Rewilding & Conservation News and Discussions

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Earth is Running Low on Wildlife. Plants will be Next
by Benji Jones
January 13, 2022

https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/22877 ... -migration

Introduction:
(Vox) The seeds of this story were planted in a steaming pile of elephant dung somewhere in the African savanna. Elephants love to stuff their faces with fruit, and fruit trees like marulas need a way to spread their seeds, so the two species have developed an intimate and symbiotic relationship. A single African savanna elephant is capable of dumping seeds up to 65 kilometers (40 miles) from the site of its feast, making them the most impressive seed transporters in the animal kingdom.

It may not be a luxurious form of travel — via digestive tract, that is — but for roughly half of all plants, animals are a way to branch out over great distances. They can ride in the stomach of a tusked mammal, the pincers of an insect, or on the fur of your dog. Some seeds even hitch rides with multiple animals before arriving at their final destination.

Movement is essential to survival, especially in a changing climate. As plants are scorched by heatwaves and battered by extreme rainfall, their best shot at avoiding extinction can be to spread to new areas where the climate still fits their needs. Research suggests that some plant populations may need to travel kilometers a year to remain in the same conditions in which they evolved — a phenomenon known as “climate tracking.”

But this strategy has a major drawback: It rides on wildlife, and wildlife is disappearing around the world. That means many plants are losing their mode of transportation, according to a new study published in the journal Science, leaving them stranded in areas that are becoming less hospitable to their kind and at a greater risk of dying out.

The ongoing decline of wildlife could also trigger a frightening feedback loop: If some tree and plant species wither because they can no longer hitch a ride on wildlife, that could worsen climate change, which makes it harder for both plants and animals to survive.
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New method uses waste to clean arsenic from lake contaminated by gold mine
https://phys.org/news/2022-01-method-ar ... -gold.html
by Greg Basky, Canadian Light Source

Arsenic has been leaching into the lake from tailings at the abandoned Long Lake Gold Mine, which operated intermittently until 1937 and produced approximately 200,000 metric tons of tailings, discharged directly to the environment without containment.

Now a team of researchers from the University of Waterloo has shown that a passive form of remediation that uses common waste materials can remove virtually all of the arsenic from samples of the lake water. Their results are published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials.

The scientists found that mixing wood chips, leaf mulch, and iron filings (left over from manufacturing car engines) with limestone creates conditions that encourage bacteria to grow. The bacteria pull the arsenic from the water by converting it to a solid form that is essentially trapped within the waste material filter.
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Land Owners Across America are Voluntarily Preserving Their Farmland and Habitat in Perpetuity Through Easements- and the Trend is Growing.

https://findalandtrust.org/land-trusts/ ... -protected

Extract:
(Land Trust Alliance) Land trusts have already conserved 61 million acres of private land across the nation — more than all of the national parks combined. Help us conserve another 60 million acres by the end of the decade.

A land trust is a nonprofit that conserves land by acquiring and stewarding land or conservation easements.

Land Trust Alliance members commit to adopting Land Trust Standards and Practices as their guiding principles.

Accredited land trusts undergo a thorough review of their practices in governance, finance, transactions and stewardship.
The link provided above the quote box is to a site that provides all sorts of additional facts and statistics concerning land trusts in the Unitid States.
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Agriculture, Livelihoods, and Conservation in Tropical Forests: Networking and Knowledge Sharing

https://www.packard.org/funding-opportu ... e-sharing/

Introduction:
(Packard Foundation) A sustainable future requires protecting our environment while building thriving local economies. Small-scale, or smallholder, farmers and communities who depend on the natural resources of tropical forests have the power to protect the planet’s resources and contribute to sustainable development in rural communities. The Packard Foundation’s Agriculture, Livelihoods, and Conservation (ALC) grantmaking strategy aims to support tropical forest communities in strengthening resilience and economic opportunities while protecting tropical forests and biodiversity. We believe that conservation and development goals in tropical regions can be most effectively achieved through policies and actions that support smallholder farmer livelihoods and community wellbeing, combined with effective regional planning and natural resource management that engages local communities who know the forests best. This work builds upon the Foundation’s grantmaking experience in climate, land use, and reproductive health.

