have also threatened to do the same.

The Irish government told the Bureau it was commissioning an external assessment of the deals possible impacts on the environment and Irelands economy, which will inform whether it votes to ratify the agreement next year.

In the UK, the Liberal Democrats recently announced plans for a legal duty of care on British businesses, stopping them from buying from overseas companies causing environmental harm, including forest destruction. If British companies buy their beef and continue to support this industry, they are not meeting their duty of care and the government must take action, said Wera Hobhouse, the party spokesperson on climate change and the environment.

Read the rest here:
Record number of fires rage around Amazon farms that supply the world's biggest butchers - The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

One of the toughest things for those of us who actually accept the science on climate change is to maintain optimism that anything will be done.

After weeks like the one weve just had, I sometimes wonder how long it will be before our major political parties shift from talking about reducing emissions and instead arguing over how to best deal with the impact of climate change.

You know the sort of thing Should we means-test free access to P2 masks? or Should there be a mutual obligation regime for climate-change relief? and before you know it the Australian and the other climate change-denying News Corp media outlets will be running editorials about how we need to get more people off climate change welfare.

It is a shift we need to fight against the war to prevent disastrous climate change is not lost, but it will be if we allow political parties to raise the white flag.

Of course climate change has already affected our lives in a way that requires governments to adjust. This is most obvious regarding the need to alter projections of how much money we need to allocate for fighting fire.

In the space of two days this week we saw the prime minister completely contradict himself on the issue of extra funding for firefighting services.

On Tuesday he said more support was not needed because the commonwealth puts $15m a year into that and we put an additional $11m this year in, in response to what we knew was going to be a very difficult fire season.

On Thursday he said more support was needed, telling reporters: Today we have announced a further $11m that were putting into the aerial firefighting fleet. That is on top of the $15m that we already put in on annual basis.

Apparently this is a new $11m, not the old $11m promised this time last year, although it is passing strange that Scott Morrison in announcing the new funding did not reference that this was on top of an already extra $11m.

But then theres not a lot of sense in any of these things. We live in a time where climate change denialism is a safer route for a conservative than is acknowledging reality. This is mostly because the main media company in this country, from its editors through to its leading columnists, has an approach to climate change denial that is impervious to logic, reason and basic maths.

This week the New South Wales environment minister, Matt Kean, stated the obvious when he noted the link between increased severity of bushfires and climate change. On Friday the Daily Telegraph responded by smearing him on its front page.

A conservative stating reality on climate change is now considered a betrayal, and a progressive stating reality is portrayed as an extremist.

And you can thus see why the Labor party has chosen to largely dissociate itself from the climate change movement, a movement which saw 20,000 people take to the streets this week in Sydney despite next to no notice.

Labor has instead decided it is more sensible for Anthony Albanese to pick this week when his own electorate has been covered in smoke from bushfires and the UN is holding a climate conference at which Australia has been declared the pariah of the world, to tour rural Queensland to visit coalmines and aluminium smelters and talk up practical solutions.

Its pretty horrific when you think about it that the main strategy to doing something on climate change is to pretend that any change will have a minimal impact on peoples lives.

It is also pretty horrific when you think that a progressive party has decided it does not need to use the mass support of people desperate for action. Surely some form of progressive populism should actually involve trying to be popular?

Because the problem is at some point we are going to need to do more than just the practical solutions, and doing that will require a lot of support.

The latest projections show that in 2030 Australias greenhouse gas emissions will be 99 megatonne (Mt) lower than in 2005 (the base year for Paris agreement targets). And all of it is accounted for by a drop in land use: ie less land-clearing and a few more trees being planted.

Of actual emissions there is no change.

And yet by 2030 we are projected to get 50% of our electricity from renewables.

The problem is while electricity is the biggest producer of emissions, it only accounts for 30% of the total. By 2030 other areas such as direct combustion from industries, transport and fugitive emissions (which occur during the production, processing, transport, storage, transmission and distribution of fossil fuels) all will have risen by enough to offset the fall in electricity emissions.

This is the crux of climate change: if it was as easy to solve as politicians would have us believe then it would not actually be a problem.

Yes, people love renewables, but we are going to need to do more and any political party that wishes to actually do real action will at some point need to be honest with the public that the change is not going to be pleasant for many and it will be costly.

We are for a start going to need to keep coal in the ground even our glorious cleaner-than-others coal.

The governments fraudulent Paris target of 28% below 2005 levels, which includes land use, would require actual emissions to fall from the current level of 551Mt to 440Mt.

But that target is a complete joke.

