The water crisis is escalating at an alarming rate. By 2050, 1 in 5 developing countries will face water shortages (UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization). The main problem is the lack of a global plan to reduce the effects of climate change that impact every life on this planet.

On the other hand, innovative solutions and community efforts are making a difference! From advanced water recycling technologies to sustainable agricultural practices, we are finding ways to address this challenge.

Discover more below and join the movement to secure a better water future for all!

🗞️ In Climate News

• 🌎 Heat waves and “flash droughts” fuel intense fires in California, Oregon and Canada

• 🇧🇷 Hydropower dams threaten fishing communities on the Amazon

• 🏝️ Six new natural sites added to UNESCO World Heritage List

• 🇯🇵 Biomass power grows in Japan despite climate risks

• 🇨🇳 China sees highest number of significant floods since records began

• 🇦🇶 Antarctic temperatures rise 10C above average in near record heatwave

• 🇬🇷 The Greek islands are grappling with a water crisis

• 🇲🇽 A water war is looming between Mexico and the US

• 🇦🇫 Hundreds die in severe flooding in Afghanistan

• 🌍 Central African Republic and Kenya confirm outbreaks of mpox

• 🇸🇩 Severe flooding affects displaced people in Eastern Sudan

📈 Cool Trends

• 🇹🇭 Thai rubber farmers finding their way to sustainability with agroforestry

• 🍓 Underground fridges that need no electricity

♾️ eco-stories

Malta is one of the top 10 water-scarce countries in the world. What to do when nature provides only half of the water your population needs? Malta ‘produces’ clean water and tries to make sure that not one drop is wasted.

The European Environment Agency interviewed Manuel Sapiano, Chief Executive Officer of the Energy and Water Agency (EWA) within Malta's Ministry for the Environment, Energy and Enterprise (MEEE) about the solutions they have found for that territory.

Read their solutions here

🌏 The Culture Column

📺 What we’re watching: Origins

📸 Profile of the week: @queerbrownvegan

📖 What we’re reading: It's Not That Radical: Climate Action To Transform Our World, by Mikaela Loach
🤯 Shocking fact we learnt this week: By 2030, humanity will need 40% more water each year than what is sustainably available now.

Our planet exceeded high temperature records twice in 24 hours, which is having catastrophic effects.

To cope with these extreme temperatures, we thought to share some innovative ideas that could help manage this new, hot reality.

Our feature story this week is on how scientists measure whether a day is the hottest day ever. Learn about both below!

🗞️ In Climate News

• 🌏 Earth reached its hottest day on record twice in a row this week

• 🇲🇦 More than 20 people die in Moroccan heatwave

• 🇱🇧 Tiktok likes are feeding the slaughter of 2.6 million birds in Lebanon every year

• 🇵🇦 Indigenous midwives in Panama strive to preserve traditional medicine for maternal health

• 🇰🇭 Indigenous villagers lose forest & land amid carbon offset project in Cambodia

• 🇧🇷 Report reveals widespread use of mercury in Amazon gold mining

• 🇪🇹 A humanitarian crisis is unfolding in the north of Ethiopia, driven by drought, crop failure and continued insecurity in the aftermath of a brutal war

• 🇵🇭 Philippines 'prepares for worst' after oil spill

• 🔥 Researchers warn of unprecedented arsenic release from wildfires

• 🇺🇳 UN report says around 733 million people globally faced hunger in 2023

📈 Cool Trends

• 🍂 Making paper from fallen leaves

• 🪸 Using underwater speakers to restore damaged coral reefs to help them grow

♾️ eco-stories

Monday was the warmest day recorded on Earth. But how do scientists actually measure that?

*Originally written by Andrew King for The Conversation.

In the past week, Earth’s record for the hottest day was broken twice. Sunday July 21 was declared Earth’s hottest day since records began, when average surface temperature reached 17.09°C. On Monday the record fell again, when average temperatures reached 17.16°C – and Tuesday was almost as hot.

The declarations were made by Copernicus, the European climate change service. They made international headlines – especially in the northern hemisphere, which has been experiencing extreme summer heat.

Determining the global average temperature on any given day is complex. It involves thousands of observations using high-tech equipment and in some cases, sophisticated computer models.

So let’s take at look at how scientists take the planet’s temperature, and what these broken records mean.

keep reading

🌏 The Culture Column

📺 What we’re watching: TRASHED

📸 Profile of the week: @ayanaeliza -Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

📖 What we’re reading: What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures, by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
🤯 Shocking fact we learnt this week: 14,000 tons of sunscreen end up in the ocean every year, make sure yours doesn’t contain Oxybenzone or Octinoxate.

This time we wanted to make you aware of the big issue of organized crime mining sand from rivers and coasts, the most mined resource worldwide.

Learn more about this below!

🗞️ In Climate News

• 🇮🇩 Bali’s rapid coastal erosion threatens island’s ecosystems and communities

• 🇹🇿 Forced evictions suppress Maasai spirituality and sacred spaces in Tanzania

• 🇿🇲 Zambian forest reserve rebounds

• 🇳🇬 Nigerian community helpless against rising seas

• 🇸🇦 Extreme heat kills hundreds of Muslim pilgrims

• 🇵🇦 More than 1,000 people evacuated to mainland Panama, the first community along the country’s coast to do so because of climate change

• 🏭 Fossil fuel use and emissions hit record highs as world struggles with deadly heat, storms and fires

• 🇬🇧 Thousands to march in London calling for urgent action to restore nature

• 🇧🇮 Floods continue in the border between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi

• 🇮🇹 Offshore drilling is putting Italy’s biggest delta at risk of sinking

📈 Cool Trends

• 💻 Using AI to help create near-limitless clean energy

• ☕️ Banning single-use coffee cups

♾️ eco-stories

⏳ Inside the Crime Rings Trafficking Sand

Originally written by David A. Taylor for Scientificamerican.com

Very few people are looking closely at the illegal sand system or calling for changes, however, because sand is a mundane resource. Yet sand mining is the world's largest extraction industry because sand is a main ingredient in concrete, and the global construction industry has been soaring for decades. Every year the world uses up to 50 billion metric tons of sand, according to a United Nations Environment Program report. The only natural resource more widely consumed is water. A 2022 study by researchers at the University of Amsterdam concluded that we are dredging river sand at rates that far outstrip nature's ability to replace it, so much so that the world could run out of construction-grade sand by 2050. The U.N. report confirms that sand mining at current rates is unsustainable.

keep reading

🌏 The Culture Column

📺 What we’re watching: Le Loup d'Or de Balolé

📸 Profile of the week: @lhr_sa - Lawyers for Human Rights - South Africa

📖 What we’re reading: The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization, by Vince Beiser
🤯 Shocking fact we learnt this week: Sand is the single most mined commodity, eclipsing minerals and metals by a colossal margin, and it is largely unregulated

In the face of the intensifying heatwaves around the world, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the state of our warming world and the deepening crisis we are living day to day. In these moments, we focus on the power of simple actions, of people overcoming the fear to offer love to the natural beings and environments that surround them.

