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Numbers of red and grey squirrels rising, survey finds, but more greys are present in last remaining red strongholds
Campaigners are concerned about the rising presence of grey squirrels in England’s last remaining strongholds of reds.
An annual distribution survey of about 250 sites in woodlands and gardens across northern England shows that occupancy figures for red and grey squirrels are increasing – but they are rising more steeply for greys.
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Exclusive: Campaigners say company’s apparent abandoning of 2030 pledge is a ‘masterclass in greenwashing’
Coca-Cola has been accused of quietly abandoning a pledge to achieve a 25% reusable packaging target by 2030 in what campaigners call a “masterclass in greenwashing”.
The company has been previously found by researchers to be among the world’s most polluting brands when it comes to plastic waste.
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As ICJ hears landmark climate case, Grenada’s PM says vulnerable nations expect a long, hard fight for aid
It’s a macabre picture: tombs, headstones and wreaths, lovingly selected by family members, floating into the oblivion of the ocean, and with them the remains of loved ones uprooted from their final resting place. Some are dragged back to land, washed up on beaches on the Grenadian island of Carriacou, transforming the beautiful Caribbean shoreline into a chaotic graveyard.
This disturbing reality, says Grenada’s prime minister, Dickon Mitchell, is a poignant example of the gravity of the climate crisis and its impact on his country.
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Recordings by biologist Heike Vester reveal how oil and gas exploration as well as cruises, fishing boats and even whale-watchers are adding to the din underwater
From the moment that the biologist Dr Heike Vester presses play, the sound of the static of the fjord fills the room. First comes the constant, steady rumbling of a boat engine. Then, every eight seconds, like a foreboding bass drum, comes the explosion of seismic airguns – extremely loud blasts used in oil and gas exploration that can travel vast distances underwater.
And finally, dancing above it all – and at times drowned out by it – are the soaring vocalisations of whales.
Heike Vester at home in Bodø, Norway. Her love of whales comes partly from her interest in matrilineal societies. Photograph: Marthe Mølstre/The Guardian
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Vanuatu envoy makes claim as hearing gets under way at international court of justice in The Hague
A handful of countries should be held legally responsible for the ongoing impacts of climate change, representatives of vulnerable states have told judges at the international court of justice (ICJ).
During a hearing at the Peace Palace in The Hague, which began on Monday, Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s special envoy for climate change and environment, said responsibility for the climate crisis lay squarely with “a handful of readily identifiable states” that had produced the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions but stood to lose the least from the impacts.
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Goyt Valley, Derbyshire: Thriving in among the oak and chestnut, this wych elm is green-furred and almost animate, bulked up in its winter overcoat
Despite the many obituaries for British elms, their death has been greatly exaggerated, as Mark Twain might have said. North Derbyshire is full of them, despite elm disease. There are superb centurion elms in Buxton’s town centre, but my favourite is here on the path to Errwood Hall.
I confess that I’ve walked past it many times over the last half-century and hadn’t previously noticed it. That inattention speaks of the tree’s deepest and – if it’s not too contradictory – grandest quality: its ability to stand to one side, to live unseen in full view, to flourish outside our ken. It is all the more magnificent for living so truly unto itself.
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The sprawling Florida mansion sits in one of the most vulnerable places in the US to climate-driven disasters
A sprawling Florida mansion set beside a powdery white sand beach overlooking the azure Gulf of Mexico is currently the most expensive property listed for sale in the United States, yours for a mere $295m.
It is also in one of the most vulnerable places in the country to climate-driven disasters and faces an almost inevitable flooding event in the coming years.
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Campaigners fear ruling on the toxic Matanza-Riachuelo basin will worsen the region’s many health crises and sends the message that environmental damage is not a priority
Two decades ago, the waters in Argentina’s basin flowed over abandoned shipwrecks and rusting cars. Animal residue from abattoirs bled into its rivers, along with household waste and toxins from factories, including arsenic, lead and cadmium.
Today, those living along the riverbanks, which snake around Buenos Aires’ southern edge and by the tourist district of La Boca, continue to complain of skin rashes, headaches, breathing problems and vomiting. They say their animals die inexplicably.
