Project Syndicate

May 14, 2020
The Seychelles, a string of 115 verdant, rocky islands in the Indian Ocean, recently announced – in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic – that it would protect 30% of its glittering turquoise waters from commercial use.

Safeguarding some 410,000 square kilometers (158,000 square miles) of the sea will benefit wildlife on the shore and in the water, including 100,000 giant tortoises and some of the world’s last pristine coral reefs. But, beyond helping such species, establishing the new Marine Protected Areas – which was made possible through an innovative debt-swap deal – will also bolster the health, wellbeing, and prosperity of the Seychellois, who number under 100,000 but cater to more than 350,000 visitors each year.

Currently hosting only a handful of tourists stranded by the pandemic, the country is under a lockdown aimed at preventing the further spread of the virus. President Danny Faure’s decision to press ahead with this protection effort, even as his country deals with a public-health emergency, serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of nature to people’s physical and economic wellbeing – and not just in the Seychelles.

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The Independent

May 13, 2020
Several hundred miles north of a dwindling Ebola outbreak, rangers at Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are most concerned with how the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to play out around the world.

Up until this year, Ebola was perhaps the scariest disease on the planet. Arising at times when human activity expands into and damages the West and Central African rainforests, the disease set off a global panic in 2014 when seven cases appeared outside the African continent. But in 2020, COVID-19 is now the scariest, with its impacts slamming all facets of the global economy.

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New Strait Times- OpEd

May 11, 2020
While saving human lives and re-booting the economy are two utmost priorities for governments to consider when developing their post-Covid-19 Stimulus Package, they must not forget Nature.

After all, the root cause of those zoonotic diseases such as Covid-19 is the destruction of wildlife habitats, a fact endorsed by most of the scientific community. Meaning, our human activity facilitated the virus' jump from wildlife to us. And, as we contemplate the post-pandemic world to come, the voices of scientists need to be heard far and wide.

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Wyss

April 28, 2020

The Wyss Campaign for Nature released a new report this morning spotlighting the critical leadership indigenous and local communities are providing to safeguard the planet’s vulnerable lands, oceans, and wildlife. The report documents the unique perspective of four community leaders who are immersed in successful, indigenous- and community-led conservation projects in four different countries.

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Nature World News

April 23, 2020
A growing number of influential conservationists and scientists believe that the key to keeping the planet habitable is to protect half of the Earth. The rapid expansion of humans goes unabated, with the burning and bulldozing of nature, destruction of ecosystems, and the driving of species into extinction. 

Conservation biologist E.O. Wilson published Half Earth: Our Planet's Fight for Life, with the idea of saving half the planet, since future extinction rates will be a thousand times higher than ever before.

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The Weather Network

April 21, 2020
Scientists say that more conservation efforts are needed to ensure that ecosystems can continue absorbing large amounts of carbon dioxide.

Earth Day is celebrated each year on April 22 and this year marks the 50th anniversary since the campaign first launched. The event encourages increased awareness of the environment as well as actions and commitments that will reduce the negative impacts humans have on the planet.

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BBC

April 16, 2020
Conservation groups say nature must be a cornerstone of economic recovery plans for the sake of people, health and economies.

The call comes amid fears of a "spike in poaching" as rural communities lose vital income.

In Cambodia, 1% of the entire population of one critically endangered bird was wiped out in a single event.

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) said three of only a few hundred remaining giant ibis were poisoned.

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National Geographic

April 10, 2020
[…] As top predators, harpy eagles play a crucial ecological role, keeping populations of prey species in check; their presence in a forest is indicative of a healthy, functioning environment. No one knows how many remain in the wild, but scientists do know that they’re disappearing. The giant raptors once lived from southern Mexico to northern Argentina, but since the 19th century their range has declined by nearly half, leaving the Amazon with 93 percent of the species’ remaining occupied habitat. Deforestation—the primary threat to harpy eagles’ survival—shows no signs of slowing. Last year, the world watched as massive tracts of the Amazon went up in flames, and right now 45 acres of Brazilian Amazon are being razed every hour.