This week we look to Projeto Biodiversidade and TAOLA+ and their incredible work protecting the biodiversity of Cape Verde. Scroll down to read more.

🗞️ In Climate News

• 🇮🇩 Rhino poacher gets 12 years in record sentence for wildlife crime in Indonesia

• 🇲🇽 Mass fish death in Mexico's Chihuahua State blamed on severe drought

• 🪸 Sea urchin pandemic spreads beyond Red Sea, endangering coral reefs

• 🇦🇹 Deadly floods spread across central Europe and hit Austria

• ⛈️ NOAA issues highest-ever early forecast for the coming hurricane season

• 🇮🇩 In Indonesia, women ranger teams go on patrol to slow deforestation

• 🇬🇧 Top 1% of UK earners cause 'seven times more transport emissions than average', report finds

• 🐝 Asian hornets survive UK winter for first time

• 🇿🇦 Tornadoes kill 11 people in South Africa

• 🇪🇺 Green parties in the European Union lose significant ground in the latest elections

📈 Cool Trends

• 🗳️ Recycling election ads into tote bags

• 💨 Using the ‘world’s largest’ vacuum to suck climate pollution out of the air just opened

♾️ eco-stories

The Power of Collective Action 💪

Neocolonialism refers to the indirect control that powerful countries exert over less developed nations, primarily through economic, political or cultural pressures (rather than direct military or political domination). The effects of neocolonialism are visible in environmental and conservation efforts, as foreign entities often initiate and control conservation projects in developing countries. These projects typically prioritise global environmental goals over local needs, sometimes displacing indigenous communities and imposing western conservation models that may not be sustainable or beneficial for local ecosystems.

After centuries of Portuguese colonial rule, Cape Verde, an archipelago of 10 islands in the central Atlantic Ocean, gained independence on July 5, 1975. Sal, one of the islands in the archipelago, historically thrived on salt production, but in the late 20th century an Italian investor purchased the salt mines and began building hotels and resorts, effectively controlling the island’s economy. This transition from salt production to tourism altered Sal’s economic landscape, highlighting the impact of foreign investment on local communities.

keep reading

🌏 The Culture Column

📺 What we’re watching: India’s disappearing mountains

📸 Profile of the week: @disharavii

📖 What we’re reading: Growing Up in the Grassroots: Finding Unity in Climate Activism Across Generations, by Joy Reeves
🤯 Shocking fact we learnt this week: Toxic dust is causing hundreds of deadly silicosis and cancer among locals in the Aravalli mountains

This week is ocean week, to celebrate one of the most important ecosystems we’ll share our ocean focused stories from the past year!

It has been a great pleasure to meet and listen to several unsung heroes that have dedicated their lives to ocean conservation. From volunteers of Neptune’s Navy tackling illegal fishing to talking with the saviours of San Simon island in Northern Spain. We hope you enjoy! 🌊

🗞️ In Climate News

• 🇮🇩 Rhino poacher gets 12 years in record sentence for wildlife crime in Indonesia

• 🇲🇽 Mass fish death in Mexico's Chihuahua State blamed on severe drought

• 🪸 Sea urchin pandemic spreads beyond Red Sea, endangering coral reefs

• 🇦🇹 Deadly floods spread across central Europe and hit Austria

• ⛈️ NOAA issues highest-ever early forecast for the coming hurricane season

• 🇮🇩 In Indonesia, women ranger teams go on patrol to slow deforestation

• 🇬🇧 Top 1% of UK earners cause 'seven times more transport emissions than average', report finds

• 🐝 Asian hornets survive UK winter for first time

• 🇿🇦 Tornadoes kill 11 people in South Africa

• 🇪🇺 Green parties in the European Union lose significant ground in the latest elections

📈 Cool Trends

• 🚫 bottom trawl bans

• 🏦 limiting fishing subsidies

♾️ eco-stories

🍣 Ordering salmon in Costa Rica

When did salmon become ubiquitous? An analysis of salmon’s global boom.

read about the salmon industry

🎣 Fishing with compassion

How a group of illegal fishermen regenerated a bay in Mexico, and now sell way more clams.

read how regenerative fishing can happen

🏝️ Making a Marine Biosphere

The story of the people behind the largest no-take marine protected area in North America: Revillagigedo.

read how to make an MPA

⛏️ The Deception of Deep Sea Mining

The history of deep sea mining and how the UN is attempting to regulate it.

learn about DSM

😔 A Eulogy to the Mediterranean Sea

An honest reflection of the current state of the most overfished sea in the world.

keep reading about the Mediterranean

⚓️ Sea Shepherd’s Neptune Navy

The story of the largest NGO out patrolling illegal fishing around the world.

read about Sea Shepherd

🇪🇸 The Goliaths of San Simon

A group of activist come together and save an oasis from developers in Northern Spain.

Read about San Simon

🐬 The Kiwi of the Sea

How the world’s smallest dolphin is slowly going extinct in New Zealand.

read about the pahu

🧵Chiara Vigo: the Master of Byssus Silk

A woman upholding ancestral wisdom in Italy whilst striving to protect its habitat.

read Chiara's story

🌏 The Culture Column
📺 What we’re watching:

📸 Profile of the week: @seaspiracy

📖 What we’re reading: The Sea Around Us - Rachel Carson
🤯 Shocking fact we learnt this week: bottom trawling is LEGAL in most marine protected areas

In this issue we travel to Cambodia, where land grabs and illegal trawlers are taking hold of the country’s beautiful coast.

Read the story below!

🗞️ In Climate News

• 🇰🇭 Ten environmental activists arrested in Cambodia

• 🇵🇬 Major landslide in Papua New Guinea buries thousands of people

• 🔬 Researchers find a new method for producing low-emission concrete on a large scale

• 💧 From Egypt to Syria, ‘water cancer’ chokes waterways

• 🇦🇺 Indigenous people and NGO grow a wildlife corridor in the world’s oldest rainforest in Australia

• 🏭 No need for countries to issue new oil, gas or coal licenses, study finds

• 🇮🇳 Delhi’s residents struggle to cope in record-breaking heat with temperatures over 52ºC

• 🇺🇸 Rivers and streams in Alaska are turning orange due to the toxic metals released by thawing permafrost

• 🇦🇫 Children pulled from mud as hundreds die in severe flooding in Afghanistan

• 🇩🇪 Five dead and thousands evacuate in Germany amidst devastating floods.