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An ambitious multi-part project will transform seven miles of seabed into an artistic destination with a cautionary message
Over the next few years, coastal waters just off of Miami Beach will be transformed by The ReefLine, an ambitious new project that aims to occupy seven miles of seabed within shouting distance of the sands. The ReefLine aims to one day create an enormous, art-studded underwater playland, including a sculpture park, snorkel trail and hybrid reef.
One of the first pieces of this project, Miami Reef Star – a gigantic 90ft star that will eventually be visible to landing aircraft descending over the waters – will be on exhibition during Art Basel Miami Beach. Set up in prototype on Miami Beach itself, it will be a part of Star Compass, a series of three large-scale installations curated by Ximena Caminos and Dodie Kazanjian. In addition to Reef Star, Star Compass will also include The Great Elephant Migration, a work consisting of 100 life-sized sculptures of elephants, and Voile/Toile – Toile/Voile by French conceptual artist Daniel Buren, which will stage an enormous sailboat race.
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Bringing back the long-vanished bird to the UK was hailed as a conservation triumph. Then farmers started finding the corpses of their prized livestock
Two spinal columns, a dozen ribs and a hollowed-out head lie next to a peak called “rock of the eagle” in Gaelic. These are the remains of a pair of three-month-old lambs. It’s muggy, and maggots and foxes will make light work of the remaining skin and bone. In a few weeks, it’ll be as if it never happened.
Ruaridh MacKay, who has been farming here at Stronmagachan Farm in Inveraray for 25 years, picks up one of the spines: sodden and slimy from successive fronts of rain, every morsel of flesh has been excavated. He was expecting to take these lambs to market next month.
Mackay says the mysterious deaths started about 12 years ago
Continue reading...Tom Hayhoe's first task will be reviewing the £8.7bn of pandemic PPE that had to be written off.
Some families of those who died have been told payments due before Christmas have been put on hold.
Leading end-of-life doctors warn system is struggling, and changing law could make situation worse.
While MPs debated the bill in parliament, supporters and opponents gathered outside.
In the first Commons vote on the issue in nearly a decade, MPs support the assisted dying bill by 330 to 275.
The new case has been detected in Leeds after the infected person travelled from Uganda.
Improving standards is the aim, but licensing costs could mean tattoos become more expensive.
As she prepares for IVF treatment, Hannah Newby says the region's provision is "a mess".
BBC News speaks to two terminally ill people with opposing views on the impact of assisted dying.
MPs have backed a change in the law, but the measure still faces many hurdles before coming into force.
A recent study on climate solutions downplays nature’s potential, two Conservation International experts say.
A new study found that seaweed forests may play a bigger role in fighting climate change than previously thought — absorbing as much climate-warming carbon as the Amazon rainforest. But not all seaweed forests are created equal.
For the conscientious consumer, finding the perfect present can be a challenge. Not to worry, Conservation International's 2024 gift guide has you covered.
A Conservation International scientist shares what can be done to prevent an ‘outright alarming’ future for whale sharks.
A new Conservation International study measures the cooling effects of forests against extreme heat — with eye-opening results.
EDITOR’S NOTE:Few places on Earth are as evocative — or as imperiled — as the vast grasslands of sub-Saharan Africa. In a new Conservation News series, “Saving the Savanna,” we look at how communities are working to protect these places — and the wildlife within.
MARA NORTH CONSERVANCY, Kenya — Under a fading sun, Kenya’s Maasai Mara came alive.
A land cruiser passed through a wide-open savanna, where a pride of lions stirred from a day-long slumber. Steps away, elephants treaded single-file through tall grass, while giraffes peered from a thicket of acacia trees. But just over a ridge was a sight most safari-goers might not expect — dozens of herders guiding cattle into an enclosure for the night. The herders were swathed in vibrant red blankets carrying long wooden staffs, their beaded jewelry jingling softly.
Maasai Mara is the northern reach of a massive, connected ecosystem beginning in neighboring Tanzania’s world-famous Serengeti. Unlike most parks, typically managed by local or national governments, these lands are protected under a wildlife conservancy — a unique type of protected area managed directly by the Indigenous People who own the land.
