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Deal paves the way for country-to-country carbon trading and creation of regulated global market to meet Paris targets
Marching in silence with their arms crossed high, activists from around the world protested the draft deal at the Cop29 venue last night.
“Pay up or shut up!” the campaign group Demand Climate Justice said in a post on social media.
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Advocates and officials argue that consequences of Israeli siege are inextricably linked to tackling the climate crisis
As countries negotiate over climate finance, Palestinian officials and advocates have come to Cop29 in Baku to highlight global heating’s intersection with another crisis: Israel’s siege on Gaza.
“The Cop [meetings] are very keen to protect the environment, but for whom?” said Ahmed Abu Thaher, director of projects and international relations at Palestine’s Environment Quality Authority, who had travelled to Cop29 from Ramallah. “If you are killing the people there, for whom are you keen to protect the environment and to minimise the effects of climate change?”
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Traders at a big machinery show say inheritance tax changes affecting the rural economy have had an immediate impact on business
A shiny new tractor is pulling a huge orange trailer, while a commentator explains how best to manoeuvre it to tip grain, watched by a group of farmers wrapped up warmly in wellies, coats and bobble hats, some holding spaniels on leads.
Others are checking out the latest models of combine harvesters and crop sprayers, parked on snowy ground at the Midlands Machinery Show, but few seem to be buying, and the changes to inheritance tax for agricultural properties announced in Rachel Reeves’s October budget are never far from anyone’s lips.
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We are used to seasonal droughts in the Karoo. But this did not stop. This is Sybil’s story
Location Sutherland, South Africa
Disaster Southern Africa drought, 2015-2023
Isabella Visagie, known to everyone in her life as Sybil, is a 57-year-old sheep farmer, wife and mother from the Karoo, in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. In 2015 a drought began that would bring the community in which she lived toits knees. Theprovince has been locked in a drought sincethen.The climate crisis intensified flash droughts acrosssouthern Africa in 2015-16, increased the probability of the 2015-17 drought in the south-west of neighbouringWestern Cape, and is increasing temperatures in the Northern Cape, as well as decreasing rainfall in parts of that province.
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Targeted research must be launched urgently to save sea creatures and plant life, oceanography centre warns
Britain is facing a future of increasingly catastrophic marine heatwaves that could destroy shellfish colonies and fisheries and have devastating impacts on communities around the coast of the UK.
That is the stark conclusion of a new report by the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), based in Southampton, which is pressing for the launch of a targeted research programme as a matter of urgency to investigate how sudden temperature rises in coastal seawater could affect marine habitats and seafood production in the UK.
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Hitchin, Hertfordshire: One minute I was smelling my favourite pudding, the next I was worrying what the squirrel had in its claws
It was a beautiful morning and as I was walking into school, I smelled our delicious food – apple crumble (my favourite pudding!) – being cooked. There was a chill in the air and the dew on the grass reflected the morning light.
Then I noticed something scampering towards the kitchen – a black squirrel. It was holding something in its claws, probably a nut or a scrap of food from the kitchen. Its tail was twitching and its obsidian eyes were darting around looking for danger. Then it was gone. I was left wondering where it was going next and if it had a home with a family. Perhaps the squirrel was taking apple crumble for his family.
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Spain is increasingly either parched or flooded – and one group is profiting from these extremes: the water-grabbing multinational companies forcing angry citizens to pay for it in bottles
After catastrophic floodsengulfed Valencia last month, killing more than 200 people, it might seem counterintuitive to think about water shortages. But as the torrents of filthy water swept through towns and villages, people were left without electricity, food supplies – and drinking water. “It was brutal: cars, chunks of machinery, big stones, even dead bodies were swept along in the water. It gushed into the ground floor of buildings, into little shops, bakeries, hairdressers, the English school, bars: all were destroyed. This was climate change for real, climate change in capital letters,” says Josep de la Rubia of Valencia’s Ecologists in Action, describing the scene in the satellite towns south of the Valencian capital.
In the aftermath, hundreds of thousands of people were reliant on emergency tankers of water or donations of bottled water from citizen volunteers. Within a fortnight, the authorities had reconnected the tap water of 90% of the 850,000 people in affected areas, but all were advised to boil it before drinking it or to use bottled water. Across the region, 100 sewage treatment plants were damaged; in some areas, human waste seeped into flood waters, dead animals were swept into rivers and sodden rubbish and debris piled up. Valencia is on the brink of a sanitation crisis.
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From YouTube video guides to sourcing parts, here are some ways to extend the life of your appliances and sentimental items
One of the best ways we can reduce our household’s carbon footprint is to repair things instead of throwing them away. But it’s also a way of life for many people.
“Seems I’ve spent most of my life fixing stuff because I was brought up that way,” observes Phil, from Bedfordshire. “I look at everything that comes my way as potentially useful and more often than not, it is,” writes Richard, a designer from Essex.
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Residents concerned as North Carolina city lifts boil advisory and scientists detect lead in water at area schools
When the western North Carolina town Swannanoa was battered by Hurricane Helene in September, two large trees crushed Stephen Knight’s home. His family of six was launched into a complicated web of survival: finding a temporary home, applying for disaster relief, filing insurance claims.
The new logistics of living included the daily search for food and water. Until earlier this week, most residents of this town east of Asheville had no drinkable tap water for 52 days. After the storm damaged infrastructure around the region, water had been partly restored in mid-October. It was good for flushing toilets but not safe for consumption. In some places, sediment left the water inky like black tea.
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As Ford announced cutting 800 UK jobs it said rules forcing companies to sell more EVs each year are ‘unworkable’
When Ford announced this week that it was cutting 800 jobs in the UK, the US carmaker also had stern words for the government. It has joined in a chorus of criticism of rules that force car companies to sell more electric vehicles each year. The rules, known as the zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate, are simply “unworkable”, Ford said.
Someone should have told Ford back in 2022, when the carmaker strongly backed the policy. In fact, it went further, calling for the British government to force carmakers to sell even more electric cars each year.
Continue reading...Travellers are being warned of the dangers after six tourists in Laos died from methanol poisoning.
Simone White died in Laos after drinking alcohol suspected to have been laced with methanol.
Former health secretary tells inquiry some healthcare settings did run out - "and it was awful".
A faulty batch of Yaz Plus means some packs contain only four active pills rendering them ineffective.
Scientists are mapping out the 37 trillion cells of the human body and changing what we thought we knew
The deaths of five tourists after apparently drinking tainted drinks highlight the wider issue of bootleg alcohol.
Sodium oxybate can offer temporary relief, in a similar way to drinking alcohol, a trial suggests.
Hundreds of women in the UK are taking legal action against Johnson and Johnson.
Nik is worried assisted dying could lead to coercion - but Elise, who has cancer, wants the choice.
A proposed law would give terminally ill people the right to choose to end their life.
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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