• 🇺🇾 Agricultural emergency decreed in Uruguay

📈 Cool Trends

• 🗑️ Plogging: picking up litter while jogging

• 👕 Fabrics made with plants and food, not petrochemicals

♾️ eco-story

🇰🇭 Cambodia’s coast faces a double threat

originally written for Mongabay.com

The double threat, from land and sea, extends beyond Koh Rong to much of the Cambodian coastline. Illegal fishing, chiefly embodied by rampant, unchecked trawling in protected and prohibited waters, has devastated fish stocks, trashed marine ecosystems, and left coastal communities in dire poverty, according to the more than 30 people Mongabay spoke to across Koh Kong and Preah Sihanouk provinces in March 2024.

At the same time, the land is being sold out from under them as roughly 225 kilometers of Cambodia’s 435-kilometer coastline (140 out of 270 miles) has been sold off to Cambodia’s tycoon class since 2000, with a slew of new projects announced in the last five years closing off access to the sea and piling more pressure on coastal fishers whose livelihoods were already hanging by a thread.

keep reading

🌏 The Culture Column

📺 What we’re watching: Cambodian environmental activist Ly Chandaravuth fights for nature and his freedom

📸 Profile of the week: @mothernaturecambodia

📖 What we’re reading: The Ecology of Freedom, Murray Bookchin
🤯 Shocking fact we learnt this week: For years, government agencies aided and abetted the extraction and smuggling of millions of tons of marine sand from Koh Kong's estuaries to several countries.

The art of weaving is an ancient art form held by women across many ancestral cultures. We traveled to Sardinia to meet with the last master of sea silk known as byssus—one of the last remnants of the island’s pre-Roman civilisation.

Read the story below!

🗞️ In Climate News

• 🇲🇽 It's so hot in Mexico, monkeys are falling dead from the trees

• 🛍️ eBay launches new resell button to drive circular fashion

• 🔬 Researchers develop a plastic that digests itself

• 🌳 Top brands buy Amazon carbon credits from suspected timber laundering scam

• 🇧🇷 In Brazil’s Cerrado, aquifers are losing more water than they can replace

• 🇦🇶 In two new studies, scientists see signs of fundamental climate shifts in Antarctica

• 🍄 Scientists transplant soil fungi in race to save world’s threatened orchids

• 🇺🇸 Alaskan rivers turning orange due to climate change, study finds

• 🌍 Extreme weather stirs cholera outbreaks in parts of east and southern Africa

• 🇵🇰 Pakistan faces severe heatwave: Residents call for action

• 🌱 More than half of all mangrove ecosystems at risk of collapse by 2050

📈 Cool Trends

• 🖍️ upcycled crayons

• 🌆 green canopies in cities

♾️ eco-story

🧵 Chiara Vigo: The Last Master of Byssus

Chiara Vigo, is the last known master of the byssus sea silk. She lives in the southernmost tip of Sardinia, on the island of Sant’Antioco. She was trained as a master by her grandmother. In fact the Vigo women can trace back their lineage of byssus weaving to 500 years ago.

“A master comes, a master goes. It has been done in my family for 28 generations now.”

For millennia the secret of how the byssus sea silk is woven from the slime produced by a Mediterranean clam, the Pinna nobilis, has been passed down from grandmother to granddaughter with very strict instructions that the sea silk must never be sold and the knowledge must remain within the female bloodline. Legend says that whoever breaks this pledge will be cursed.

Earlier this year, I traveled with a few friends across Sardinia and we met with Chiara Vigo in her workshop in Sant Antioco. When we entered, we were three Italian women, following a thread: an urge to connect with the native mysticism that was buried by millennia of ecclesiastical persecution. Chiara greeted us warmly, like a grandmother welcoming her family. Her demeanour was gentle yet she spoke directly.

keep reading

🌏 The Culture Column

📺 What we’re watching: Spinning Silk from the Sea

📸 Profile of the week: @vigochiara

📖 What we’re reading: From Darkness to Light - Marine Byssus and Chiara Vigo, by Susanna Lavazza
🤯 Shocking fact we learnt this week: the pinna nobilis is the second-largest mollusc in the world, reaching up to 1.2m in height!

Our environment is always communicating with us in a language that defies our human-centric worldview. This week’s story focuses on the language of Corn as understood through the Wixárika peoples. Scroll down to read.

🗞️ In Climate News

• 🇷🇺 Activists sue Russia over ‘weak’ climate policy

• 🇫🇷 Free public transport in Montpellier, France, has led to 20% more journeys

• 💻 Data centres have driven Microsoft’s emissions up by 30%

• 🦜 Bird populations declining at an Amazon park in Ecuador & beyond

• 🇨🇦 Canada oil sands air pollution 20-64 times worse than industry says: Study

• 🇳🇬 ‘Weather whiplash’ cycles of floods & droughts imperil Nigerian farming

• 🇮🇩 NZ funding helps Indigenous farmers in Indonesia protect forests, boost incomes

• 🔥 Canadian wildfires trigger air quality alerts across 4 U.S. states

• 🇰🇪 Building Collapses in Nairobi Amidst Heavy Rains, Injuring Several

• 🇳🇱 New Dutch coalition aims to reintroduce 80mph limit in cull of climate goals

• 🇮🇩 Latest palm oil deforester in Indonesia may also be operating illegally

📈 Cool Trends

• ☕️ Empowering community-centered shade coffee agroforestry, while protecting rare and migrating birds

• 🎽 Sustainable clothing dyes by recreating the DNA of natural colours

♾️ eco-story

The Poetic Language of Corn

My interest in learning and collaborating with indigenous communities in Mexico came from personal experiences as a migrant woman of indigenous heritage.

I am a third-generation Oaxaqueña living in the United States with ties to Mexico City, Mazatlán, Tijuana and most recently, Tepic. My family from both paternal and maternal sides come from a long history of circular migration, moving from one place to another and returning to the original homelands. On my paternal side of the family, my grandfather is from San Juan Sayultepec, a pueblo in Nochixtlán District in the southeast of the Mixteca region of Mexico. On my maternal side, my grandmother, as a young teenage girl, came from the Valle of Oaxaca to work in the field of Mochis, Sinaloa. Due to traumatic and painful disconnection, my mother never met my grandmother and my maternal lineage is still in the process of healing, but through my academic studies and research in anthropology, I have been able to study in Mexico to connect with local communities and indirectly connect with my cultural heritage.