Conservancies allow the people that live near national parks or reserves to combine their properties into large, protected areas for wildlife. These landowners can then earn income by leasing that land for safaris, lodges and other tourism activities. Communities in Maasai Mara have created 24 conservancies, protecting a total of 180,000 hectares (450,000 acres) — effectively doubling the total area of habitat for wildlife in the region, beyond the boundaries of nearby Maasai Mara National Reserve.
“It's significant income for families that have few other economic opportunities — around US$ 350 a month on average for a family. In Kenya, that's the equivalent of a graduate salary coming out of university,” said Elijah Toirai, Conservation International’s community engagement lead in Africa.
Lions tussle in the tall grass of Mara North Conservancy.
But elsewhere in Africa, the conservancy model has remained far out of reach.
“Conservancies have the potential to lift pastoral communities out of poverty in many African landscapes. But starting a conservancy requires significant funding — money they simply don't have,” said Bjorn Stauch, senior vice president of Conservation International’s nature finance division.
Upfront costs can include mapping out land boundaries, removing fences that prevent the movement of wildlife, eradicating invasive species that crowd out native grasses, creating firebreaks to prevent runaway wildfires, as well building infrastructure like roads and drainage ditches that are essential for successful safaris. Once established, conservancies need to develop management plans that guide their specified land use for the future.
Conservation International wanted to find a way for local communities to start conservancies and strengthen existing ones. Over the next three years, the organization aims to invest millions of dollars in new and emerging conservancies across Southern and East Africa. The funds will be provided as loans, which the conservancies will repay through tourism leases. This financing will jumpstart new conservancies and reinforce those already in place. The approach builds on an initial model that has proven highly effective and popular with local communities.
“We’re always looking for creative new ways to pay for conservation efforts that last,” Stauch said. “This is really a durable financing mechanism that puts money directly in the pockets of those who live closest to nature — giving them a leg up. And it’s been proven to work in the direst circumstances imaginable.”
Elijah Toirai explains current conservancy boundaries and potential areas for expansion.
In 2020, the entire conservancy model almost collapsed overnight.
“No one thought that the world could stop in 24 hours,” said Kelvin Alie, senior vice president and acting Africa lead for Conservation International. “But then came the pandemic, and suddenly Kenya is shutting its doors on March 23, 2020. And in the Mara, this steady and very well-rounded model based on safari tourism came to a screeching halt.”
Tourism operators, who generate the income to pay landowners' leases, found themselves without revenue. Communities faced a difficult choice: replace the lost income by fencing off their lands for grazing, converting it to agriculture, or selling to developers — each of which would have had drastic consequences for the Maasai Mara’s people and wildlife.
A black-backed jackal hunts for prey.
“But then the nature finance team at Conservation International — these crazy guys — came up with a wild idea,” Alie said. “In just six months they put this entirely new funding model together: loaning money at an affordable rate to the conservancies so that they can continue to pay staff and wildlife rangers.”
Conservation International and the Maasai Mara Wildlife Conservancies Association launched the African Conservancies Fund — a rescue package to offset lost revenues for approximately 3,000 people in the area who rely on tourism income. Between December 2020 and December 2022, the fund provided more than US$ 2 million in affordable loans to four conservancies managing 70,000 hectares (170,000 acres).
The loans enabled families in the Maasai Mara to continue receiving income from their lands to pay for health care, home repairs, school fees and more. And because tourism revenues — not government funding — support wildlife protection in conservancies, this replacement funding ensured wildlife patrols continued normally, with rangers working full time.
Born out of this emergency, we discovered a new way to do conservation.
Elijah Toirai
“The catastrophe of COVID-19 was total for us,” said Benard Leperes, a landowner with Mara North Conservancy and a conservation expert at Maasai Mara Wildlife Conservancies Association. “Without Conservation International and the fund, this landscape would have not been secured; the conservancies would have disintegrated as people were forced to sell their land to convert it to agriculture.”
But it was communities themselves that proved the model might be replicable after the pandemic ended.