The science requires cuts of at least 45% in actual emissions by 2030, not a reduction through offsets, or by counting things we are are no longer doing.

To achieve a 45% cut in actual emissions we would need to reduce our annual emissions to 287Mt by 2030.

Or to put it another way, in 2030 we would need to remove the equivalent of all emissions produced this year from direct combustion, transport, fugitive emissions and waste (ie landfill).

That is a scale well beyond anything that current policies will achieve. It is an amount that will require changes in how and what we consume and produce.

In effect, a change in how we live.

And it will require a political party able to persuade voters it needs to happen, because the low-hanging fruits of climate change reduction have all been picked.

Greg Jericho writes on economics for Guardian Australia

More here:
We need politicians to have the guts to admit it's going to hurt to fight climate change | Greg Jericho - The Guardian

Its that time of year again. The air is cold, snow is on the ground (at least in the mountains) and youre scrambling to buy gifts for the outdoorsy folks in your life.

Therein lies the problem: The thing about those who love the outdoors is that, by and large, they have what they need. And if they dont have it already, they probably know exactly what they want. Down to the quarter inch. Your bumbling attempts at buying them gifts only stands in the way. Send money and call Christmas done.

While that may be prudent, its the cowardly path. Dont fear. Weve compiled 10 gifts, as recommended by local outdoor enthusiasts. From hand saws to tiny, ultralight flashlight flasks, these gifts are off the beaten path and sure to please on Christmas Day. (But, just to be safe, keep the receipt.)

Assuming you buy gifts for friends, and not enemies, you want them to return home safely. Knowing where youre going is the first step in that endeavor. Consider buying your outdoorsy loved one a year membership to one of the two premier GPS trail and mapping apps: Gaia GPS and onX Hunt. Both are great and do similar things, although onX is geared toward hunters and GAIA is more for hikers.

Jeff Lambert, the executive director of the Dishman Hills Conservancy, uses onX and loves the fact that it shows property boundaries.

Trespassing is the No. 1 reason that property owners prohibit access, he said. With this app, one avoids trespassing and can contact owners for permission if desired. It works without cell coverage if you download your map ahead of time.

Gaia costs $20$40 per year, depending on the features you want, while onX costs $30 for one state for a year and $100 for all 50 states for a year. Cabelas offers an onX gift card.

Both give topographic information, trail and property information and much more.

Not into apps? Check out Frugal Navigator for high-quality United States Geological Survey maps. The Spokane company can make custom maps based off USGS and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data. More popular maps are sold at REI.

His maps are NICE, said Holly Weiler, a hiking leader for the Spokane Mountaineers and the Washington Trails Associations Eastern Washington coordinator in a message.Im a total map junkie, which is probably weird in this digital age. But I love them.

The maps are printed on tear- and water-resistant paper and come with a mini ruler. Prices vary.

It can be a tricky thing to buy gear for someone else. Sizing. Usage needs. It gets complicated. So were going to keep it light (literally).

First up: a folding saw.

Todd Dunfield, the Inland Northwest Land Conservancys community conservation manager and a prolific trail builder, has a favorite option: a folding hand saw made by Silky, such as the Silky Professional Ultra Accel 240 with a 24 cm curved blade ($59).

They are Japanese steel and super sharp and useful, he said in a message. Hunters can clear brush for better sight lines and game-camera mounting, great around the house, and I personally love them for trail work. I usually keep one in all my daypacks and mountain-biking hydration systems because they are so useful for clearing downed trees from the trail.

REI sells a variety, he said, as does Amazon.

But what to do, late in the day, once youve finished clearing all that trail? Drink, of course. The VSSL Flask ($95) is a compact adventure flask that includes a flashlight and compass.

And while taking swigs from your flashlight-flask, youll want to take a load off in an extra-warm camp chair. Why is it warm? Because someone bought you a chair quilt. The REI Co-op Flexlite Chair Underquilt ($30, char sold separately) creates a pocket of heat that keeps your tush nice and cozy.

Even experienced outdoorspeople can benefit from a wilderness first aid course. These multiple-day courses are the go-to primers on backcountry medicine and a must-do for anyone who spends a serious amount of time off the grid.

REI and NOLS offers a two-day Wilderness Safety Training course ($245 for REI members, $275 for non-members) on different dates and at various locations around the state.Cascadia Wilderness Medicine also has training classes

So youre trained up. The trail is cut, youve had a nice evening sipping liquor in your uber-warm camp chair marinating on all the first aid knowledge you have. You hike out to the trailhead and find horrors of horrors a parking ticket on your rig.

Too bad you didnt have the right parking pass. If only someone had gifted you one for Christmas.