In 2011, I was invited to participate in a gathering with native communities in Tequepexpán, Nayarit. In this gathering, I met Wixárika women and I was invited to visit their community of Las Piedras in Compostela, which led me to visit the Wixárika community of Taimarita and later Y+rata, on the outskirts of Tepic in Nayarit. Every year, I returned to the community to learn with other mothers and their children. By then, my daughter Ixchel was born, and I brought her with me for every field trip. I was a student of Culture and Performance at the Department of World Arts and Culture/Dance at UCLA, working in their PhD program. Through my research I shared most of my time with other mothers, young Wixárika and caregivers in the family. In many of my interactions with the community, I was taught how to be a “good mother” by very young Wixárika girls, which initially felt uncomfortable, I didn’t believe I could learn from younger, inexperienced girls about motherhood, but I was wrong as the best lessons about Wixárika motherhood came from young girls. It was my very first ethnographic lesson: to learn and not impose my ideas. With time, I made kinship ties with the Y+rata community and began to learn about the Wixárika connection with the so-called natural world. It was then that my research evolved to a multi-species approach as I learned from more-than-humans in a meaningful, reciprocal and sustainable way.

keep reading

🌏 The Culture Column

📺 What we’re watching: The Earthing Movie

📸 Profile of the week: @niatero

📖 What we’re reading: The Salt Path, by Raynor Winn

🤯 Shocking fact we learnt this week: Herd of 170 bison could help store CO2 equivalent of 43,000 cars

It’s not every day you meet one of your heroes.

A bit over a month ago, I had the privilege of sitting and speaking with Bob Brown. As an Australian, Bob was a prominent public figure throughout my life. His actions and words inspired my own and encouraged me to become the person I am today.

For anyone who doesn’t know who Bob Brown is, this week’s story will ensure you do. Scroll down to read about the life and work of one of Mother Earth’s great defenders.

🗞️ In Climate News

• 🇮🇩 Desperation sets in for Indigenous Sumatrans who lost their forests to plantations

• ♶ At its fourth summit, 170 nations strive toward a global plastics treaty by 2025

• 🇰🇪 Kenya: Anger and frustration as floods continue to wreak havoc

• 🇻🇳 Hundreds of thousands of fish die off in Vietnam as heatwave roasts Southeast Asia

• 🇧🇷 New ban threatens traditional fishers in Brazil’s Mato Grosso state

• 🇱🇷 New illegal logging threatens Liberia’s forests amid vague ban

• 🗺️ Climate change is pushing animals closer to humans, with potentially catastrophic consequences

• 🏥 Biodiversity loss is biggest driver of infectious disease outbreaks, says study

• 🇻🇪 Venezuela loses its last glacier as it shrinks down to an ice field

• 🌎 Disease and hunger soar in Latin America after floods and drought

• 🇦🇺 Australia commits to gas beyond 2050 despite climate warnings

📈 Cool Trends

• 🤖 AI-powered search engine that invests ad revenue in biodiversity protection projects

• 🌱 Remotely managed vertical farms that reduce water use

♾️ eco-story

Environmentalism is Resistance

Depending on how you define it, activism has a long history in so called Australia. 

When Arthur Phillip — a former whaler and longtime servant of the British Navy — attempted to establish a colony on Gadigal land, he was resisted by Bennelong, Pemulwuy and the many Eora people who fought beside them. The Colony was established in the settlement of Sydney Cove, and early settlers invaded the nearby land of the Dharawal, Dharug, Awabakal, Darkinjung, Gandangara and Wiradjuri peoples. The fifth Governor of New South Wales, Lachlan Macquarie, effectively declared war on the “hostile natives”. Communities were massacred and native forests were felled, as settlements spread with the support of British agriculture and grazing methods that were imposed on the land. The Original Peoples of the Sovereign Nations that criss-cross the Australian continent and its surrounding islands, resisted an onslaught of violence and terror for over 100 years through a series of conflicts commonly referred to as the Frontier Wars. Musquito, Yagan, Windradyne, Tarenorerer, Tunnerminnerwait, Maulboyheenner, Truganini, Jandamarra and Dhakiyarr are some of the many figures of resistance who fought alongside their respective communities.

Eventually the colonies of New South Wales, Van Diemen’s Land, Port Phillip, Swan River, South Australia and Queensland united to form the Commonwealth of Australia. Resistance continued as communities continued to live in the face of the restrictions imposed on their culture and connection to Country by the newly formed state and federal governments. Foreign settlers also resisted British rule and imposition, reflected in the Rum Rebellion of 1808 and the Eureka Stockade of 1854, as well as the development of labour unions throughout the colonies in the 19th century.

Unionism also influenced the development of the first politically organised Aboriginal activist group, the Australian Aborigines Progressive Association (AAPA), formed in 1924, campaigning for rights to land ownership, citizenship, control of their own affairs and an end to the removal of Aboriginal children from their families. The AAPA was renamed the Aborigines’ Progressive Association and along with the Australian Aborigines League, they organised the first Day of Mourning on January 26 1938. It was the culmination of years of work, encouraging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander activism across Australia, which led to the Yirrkala Bark Petitions, the Freedom Ride, the Wave Hill walk-off, the campaign for the constitutional referendum of 1967, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy and the Mabo Case.

keep reading

🌏 The Culture Column

📺 What we’re watching: The Giants

📸 Profile of the week: @bobbrownfoundation

📖 What we’re reading: Optimism: Reflections on a Life of Action, by Bob Brown

🤯 Shocking fact we learnt this week: Tasmania has the oldest trees in the world: While the oldest individual tree or stem on the site may now be 1000 to 2000 years old, the organism itself has been living there continuously for 10,500 years.

If you’ve ever encountered a dolphin in the wild you’ll understand the saying that dolphins are the humans of the sea. They’re playful, curious, clever, sweet and social animals—their brains are actually larger and more complex than humans’!

In New Zealand, the Pahu (also known as Hector’s dolphin) is the world’s smallest dolphin and numbers are quickly decreasing. Below a story on what is happening 🐬

Share

🗞️ In Climate News

• 🪨 Coal plants that plan to stay open beyond 2039 in the US would have to cut or capture 90% of their carbon dioxide emissions by 2032

• 🛢️ New rule from The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management ups big oil’s financial responsibility for abandoned offshore drilling

• 🇱🇷 New illegal logging threatens Liberia’s forests amid vague ban

• 🇵🇭 Indigenous Philippine village rejects gold mine

• 🇧🇴 Indigenous Bolivians flee homes as backlash to mining protest turns explosive

• 🇸🇹 Sao Tome joins African nations in seeking compensation from former colonizers

• 🇧🇷 Death toll in Southern Brazil floods reaches 75, with 100 still missing.

• 🇰🇪 Over 200 people killed in floods in Kenya

• 🇳🇬 Nigerians struggle with fuel shortages as queues form across major cities

📈 Cool Trends

• 🌾 Turning farm waste like green wastes into biogas and organic fertilizers

• 🌳 Planting trees for free by watching ads from sustainable brands

♾️ eco-story

🐬 The Kiwi of The Sea

Toitū te marae a Tāne-Mahuta, toitū te marae a Tangaroa, toitū te tangata.