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Forbes

March 30, 2020

Pictures of clean Venice canals, dolphins in Cagliari and swans in Milan were all around the internet last week and - many argued - were signs of nature healing itself when people are not around. While air is undoubtedly less polluted because of a drop in greenhouse gases’ emissions, the impact of self-isolation on the environment is less than thought.

In fact, nature has been healing long before the COVID-19 pandemic forced most people at home and it will continue to do so with the help of good policies.

“It’s a result of a longer trend, because, if those species were declining, they wouldn’t show up even during the coronavirus lockdown,” Frans Schepers, managing director of Rewilding Europe, explained to Forbes.com. “We have to be very careful when we make those connections, although it may be very attractive to draw a conclusion. But of course, animals will behave differently when everything is quiet and they will show up more easily close to cities and villages.”

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The Conversation

March 30, 2020

A little more than a year ago, the Haida Nation released the Land-Sea-People plan to manage Gwaii Haanas, off the coast of northern British Columbia, “from mountaintop to seafloor as a single, interconnected ecosystem.”

It’s an innovative conservation effort that demonstrates how the Haida Nation and Canada’s federal government can achieve biodiversity targets, protect the rights of Indigenous people and encourage collaboration among communities, governments and society. And it’s an example of what we need more of to meet conservation objectives in the coming decade.

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Financial Review

March 24, 2020

As the COVID-19 catastrophe has unfolded, a significant broadening of the landholdings of Indigenous Australians has taken place, with about 88,000 hectares of beautiful, rich Murrumbidgee floodplain country in south-western NSW handed back to its traditional custodians, the Nari-Nari people.

No figure for the value of the land has been given by Nature Conservancy, which facilitated the complex sale and handover process with the NSW government. However, an earlier federal estimate put it at $44 million.

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BBC

March 18, 2020
As humans continue to rapidly expand the scope of their domination of nature – bulldozing and burning down forests and other natural areas, wiping out species, and breaking down ecosystem functions – a growing number of influential scientists and conservationists think that protecting half of the planet in some form is going to be key to keeping it habitable.

The idea first received public attention in 2016 when E.O. Wilson, the legendary 90-year-old conservation biologist, published the idea in his book Half Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life. “We now have enough measurements of extinction rates and the likely rate in the future to know that it is approaching a thousand times the baseline of what existed before humanity came along,” he told The New York Times in a 2016 interview.

Once thought of as aspirational, many are now taking these ideas seriously, not only as a firewall to protect biodiversity, but also to mitigate continued climate warming.

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Business Green

March 12, 2020
Corporate investment in carbon offsets is helping to fund a project in West Africa that is delivering on multiple Sustainable Development Goals through its protection of precious forest habitats and its services for local communities.

The Upper Guinean Forest of West Africa is one of only three forested biodiversity hotspots in Africa. Until the end of the 19th century it covered most of Sierra Leone, Liberia, South-East Guinea, Southern Ivory Coast and South-West Ghana, but less than a fifth of this rainforest remains today.

The Greater Gola Landscape, straddling the Sierra Leone-Liberia border comprises the largest remnant of this critical ecosystem - over 350,000 hectares in a mosaic of protected areas, community forests, and smallholders' agricultural lands.

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Oceanographic

March 11, 2020
Sir David Attenborough has urged countries to halt plans to mine the deep sea. This comes in light of a recently published report from scientists at Fauna & Flora International (FFI) warning that deep sea mining is likely to cause significant disruption to the ocean’s life-support systems, its carbon capture and a loss of biodiversity.

The report is the first to comprehensively assess the risks and potential impacts of mining the deep seabed for minerals. Its publication comes ahead of a July meeting of key countries hoping to finalise the rules that will govern deep sea mining.

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Climate Home News

March 11, 2020
Observers say additional time could help countries agree on rules to create marine protected areas in parts of the ocean that lie beyond national jurisdiction.

The UN has postponed deadlocked talks on a global treaty to protect marine biodiversity in the high seas because of the coronavirus, giving countries extra time to seek compromise.

Governments had been due to agree a global treaty in April to safeguard life in seas beyond the national jurisdiction of coastal states, a poorly regulated region accounting for two-thirds of the global ocean.

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