An annual Washington State Discover Pass costs $30. Also consider gifting a state Sno-Park permit. A daily Sno-Park pass costs $20, which the seasonal pass is $40.Going farther afield? Consider an annual American the Beautiful Pass for $80.

View original post here:
10 unusual gifts for the outdoorsy person on your list - Seattle Times

By Steve Limtiaco, Pacific Daily News Published 4:23 a.m. ChT Dec. 16, 2019

Public Works has offered to open up access to CHamoru Land Trust property across the island in exchange for permission to use Land Trust property at Oka Point.(Photo: Rick Cruz/PDN)

The Department of Public Works has offered to open up access to CHamoru Land Trust property islandwide in exchange for permission to use Land Trust property at Oka Point as a staging area for construction work on Route 14, also known as Chalan San Antonio.

A common problem cited by Land Trust leaseholders during recent village outreach meetings is the inability to access and use their leased properties because there are no roads.

We just need your help, Public Works Chief Engineer Masoud Teimoury told the Land Trust commissioners at a meeting Friday . He said the area along Route 14 is heavily developed for commercial use, so there are really no other areasfor the contractor to place equipment and materials.

We can help the CHamoru Land Trust as we have done in the past. We can do many, many other things, within reason.

We are happy to reciprocate this favor, Teimoury said. We can help the CHamoru Land Trust as we have done in the past. We can do many, many other things, within reason.

MORE: Land Trust Commission resolves two more void leases

Under the proposal, Public Works would help open up existing roads and also build new roads.

The Chalan San Antonio project, which involves the construction of accessible sidewalks and the placement of anti-skid pavement, is expected to take about 15 months to complete, according to news files.

A contractor has not yet been selected. Bids are now scheduled to be opened in late February.Public Works officials have said the federally funded highway project is expected to cost $5 million to $10 million per mile.

Department of Public Works Chief Engineer Masoud Teimoury, left, on Friday tells the CHamoru Land Trust Commission about a proposal to open access to Land Trust properties in exchange for the temporary use of land at Oka Point.(Photo: Steve Limtiaco/PDN)

If an agreement can't be reached with the Land Trust for Oka Point, Public Works might have to find alternate private property to lease, Teimoury said, adding it would be better to resolve the issue within the government instead of enriching a private landowner.

He said Public Works, on behalf of the contractor, needs to secure use of the Oka Point property for as long as three yearsto account for any delays in the project.

The proposed staging area, centered at the parking lot of the former hospital, would be accessed through the Archbishop Felixberto Flores traffic circle. The area would be cleared and utilities would be brought in.

MORE: Land Trust suit could be settled; 'native Chamorro' definition at issue

Commissioners on Friday were receptive to the proposal, but said they don't want to make a decision until they get more information about what, exactly, Public Works will do to help the Land Trust, including how many total miles of road clearing and construction.

We have our own interest that we have to protect with the (Oka Point) property, Chairwoman Pika Fejeran said. She noted the site already has been identified by the Land Trust to be leased commercially. What Id like to see is a real proposal from the Department of Public Works.

Fejeran also instructed Land Trust Administrative Director Jack Hattig to develop a comprehensive program to decide which Land Trust roads should be improved by Public Works. Fejeran said the selection process needs to be fair and transparent, benefiting as many leaseholders as possible.

Leaseholders should have an opportunity to petition for access to their area, she said.

Fejeran said she doesn't want a repeat of the controversial easement construction for Land Trust property in Barrigada Heights, stating the commission at the time was unaware Public Works would be working in that subdivision.

Fejeran said the Land Trusts comprehensive program also must address how to prevent illegal dumping in newly opened areas.

MORE: Mayors to Land Trust: Without Global Recycling, Guam would have more junk cars and other trash

Teimoury said the Department of Land Management also needs to be involved in the process to confirm the location of legal easements on Land Trust properties.

There should be some level of investigation before we start clearing areas, he said.

Im hoping that we arrive at an agreement, Fejeran said.

Read or Share this story: https://www.guampdn.com/story/news/local/2019/12/15/department-public-works-chamoru-land-trust-roads-oka-point/2644897001/

Original post:
Public Works offers to open Land Trust roads in exchange for use of Oka Point - Pacific Daily News

If you have turned on a TV or read the news during the past few months, you have probably heard of the widespread fires that wrought havoc on the Amazon rainforest this year.

Fires occur in the rainforest every year, but the past 11 months saw the number of fires increase by more than 70 percentwhen compared with 2018, indicating a major acceleration in land clearing by the country's logging and farming industries.