This is a whakatauki, a Māori proverb widely known in Aotearoa (New Zealand) that means “if the land is well and the sea is well, so too are the people”.

The literal truths of this proverb are obvious: our lives are reliant on clean water, healthy soil, and fresh air. More and more research highlights how our mental health is connected to the natural world, as it reduces stress while inspiring creativity and joy. This reflects the spiritual beliefs of the Māori people, who have deep relationships with the land and the sea, as well as the plants and animals who also call these lands home. If our native species are threatened, so is the wellbeing of Aotearoa’s people. One of these species is the smallest and rarest dolphin in the world, the Hector’s dolphin, with one of its subspecies, the Māui dolphin, critically endangered with only 55 individuals left.

The Hector’s dolphin has different Māori names, depending on the region. Tutumairekurai and tūpoupou are common, while pahu is often used and has been adopted by Sea Shepherd New Zealand in their campaign to protect these dolphins. An old Māori belief is that spirits that have passed may come back as tutumairekurai, so they are viewed as extensions of the family, worthy of deep respect. Historically, these dolphins were so common that it was laughable to think that they would ever be classed as endangered. Now only 10,000 remain in the waters surrounding Aotearoa, meaning they are “nationally vulnerable”.

keep reading

🌏 The Culture Column

📺 What we’re watching: Māui & Hector's Dolphins : An appeal from the children of Whāingaroa

📸 Profile of the week: @seashepherdnz

📖 What we’re reading: Lilly on Dolphins: Humans of the Sea, John C Lilly
🤯 Shocking fact we learnt this week: dolphins can use echolocation to locate objects up to 200m away

I have heard many millennials say that the current state of the world is due to “boomers”, people born between 1946 and 1964, who made a lot of the decisions that directed Western society into the deepening climate crisis we are currently immersed in.

This week, we share the story of Willem van Aalst, a boomer who focused his life on making money until he made a significant shift to focus his energy on nurturing the Earth that nurtures him, proving there is hope for all of us. Scroll down to read more.

🗞️ In Climate News

• 🛢️ New rules protect 13 millions of acres of Alaska’s western Arctic from future oil drilling

• 🦟 Mosquito-borne diseases spreading in Europe due to climate crisis, says expert

• 🇰🇪 Nairobi residents grapple with floods aftermath

• 🇧🇷 Afro-Brazilian communities fight a rain of pesticides & the company behind it

• 🇮🇳 Warming seas push India’s fishers into distant, and more dangerous, waters

• 🌳 A web of front people conceals environmental offenders in the Amazon

• 🇵🇪 Deforestation haunts top Peruvian reserve and its Indigenous communities

• 🇮🇩 Indigenous community fights to save its lands on Indonesia’s historic tin island

📈 Cool Trends

• 🧽 Reducing your chemicals and plastic consumption by making your own cleaning products

• 🧹 Turning plastic bottles into brooms

♾️ eco-story

Bread is not a commodity

Willem van Aalst worked in finance.

“I met a commodity trader with EF Hutton. I thought his lifestyle was interesting and exciting, so I decided that’s what I want to do.”

His career began with an internship in Chicago, which led to work as a correspondent at the European Options Exchange in his hometown of Amsterdam.

“I spoke French fluently, so I was responsible for selling seats on the exchange to French speaking countries.”

Although he enjoyed his job, Willem missed the USA and wanted to return. Eventually, an opportunity emerged through a training program with Bankers Trust.

“It was a lot of fun, I spent time in New York where I met my wife Kathryn in 1980. We were engaged in 1981, and we got married in 1982 in New Orleans, which is where she grew up.”

After the training program, Willem was offered a job with a posting in either Jakarta or Amsterdam. Again he chose to return to his hometown, this time to be close to his father who was sick with lung cancer. After his father passed, Willem left his role with Bankers Trust, enrolled in a MBA, and eventually took a job in London where he moved with his growing family.

“Kathryn was pregnant with Sasha, my daughter” — she also gave birth to two sons, Nicholas and Philip — “and we lived in London for the next 12 years. I worked for Smith Barney first as a bond trader and salesman, and then with Salomon Brothers, where I was a bond salesman to Dutch and Scandinavian insurance companies, pension funds and the like.”

Willem was then offered a job with Lehman Brothers.

keep reading

🌏 The Culture Column

📺 What we’re watching: Nomads of Benin – Driven Away by Drought

📸 Profile of the week: @sustainableandjustfuture

📖 What we’re reading: Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures, by Merlin Sheldrake

🤯 Shocking fact we learnt this week: We already need the same as 1.75 Earth-like planets to support the rise of the global consumer class… and counting.

Monday was Earth Day. As we said last year, and we’ll probably say next year, every day is Mother Earth Day.

🗞️ In Climate News

• 🇦🇺 AgForce met in Brisbane to challenge mining company Glencore's proposal to store waste carbon dioxide in Australia's biggest underground freshwater system

• 🇮🇳 India’s Supreme Court expands ‘right to life’ to include protection against climate change

• 🇳🇿 Whales and dolphins are officially granted personhood in Polynesia thanks to Indigenous leaders

• 🌏 Bloomberg launches youth action fund to drive climate solutions in 100 cities across the globe

• 🥤 The European Union is banning single-use plastics by 2030

• 🇿🇼 El Niño-linked drought threatens maize production in Zimbabwe

• 🇲🇱 Deadly heatwave in Mali and the Sahel, the worst in living memory, linked to climate change

• 🌍 Devastating floods ravage parts of east Africa, displacing thousands

📈 Cool Trends

• 👕 Turning your old clothes into reusable soy wax wraps

• 🪨 Turning CO2 to stone in bid to combat greenhouse emissions

♾️ eco-musing

Francisco Alves Mendes Filho, better known as Chico Mendes, was born in 1944 in a rubber reserve in the state of Acre, Brazil. His father was a rubber tapper, like his father before him, and Chico began work as a seringueiro (a rubber tapper) when he was nine years old.

Schools were forbidden on most rubber plantations in Brazil and Chico did not learn to read until he was 18 years old: a co-worker used the newspaper to guide Chico’s education. It was through reading the newspaper that Chico also started learning of the social and political issues in Brazil and throughout Latin America, which offered context to the mistreatment Chico and his fellow seringueiros were experiencing.

Once Chico learned to read, he started teaching literacy in his community, hoping to share his growing awareness of injustice and human rights. Soon they formed unions that engaged in peaceful protests around workers’ rights, human rights, indigenous rights and the rights of nature, calling for the cessation of logging and burning of the Amazon rain forest that created their livelihood. Chico once said “at first I thought I was fighting to save rubber trees, then I thought I was fighting to save the Amazon rain forest. Now I realize I am fighting for humanity.” He also famously stated that “ecology without class struggle is gardening.”