A well networked community of actors and advocates is necessary to influence policymakers and development and conservation decision makers at local, national, and global levels. To support knowledge sharing and networking efforts, the Packard Foundation’s Agriculture Livelihoods and Conservation (ALC) program is issuing a targeted request for proposals for projects, organizations, and collaboratives that strengthen relationships among individuals and institutions aiming to improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers and/or forest dependent communities while also conserving forest resources in tropical forest areas.

ALC will support new or existing projects, organizations, and coalitions that address the needs of smallholder farmers and or/forest dependent communities and tropical forest conservation and whose core objectives include relationship building and knowledge sharing. Applicants must be headquartered in one of the following countries: Brazil, Cambodia, Colombia, Guatemala, Indonesia, Laos, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines. Organizations and coalitions that are led by women, young people, and Indigenous people are strongly encouraged to apply.
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Inside the Years-Long Global Effort to Save Mexico's Tequila Splitfin Fish
by Sarah Durn
January 24, 2022

https://www.motherjones.com/environment ... servation/

Introduction:
(Mother Jones) At first glance, there’s nothing remarkable about Mexico’s tequila splitfin fish. Only two and a half inches long, the fish aren’t colorful or poisonous. They aren’t particularly fast. They don’t change colors or exhibit other strange behaviors. In many ways, they are forgettable. So when the fish, endemic to only a single spring-fed river near the Tequila volcano in the Mexican state of Jalisco, went extinct from the wild in 2003, there was no international outcry or even an article in a local newspaper to bid the fish adieu.

But scientists at Michoacán University’s Aquatic Biology Unit knew the tequila fish, as it is commonly called, played an important role in the river’s delicate ecosystem—eating dengue-spreading mosquitoes and serving as a food source for larger fish and birds. When it became clear the fish were dying off in the 1990s, an international team of scientists joined forces to save the fish. After the fish went extinct in 2003, the team would attempt something that had never been done before in Mexico—reintroduce an extinct species back into its native habitat. Now, almost two decades on, a thriving population of tequila fish, some 2,000 strong, once again call the Teuchitlán River home, swimming in the crystalline waters in the shadow of the tree-covered hillside.

The ambitious conservation translocation project began in 1998 when English aquarist Ivan Dibble arrived at Michoacán University with some very precious cargo—five pairs of tequila fish from England’s Chester Zoo. No one knows exactly why the tequila fish went extinct in the wild, but it was likely a combination of pollution and invasive species moving in, according to scientists at the zoo. In captivity, scientists could provide a controlled environment for the fish.

For 15 years, biologists at Michoacán University cared for the tequila fish. “At the beginning, all these people said we were crazy,” says biologist Omar Domínguez, who worked on the project. While reintroduction programs have been done successfully elsewhere, this was the first time scientists attempted such a project in Mexico. If the project failed, Dominguez worried, “all the people [would] say, ‘okay, it’s impossible to reintroduce fish.’”
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Ninth Circuit Revives Fight Over Logging Plans in Forests Where Endangered Fishers Live
by Matthew Renda
January 25, 2022

https://www.courthousenews.com/ninth-ci ... hers-live/

Introduction:
(Courthouse News) — A Ninth Circuit panel ruled Tuesday a lower court erred when it declined to stop several logging operations in a portion of a California national forest that is home to the endangered fisher, a small weasel-like mammal that displays agility and climbing prowess.

A three-judge panel issued ruled a lower court should have granted a preliminary injunction to wildlife advocacy groups dedicated to the conservation and recovery of the Pacific fisher in the Sierra Nevada mountains, where their populations have diminished due to hunting, logging and other forms of habitat encroachment.