The smoke from the fires rose high into the atmosphere and could be seen from space. Some regions of Brazil became covered in thick smoke that closed airports and darkened city skies.

As the rainforest burns, it releases enormous amounts of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and larger particles of so-called "black carbon" (smoke and soot). The phrase "enormous amounts" hardly does the numbers justice in any given year, the burning of forests and grasslands in South America emits a whopping 800,000 tonnes of black carbon into the atmosphere.

This truly astounding amount is almost double the black carbon produced by all combined energy use in Europe over 12 months. Not only does this absurd amount of smoke cause health issues and contribute to global warming but, as a growing number of scientific studies are showing, it also more directly contributes to the melting of glaciers.

In a new paper published in the journal Scientific Reports, a team of researchers has outlined how smoke from fires in the Amazon in 2010 made glaciers in the Andes melt more quickly.

When fires in the Amazon emit black carbon during the peak burning season (August to October), winds carry these clouds of smoke to Andean glaciers, which can sit higher than 5,000 metres above sea level.

Despite being invisible to the naked eye, black carbon particles affect the ability of the snow to reflect incoming sunlight, a phenomenon known as "albedo".

Similar to how a dark-coloured car will heat up more quickly in direct sunlight when compared with a light-coloured one, glaciers covered by black carbon particles will absorb more heat, and thus melt faster.

By using a computer simulation of how particles move through the atmosphere, known as HYSPLIT, the team was able to show that smoke plumes from the Amazon are carried by winds to the Andes, where they fall as an invisible mist across glaciers.

Altogether, they found that fires in the Amazon in 2010 caused a 4.5 percent increase in water runoff from Zongo Glacier in Bolivia.

Crucially, the authors also found that the effect of black carbon depends on the amount of dust covering a glacier if the amount of dust is higher, then the glacier will already be absorbing most of the heat that might have been absorbed by the black carbon. Land clearing is one of the reasons that dust levels over South America doubled during the 20th century.

Glaciers are some of the most important natural resources on the planet. Himalayan glaciers provide drinking water for 240 million people, and 1.9 billion rely on them for food.

In South America, glaciers are crucial for water supply in some towns, including Huaraz in Peru, more than 85 percent of drinking water comes from glaciers during times of drought.

However, these truly vital sources of water are increasingly under threat as the planet feels the effects of global warming. Glaciers in the Andes have been receding rapidly for the last 50 years.

The tropical belt of South America is predicted to become more dry and arid as the climate changes. A drier climate means more dust, and more fires. It also means more droughts, which make towns more reliant on glaciers for water.

Unfortunately, as the above study shows, the fires assisted by dry conditions help to make these vital sources of water vanish more quickly. The role of black carbon in glacier melting is an exceedingly complex process currently, the climate models used to predict the future melting of glaciers in the Andes do not incorporate black carbon.

As the authors of this new study show, this is likely causing the rate of glacial melt to be underestimated in many current assessments.

With communities reliant on glaciers for water, and these same glaciers likely to melt faster as the climate warms, work examining complex forces like black carbon and albedo changes is needed more now than ever before.

Matthew Harris, PhD Researcher, Climate Science, Keele University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

See the original post:
Fires in The Amazon Are Causing Glaciers to Melt Faster in The Andes - ScienceAlert

It encapsulated the horror engulfing New South Wales: the footage of a koala mewing in pain as its habitat burned around it. The rescue of that animal, saved from the Long Flat blaze by a woman using her shirt as a shield, went viral.

But the bushfires have injured and displaced vast numbers of other creatures, many of which no longer have homes. Who rescues them and what does that involve?

Kristie Newton works as campaign manager for the NSW Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service (Wires), an organisation that, in normal times, says it cares for tens of thousands of hurt or distressed animals each year.

But these are not normal times.

We are completely inundated at the moment, she says. This is the biggest event we have ever dealt with.

Australias flora and fauna have evolved to coexist with fire but not with fires of such intensity. Wires search and rescue teams still cant access many affected areas, even as people in towns or outer suburbs report injured animals fleeing into backyards or roads.

We probably wont know what were looking at for about a month or so, maybe longer, until we can really go in and start to get more animals out. But weve lost a lot of habitat, so its not only directly affecting the animals now, but will continue to affect them for years to come.

Its a sentiment echoed by Vickii Lett, a veteran carer with Clarence Valley Wires.

Shes dedicated her property in Lightning Creek near Grafton to caring for wild creatures, so much so that she takes an instant to recall just how many shes currently sheltering.

Ive got three flying foxes, one koala, three no, four! redneck wallabies (one of which is burned), and one wallaroo. Oh, and a boobook owl.