On Earth Day, we often state our love for our great Mother Nature, who has generously provided us with the life we are so lucky to experience. On this day, it is also important to remember figures like Chico Mendes, a forefather of environmental activism, who understood the interconnection between humanity and our natural world and thus the clear connection between environmentalism and social justice. Chico Mendes was sadly assassinated in 1988 and on this Earth Day we offer our gratitude.

🌏 The Culture Column

📺 What we’re watching: Not On Our Soil – A Climate Justice Reality

📸 Profile of the week: @chicksforclimate

📖 What we’re reading: Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest, by Suzanne Simard

🤯 Shocking fact we learnt this week: There are over 300,000 items in an average American home

Over the past year and a half, we have focused our content on community stories that highlight how effective grassroots activism is in preventing environmental destruction and regenerating natural spaces.

This week the powerful story of the Plataforma en Defensa da Ensenada de San Simón, which has long been protecting the natural beauty of the Vigo estuary from the significant commercial and government interests attracted to one of Europe’s most important ports. Scroll down to read more.

🗞️ In Climate News

• 🇨🇭 A landmark climate ruling in Switzerland

• 🇺🇸 Honeybee population in the US break records

• 🍾 Revolution on the way in the glass making industry to reduce its CO2 emissions

• 🇦🇺 Great Barrier Reef suffering ‘most severe’ coral bleaching on record

• 🏭 World’s coal power capacity rises despite climate warnings

• 🇦🇶 Wildlife under threat as avian influenza reaches Antarctica

• 🇰🇪 Climate-smart seeds cultivate hope for Kenya's agricultural future

• 🌍 Africa Climate Roundtable to unify African voices on climate resilience and adaptation

📈 Cool Trends

• 🥙 Trading plastic bottles for free food at ‘garbage cafes’ in India

• 🧫 Using methane-eating microbes to turn pollution into fertilizer

♾️ eco-story

The Goliaths of San Simón

For the past two decades, the legend of David, the young shepherd who defeated the giant Goliath with a stone and a sling, has echoed in Galicia, Spain. The Ensenada de San Simón is a space included in the Natura 2000 Network, a web of protected areas covering Europe’s most valuable and threatened species and habitats, and therefore theoretically protected under the European Union’s Nature Conservancy Act. But these supposed protections are often too lax, as each EU country decides how best to implement these regulations based on the understanding that each site in this network is unique, so it’s on the landowners and site managers to work together to find local solutions for each area.

The Ensenada de San Simón has, on paper, been protected since 2001, when it joined the Natura 2000. But these protections are often ignored in the face of the interests of Goliaths like Pescanova and the Port of Vigo.

“The Vigo fish market is the most important port for the commercialisation of fish for human consumption on the European continent, and it serves as a central point for fish trading at both European and global levels.”

keep reading

🌏 The Culture Column

📺 What we’re watching: The Shore Break

📸 Profile of the week: @freija.marine

📖 What we’re reading: The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World, by Peter Wohlleben and Tim Flannery

🤯 Shocking fact we learnt this week: Microsoft was estimated to used 700,000 liters — or about 185,000 gallons — of fresh water to train ChatGPT.

More and more, the environmental movement is focused on the regeneration of land and natural systems, a process that is partly inspired by the generational change from Boomers to Millennials, and society’s subsequent shift in values. This week we share the story of the family behind the Vernessac farm in central France, and how their project illustrates the shift in how we collectively perceive both health and happiness.

🗞️ In Climate News

• 🇺🇸 New England’s last coal plants will close by 2028

• 👚 Secondhand clothing on track to take 10% of global fashion sales

• 🗽 NY Senate advances legislation banning CO2 fracking

• 🇲🇲 Skywalker gibbons confirmed in Myanmar for the first time

• 🇱🇷 World Bank’s IFC under fire over alleged abuses at Liberian plantation it funded

• 🇿🇼 Zimbabwe declares drought disaster

• 🇨🇱 Chile launches a Climate Change Observatory and becomes a global sensor for climate-related information

📈 Cool Trends

• 🌳 Kenya is on its way to achieving 30% tree cover by 2050 after reaching their initial goal of 10% by 2022

• 🥡 Edible packaging made of plant-based materials

♾️ eco-story

Planting is Love

“I come from a world very sick, full of fear, full of greed. I focused the first part of my life following a path to make my family and myself secure.”

Olivier Stulmacher worked in finance.

“Finance people say there are economic models that explain our world, but this is totally wrong, all of the models fail, all of the models turned into crisis, to more people starving, people poisoned, to the devastation of nature. So this is the result, and why is that so? People believe these models reflect the world, but in reality people created these models. And on the inside of the models are these core feelings of fear and greed.”

These emotions fuel the capitalist system, but they also fuel the way we interact.

“The more you feel fear, the more you’re going to feel greed, and the more things you try to possess, the more you’re going to feel afraid. It’s an insatiable, infinite circle. And when I realised that, I realised I had to reverse this inside me, not inside others, but first inside me.”

keep reading

🌏 The Culture Column

📺 What we’re watching: The Great Green Wall

📸 Profile of the week: @edenprojects

📖 What we’re reading: The Ministry for the Future, by Kim Stanley Robinson

🤯 Shocking fact we learnt this week: African forest elephants fight climate change

🗞️ In Climate News

• ✈️ Activists win greenwashing court case against aviation company KLM

• 🇬🇧 Britain's Cambridge University adopted a moratorium on new funding from fossil fuel companies after a student-led campaign

• 🇺🇸 California votes to consider health and environment in future energy planning

• 🇪🇨 Major oil spill occurs in Ecuadorian Amazon

• 🇨🇩 Indigenous Twa accuse Alphamin Bisie Mining SA of obtaining mining rights without proper consultation in eastern DRC

• 🇧🇩 Toxic tide threatens Bangladesh’s water lifeline

• 🇨🇩 Global cobalt rush drives toxic toll near DRC mines

• 🇮🇩 Indonesian activists face jail over FB posts flagging damage to marine park

📈 Cool Trends

• 🌳 Edible forests

• 🇵🇪 An indigenous-led climate action project

♾️ eco-story

🇪🇨 Book Local Tours

Established in 1959, the Galapagos Islands is Ecuador’s oldest National Park. Renowned for each island’s unique flora and fauna, which inspired Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, most tourists are attracted by the underwater life that surrounds the Islands. This is thanks to the Galapagos Marine Protected Area (MPA) that was established in 1998, and turned the islands into an important refuge for marine wildlife, which is sharply declining throughout the world.

In January, I travelled to the Galapagos and boarded a small sailboat that promised a low-impact tour of the isles. In Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz, I was greeted by our naturalist guide, Johnny Alvarez, who took care of us on our ten day journey visiting the wonders of the Galapagos National Park.