“The conservancies had until 2023 before the first payment was due,” Toirai said. “But as soon as tourism resumed in mid-2021, the communities started paying back the loans. Today, the loans are being repaid way ahead of schedule.”
“Born out of this emergency, we discovered a new way to do conservation.”
The high plateaus overlooking the Maasai Mara are home to the very last giant pangolins in Kenya.
These mammals, armored with distinctive interlocking scales, are highly endangered because of illegal wildlife trade. In Kenya, threats from poaching, deforestation and electric fences meant to deter elephants from crops have caused the species to nearly disappear. Today, scientists believe there could be as few as 30 giant pangolins left in Kenya.
Conservancies could be crucial to bringing them back. Conservation International has identified opportunities to provide transformative funding for conservancies in this area — a sprawling grassland northwest of Maasai Mara that is the very last pangolin stronghold in the country. The fund will help communities better protect an existing 10,000-hectare (25,000-acre) conservancy and bring an additional 5,000 hectares under protection. It provides a safety net, ensuring a steady income for the communities as the work of expanding the conservancy begins. With a stable income, communities can start work to restore the savanna and remove electric fences that have killed pangolins. And as wildlife move back into the ecosystem, the grasslands will begin to recover.
In addition to expanding conservancies around Maasai Mara, Conservation International has identified other critical ecosystems where community conservancies can help lift people out poverty, while providing new habitats for wildlife. Conservation International has ambitious plans to restore a critical and highly degraded savanna between Amboseli and Tsavo National Parks in southern Kenya, as well as a swath of savanna outside Kruger National Park in South Africa.
A lone acacia tree in a sea of grass.
Many of the new and emerging community conservancies have been carefully chosen as key wildlife corridors that would be threatened by overgrazing livestock.
When the first Maasai Mara conservancies were established in 2009, cattle grazing was prohibited within their boundaries. When poorly managed, cattle can wear grasses down to their roots, triggering topsoil erosion and the loss of nutrients, microbes and biodiversity vital for soil health. It was also believed that tourists would be put off by the sight of livestock mingling with wildlife.
Cattle are closely monitored in the Maasai Mara to prevent overgrazing.
However, over the years, landowners objected, lamenting the loss of cultural ties to cattle and herding. “That was when we changed tactics,” said Raphael Kereto, the grazing manager for Mara North Conservancy.
Beginning in 2018, Mara North and other conservancies in the region started adopting livestock grazing practices to restore the savanna. Landowners agreed to periodically move livestock between different pastures, allowing grazed lands to recover and regrow, mimicking the traditional methods pastoralists have used on these lands for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
“Initially, there was a worry that maybe herbivores and other wildlife will run away from cattle,” said Kereto. “But we have seen the exact opposite — the wildlife all follow where cattle are grazing. This is because we have a lot of grass, and all the animals follow where there is a lot of grass. We even saw a cheetah with a cub that spent all her time rotating with wildlife.”
“It's amazing — when we move cattle, the cheetah comes with it.”
The loans issued by the fund — now called the African Conservancies Facility — will enhance rotational grazing systems, which are practiced differently in each conservancy, by incorporating best practices and lessons from the organization’s Herding for Health program in southern Africa.
An elephant herd stares down a pack of hyenas.
For landowners like Dickson Kaelo, who was among the pioneers to propose the conservancy model in Kenya, the return of cattle to the ecosystem has restored a natural order.
“I always wanted to understand how it was that there was so much more wildlife in the conservancies than in Maasai Mara National Reserve,” said Kaelo, who heads the Kenya Wildlife Conservancy Association, based in Nairobi.
“I went to the communities and asked them this question. They told me savannas were created by elephants, fire and Maasai and cattle, and excluding any one of those is not good for the health of the system. So, I believe in the conservancies — I know that every single month, people go to the bank and they have some money, they haven't lost their culture because they still are cattle keepers, and the land is much healthier, with more grass, more wildlife, and the trees have not been cut.
“For me, it’s something really beautiful.”
Will McCarry is the content director at Conservation International. Want to read more stories like this? Sign up for email updates. Also, please consider supporting our critical work.
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