A volunteer since 1988, Lett has never experienced fires of such ferocity, affecting such a vast area.

This is man-made; weve done it, she says.

At the same time, she worries that the immediate crisis might cloak the broader wildlife emergency, the everyday devastation of deforestation and land clearing.

When youre a wildlife carer, fairly early you realise that you might be able to fix animals, but youve got to have somewhere to put them. Theyre not pets, but when I release them, I worry about every one of them. Theyve got to have a home and a food supply.

Wires offers a short rescue and immediate care course that equips people to work with common species.

Volunteers can nominate their level of commitment. They can decide to be carers or rescuers or both or help with various administrative tasks.

Some take on additional training to specialise in particular animals anything from koalas to venomous snakes.

Thats how Kristina-Lee Willis, a 29-year-old from Corindi Beach (two hours north of Port Macquarie), ended up with Teddy, the baby sugar glider.

Originally, Willis wanted to rescue bats to break down the knee-jerk reaction that ewww theyre disgusting, but the first course available focused on possums and gliders.

Then, during the recent blaze, a crew clearing firebreaks on an isolated road near Glenreagh found a glider joey on the ground.

It was so sweet: this big burly bloke who was driving the dozer carried her crooked up in his arm all the way back to their base. A lady made the call to Wires and then another two gentlemen drove her to the Golden Dog pub in the middle of Glenreagh. And I took her from there.

A little glider means a lot of work.

Teddy named after the dozer driver who cuddled her only drinks a special milk formula.

Shes very clever, says Willis, with maternal pride. She doesnt need a bottle. She laps at milk from the tiny little spoon or from the bottle cap.

But thats just the beginning.

Now shes older, shes getting little bugs like crickets and meal worms and some moths when I can catch them, though thats really tricky. And also some sap. She likes to chew on some branches and lick at blossoms as well.

Teddys gaining weight and will, with luck, make a full recovery.

But shes just one animal and so very, very many need help. At the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital, the volunteers feel that strain.

The facility boasts 14 intensive care units and can house up to 50 animals.

Hospital president Sue Ashton worked in the corporate world before retiring to Port Macquarie two years ago, and then taking up a vacancy on the hospital board. I enjoyed my old job. But this is so satisfying working with wild animals and seeing them rehabilitated back into the wild.

Yet after the recent fires, she fears for the long-term future of the species.

In places like the Lake Innes nature reserve, as many as two-thirds of wild koalas seem to have died, incinerated by the astonishing heat. Those that survived were dehydrated; many had been burned on their paws, noses and mouths.

Weve got to cut the dead skin off, bathe their wounds, then treat them with a cream for burns and bandage them, Ashton says. Were giving them a low lactose milk supplement, for extra nutrients and hydration some of them arent eating leaves because their mouth is burnt. The really bad ones have gone into home care. Some might need to be fed more frequently; they need to have their noses rubbed with cream or something like that.

Many of the centres 150 volunteers currently come in almost daily, and their physical exhaustion exacerbates the toll of watching animals suffer.

Burns are, after all, notoriously difficult to heal. Several of the injured koalas, including the one rescued at Long Flat, have had to be euthanised.

Nicole Blums, from Brisbanes Rescue Collective, knows how shattering wildlife volunteering can be.

She established her group specifically to help resource frontline carers, providing them with basic materials as well as little gifts to lift their spirits.

Over the last nine days, she says, Wires has received nine carloads and trailer loads of resources from us. That includes medical supplies, drugs for the animals, formulas, feeding bottles, joey pouches, bat wraps: anything that they need to be able to spend more time with the animals.

A fortnight ago, her group consisted of four women; now its grown to about 20.

Like the other volunteers, shes been appalled by the fires; like them, shes been buoyed by the community response.

Working in rescue, you see a lot of bad things and you can begin to hate the human race, Blums says. But every time we start to think its too much, its too heavy for our hearts, we open a box and we find a letter from one of our supporters or a drawing from one of the kids. Her voice catches slightly. That gives us strength to know that we are making a difference and that we have so much behind us now that we cant stop.

The rescue organisations need donations. They also need volunteers. But Wires Kristie Newton stresses that its possible for anyone to help native animals, just by taking very simple steps.

If people are in an area thats affected by fire or even by heat, if they can leave bowls of water for birds and animals, thats fantastic.

Likewise, a cardboard box and towel kept in your car can help contain an injured animal, if its possible to do so safely.

If you do encounter any injured animals, she says, call your local wildlife group and get them help as soon as possible. It really can save lives.

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'I worry about every one of them': the volunteers who rescue injured wildlife - The Guardian