“Life has been so beautiful and so peaceful here.”

keep reading

🌏 The Culture Column

📺 What we’re watching: Thank You for the Rain

📸 Profile of the week: @solutions.project

📖 What we’re reading: Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet, by George Monbiot
🤯 Shocking fact we learnt this week: The UK could reduce its carbon output by over 16,433 tons, simply by each adult sending one less email per day.

Reciprocity is an increasingly popular concept, regularly referenced in the pseudo-psychological dating advice on social media, as well as the articles and white papers heralding the new science of psychedelics. The growing popularity of this word is part of western society’s growing awareness of the energetic exchanges at the root of our collective reality and the essence of our connection with the natural world.

For the Q'ero Nation of the Andes, reciprocity has been a central pillar of their culture for thousands of years. As the world has become increasingly transactional through the spread of global capitalism, the Q'ero have prayed for reciprocity, specifically through its connection to ayni, a key principle of their culture, and all cultures that live among the Andes.

To learn more about the incredible traditions of the Q'ero, be sure to read this week’s eco-story.

🗞️ In Climate News

• 🇫🇷 France to put extra charges of up to 50% on fast fashion products, and to ban them from being advertised.

• 🇬🇧 UK chicken major Avara sued over river pollution

• 🇺🇸 Joe Biden proposes tax increase on fuel for private jets

• 🇦🇼 Aruba about to introduce rights of nature in its constitution

• 🇿🇦 South Africa's largest city battles unprecedented water crisis

• 🌍 33 African countries in need of external assistance for food

• 🌸 Earlier springs have cascading effects on animals, plants and pastimes

• 🌡️ Drought, heat and mismanagement make getting fresh water an increasingly tough task

📈 Cool Trends

• ☕️ Making coffee cups from coffee beans

• 🧱 Plastic turned into bricks stronger than concrete

♾️ eco-story

The Sacred Apus: an encounter with the Q'ero Nation

In the high peaks of the Peruvian Andes is the sacred home of a community who live with the great apus, the mountain spirits they call by name: Apu Markusani, Apu Qocha Moqo, Apu Panpa Kuchu, Apu Anparaes, Apu Pitusiray, Apu Ausangate and Apu Salqantay (among others). These sacred mountains are rarely visited — until recently they could only be accessed by foot — and despite the recent construction of a road halfway up the mountains, the trip is still arduous and often too expensive for locals. The result is a largely untouched region with several lagoons of clear water, a special place that is protected by the Q'ero Nation, who humbly live with love for Mother Earth. The Q'ero people took refuge in these heights to escape the scourge of imperial Spaniards, and have since lived isolated from the rest of the world for around five centuries.

Since the time of the great ancient empire of the Incas — known locally as Tawantinsuyu, it was the largest empire in the pre-Columbian Americas — the apus are respected as divine entities that protect the local population and the land. The heritage of the Incas is still present with most Peruvians knowing the name of the apus in their region and how to pay respect to them. The Q'ero Nation is known in Peru as the people who listen to the voice of the apus. As descendants of the Incas, they have always been intermediaries between the spiritual and material worlds, in dialogue with all elements, making commitments to carry out the apus’ calls for harmony among all living beings. 

keep reading

🌏 The Culture Column

📺 What we’re watching: Fungi: Web of Life

📸 Profile of the week: @mnyomb1

📖 What we’re reading: Post Growth: Life After Capitalism, by Tim Jackson

🤯 Shocking fact we learnt this week: In terms of greenhouse gas, internet use accounts for 3.7% of global emissions

Around 18 months ago, we shifted eco-nnect’s content from a short-form news-style to deeper and longer stories. We were enrolled in workshops with YARN Australia, which inspired a big shift in how we thought of stories and how we shared them.

This week we speak to YARN’s founder Warren Roberts, to understand the significance of storytelling within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander worldviews. Scroll down to read more.

🗞️ In Climate News

• 🌍 New ecoregion proposed for Southern Africa’s threatened ‘sky islands’

• 🇬🇹 Rehabilitation of Guatemalan fauna highlights opacity of illegal wildlife trade

• 🌳 Biological field stations deliver high return on investment for conservation, study finds

• 🇷🇼 Landslide in Rwanda causes devastation in bordering Congo

• 🛢️ Climate activists across Europe block access to North Sea oil infrastructure

• 🇺🇸 U.S. approves $500 million for Bahrain oil project, despite opposition

• 🇫🇷 France proposes EU ban on exports of used clothes

• 🇪🇺 EU Parliament passes weakened pollution limits for livestock farms

📈 Cool Trends

• 🌱 Reconciling conservation agriculture and agroforestry for sustainability

• 🇰🇪 Marine plastic waste turned into school desks and chairs in Kenya

♾️ eco-story

The Arts of Relationships

When people ask me what I do, I tell them I’m a storyteller. People often respond by asking what that means, if I tell stories to kids, if I write novels, or if I make films. It seems to me that a lot of people associate stories with technology like television, cinema, books or podcasts, forgetting that a story is its own form of technology. Humans have long shared stories to connect with one another and their surrounding environment through oral traditions passed from one generation to the next. According to Thunghutti and Bundjalung man Warren Roberts, stories are a relational tool.

“We say today storyteller, but it's more or less how we make sense of the world. As we share stories, our collective trust strengthens and our relationships grow.”

Warren grew up surrounded by his Elders.

“They were always sharing stories, they did everything in relationship. I learned from them and how they interacted with people. My Nan's brother said to me, you are just continuing what Elva and Patricia were doing, what you do is a continuation of what our Elders have always done.”

His Nanna, Elva Taylor, was one of nine sisters and three brothers, a remarkable family of Aboriginal organisers and advocates widely known for their significant achievements.

keep reading

🌏 The Culture Column

📺 What we’re watching: The secret life of your clothes

📸 Profile of the week: @theorispresent

📖 What we’re reading: Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, by Elizabeth L. Cline

🤯 Shocking fact we learnt this week: Producing one cotton t-shirt requires 2,700 liters of water, and a pair of jeans, 7,500 liters. 

This past Friday was International Women’s Day, an opportunity to celebrate the collective wisdom and energy of women all over the world.

This past year, we have had the privilege of sharing the inspiring stories of incredible women: Helena Norberg-Hodge, Petrine McCrohan, Jojo Mehta and the profound sisters Mukutsawa and Sani Montahuano Ushigua.

We celebrate women today and all days. As the poet Rumi says, a woman “is not a mere creature, she is like a creator". She is the human form of our great Mother, our Earth.

This week’s newsletter has a feminine focus, as well a story about an amazing indigenous-led project in Colombia.

🗞️ In Climate News

• 🇺🇸 NY sues world’s top meat producer JBS over misleading sustainability claims.

• 🇵🇭 Extreme weather events cause $200bn in economic losses globally, philippines and US hit the hardest, report finds.