“We agree that the denial of injunction was premature as to the fisher population and should not stand at this time,” the panel wrote in a terse 8-page decision. .

Unite the Parks, the plaintiffs in the case, claimed that the U.S. Forest Service should not have allowed the logging projects in the Sierra National Forest and the Sequoia National Forest where Pacific fishers roam, because they had incomplete data at the time when they made the decision.

Namely, wildlife groups say the Forest Service failed to account for a new population account that was performed after the devastating wildfire seasons that may have even further reduced the population levels of the vulnerable animal.
Surprisingly, two of the judges on the panel are Trump appointees.
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Koalas are now endangered

14th February 2022

The Australian government has changed the conservation status of the koala from vulnerable to endangered, due to its rapidly shrinking habitats and climate change.

[...]

Estimates of their exact numbers vary considerably, but the Australian government has just published a new detailed analysis, showing the rapid and ongoing decline of koala populations in Eastern Australia. Following the disastrous wildfires of 2019–2020, they have now dipped below 100,000 to approximately 92,000 and are projected to fall by another third in this region during the next decade, possibly reaching 63,000 by 2032.

Read more: https://www.futuretimeline.net/blog/202 ... n-2030.htm


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EPA Says it Will Consider Endangered Species When Approving New Pesticides — Without the Threat of Lawsuits
by Johnathan Hettinger
February 24, 2022

https://investigatemidwest.org/2022/02/ ... -lawsuits/

Introduction:
(Investigate Midwest) Before approving new pesticides for use on crops or around homes, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is supposed to determine what impact they'll have on endangered species. But, for decades, usually the only way to ensure the agency would start the process was to sue. can endanger federally species.

In January, however, the EPA announced it plans to assess whether new pesticides will harm plants and animals protected by the Endangered Species Act. If it finds the products do, in fact, endanger protected species, the agency said it would prevent the harm.

Essentially, the agency said — for the first time — it will take a systematic approach to regulating pesticides' harmful effects instead of being forced to comply one-by-one by different lawsuits. The new approach only applies to new pesticides, not ones already on the market.

"Before (the) announcement," the EPA said in its statement, "in most cases, EPA did not consistently assess the potential effects of conventional pesticides on listed species. This resulted in insufficient protections for listed species, as well as resource-intensive litigation against EPA for registering new (pesticides) prior to assessing potential effects on listed species."

It’s a sign of progress, said Brett Hartl, government affairs director for the Center for Biological Diversity, which has repeatedly sued the EPA over its enforcement of the Endangered Species Act.
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Animal Advocates Urge Feds to Put Hippo on Endangered Species List
by Matthew Renda
<arch 24, 2022

https://www.courthousenews.com/animal-a ... cies-list/

Introduction:
(Courthouse News) — A coalition of wildlife advocacy organizations filed a petition with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Thursday, requesting the agency consider whether the hippopotamus should be added to the endangered species list.

There are no hippopotamuses in North America, but advocates argue the wildlife trade around hippo parts, which includes their prized ivory tusks, would be greatly diminished if the species were added to the list.

“Hippos are being needlessly slaughtered for commercial trade and trophy hunting,” said Adam Peyman, director of wildlife programs for Humane Society International. “As the leading importer of hippo parts, the United States should be ashamed of the role they play in the decline of this iconic species. If we don’t protect them now, hippos may disappear forever.”

The United States has imported more hippo parts, which include teeth, tusks, leather products made from the animal’s skins and other forms of trophy, than any other country on the globe, the advocates say.

Humane Society International says import records kept by federal agencies indicate that a little more than 3,000 hippos have been slaughtered as part of the legal wildlife trade program in the United States over the course of the last decade.

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Hippos float in the lake at Hacienda Napoles Park, once the private estate of drug kingpin Pablo Escobar who imported three female hippos and one male decades ago, in Puerto Triunfo, Colombia, Thursday, Feb. 4, 2021.
AP Photo/Fernando Vergara
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