• 🇲🇳 Killer winter is ravaging herds and a way of life in Mongolia.

• 🇺🇸 Chicago sues 5 oil companies after their products lead to climate “catastrophic consequences”.

• 🇿🇲 Zambia declares national emergency over drought.

• 🌍 Africa to be $2.5 trillion short of climate finance by 2030, UN says.

• 🇧🇷 Study on Brazilian heat wave deaths shows gender & racial disparities.

• 🪲 Habitat loss & pesticides threaten Brazil’s bioluminescent insects.

📈 Cool Trends

• 🇲🇼 Women farmers in Malawi tackle climate change and gender inequalities through greenhouse programme .

• 🇵🇾 Sacred plant helping forge a climate-friendly future in Paraguay.

♾️ eco-story

Regenerating the Heart of the Earth

The Arhuaco, Kogi, Wiwa and Kankuamo communities have long safeguarded the sacred lands of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain range in northern Colombia. These lands hold profound spiritual significance, deeply rooted in their cosmologies and belief systems. The snow-capped peaks are considered the Heart of the Earth, and its ecological balance is of high importance in maintaining environmental balance across the world.

The Arhuaco, Kogi, Wiwa and Kankuamo see themselves as humanity’s “elder brothers and sisters”, responsible for preserving this balance. Rivers represent the veins of the Earth, connecting the mountains to the spirit realm, while trees and forests are living beings that sustain all life. These indigenous groups honour nature through ceremonies, payments to the Earth, and sustainable use of resources, maintaining an intimate relationship to the land that is central to their cultural identity. Specific natural sites are sacred spaces for rituals of divination and healing, and keen observation of ecological patterns guide their ceremonial calendar, as Mamos and Zagas — the spiritual leaders and elders of these indigenous groups — draw on ancestral knowledge to read signs from nature to maintain equilibrium with Mother Earth.

keep reading

🌏 The Culture Column

📺 What we’re watching: SHE changes climate

📸 Profile of the week: @women_and_climate

📖 What we’re reading: Climate justice: a man-made problem with a feminist solution by Mary Robinson.

🤯 Shocking fact we learnt this week: In the aftermath of extreme weather events and natural disasters, countries report an increase in violence against women while girls tend to be pulled out of school to help their families recover from such events.  

This week, we revisit the EU’s Nature Restoration Law, which we looked at last August. Since then, the proposed law went through a series of negotiations between the European Commission, Council and Parliament, while also receiving a lot of critique from farmers and Europe’s far-right.

On Wednesday February 27, the European Parliament approved the revised text of the Nature Restoration Law. This text now faces a final vote in the EU Council before being published in the EU Official Journal and entering into force 20 days later.

While the strength and scope of the Nature Restoration Law was reduced by lobby groups and the political parties representing their interests, it remains an important step towards a more environmentally aware and sustainable Europe. You can scroll down to read more.

🗞️ In Climate News

• 🇦🇫 Afghanistan struck by unseasonal avalanche.

• 🇫🇷 France recorded over 5,000 deaths due to summer 2023 extreme heat.

• 🇰🇿 Methane mega-leak exposed in Kazakhstan.

• 🇮🇩 Indonesia turns traditional Indigenous land into nickel industrial zone.

• 🇦🇷 Argentine resistance hinders Milei’s forest and glacier destruction.

• 🇨🇱 A highway project in Chile threatens one of the world’s longest-living tree species.

• 🌳 Palm oil deforestation makes comeback in Indonesia.

• 🌍 Blended finance can perpetuate climate colonialism.

📈 Cool Trends

• 🎸 Music festivals going green.

• ⛳️ Transforming golf courses into ecological life rafts for wildlife.

♾️ eco-story

Debating Biodiversity:
the Nature Restoration Law

In August, we focused on the development of the European Union’s Nature Restoration Law, a key part of the EU’s Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, or the Green Deal. This group of proposals and policies has the ambition of no net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050 and for economic growth to be decoupled from resource use. With the EU’s poor conservation record, the Parliament felt the need to sanctify climate action through policy.

The European Commission published the Nature Restoration Law on June 22 2022, a proposal for legally binding targets to revive forests, wetlands, sea and landscapes that have been adversely affected by human development, with emphasis on those with the most potential to capture and store carbon, and that prevent and reduce the impact of natural disasters. The focus was to safeguard at least 30% of EU land and 30% of EU seas designated as protected areas.

keep reading

🌏 The Culture Column

📺 What we’re watching: All That Breathes

📸 Profile of the week: @climateincolour

📖 What we’re reading: Unbowed by Wangari Muikia

🤯 Amazing fact we learnt this week: Greenland sharks don't reach puberty until they're 150 years old.

Through the process of globalisation, humanity has lost countless species, languages and cultures. It is a wealth that most people were oblivious to, so they don’t even know how much we’ve collectively lost.

This week’s eco-story focuses on the life and ideas of Helena Norberg-Hodge, the founder of Local Futures, who has been an important witness and activist speaking of the environmental and cultural destruction imposed by globalisation. You can scroll down to read her story.

🗞️ In Climate News

• 🇬🇱 Greenland's ice sheet is melting and being replaced by vegetation.

• 🐻‍❄️ Polar bears unlikely to adapt to longer summers.

• 🛰️ Partnership to expose emissions from oil and gas operations that will be detected from space by a new satellite.

• 🇹🇹 First responders and volunteers from Trinidad and Tobago sought to contain the oil spill detected last week.

• 🇵🇭 68 people died in Philippines landslide.

• 🌎 Category 6 hurricane proposed as study warns of 'more intense' weather caused by climate change.

• 🌏 Climate change is fueling the disappearance of the Aral Sea.

• 🇳🇬 Shell accused of trying to wash hands of Nigerian oil spill mess.

📈 Cool Trends

• 💧 Regenerative Seawater Agriculture.

• 🌿 Recycling and purifying waste water using plants.

• 🍍Making sustainable textiles out of pineapple waste.

♾️ eco-story

A Local Life

The term globalisation describes how local cultures and economies became interdependent through technology and trade. It is a process that developed over centuries — through military, cultural and government imperialism — which led to our current global society and the dispersion of goods, services, money, culture and people across national borders. While this global society is now ubiquitous, there was a time before the proliferation of affordable air travel when the step-by-step process of globalisation was visible, and Helena Norberg-Hodge bore witness.

keep reading

🌏 The Culture Column

📺 What we’re watching: The Chikukwa Project

📸 Profile of the week: @goodlife_permaculture

📖 What we’re reading: A Bigger Picture - My Fight to Bring a New African Voice to the Climate Crisis by Vanessa Nakate.

🤯 Amazing fact we learnt this week: As permafrost melts, it releases ancient organic matter that spontaneously combusts, creating underground fires invisible from the surface.