You will have to sleuth for background information, because the website does not provide any; it just says in boldface and a few lines of detail what the initiative is trying to do:
music selection opens in Spotify
Sounds Right is a music initiative to recognise the value of NATURE and inspire millions of fans to take environmental action. For the first time, NATURE can generate royalties from its own sounds to support its own conservation. Continue reading
Lisel Ashlock
Thanks to The Atlantic for sharing its archival treasures, specifically this essay by one of the writers we turn back to from time to time. Here is Henry David Thoreau in his own words from the June, 1862 issue of that magazine:
Walking
The writer extols the virtues of immersing oneself in nature and laments the inevitable encroachment of private ownership upon the wilderness.
Editor’s Note: Henry David Thoreau, the naturalist, philosopher, and author of such classics as Walden and “Civil Disobedience,” contributed a number of writings to The Atlantic in its early years. Continue reading
Tawny Eagle
Fast forward to June of 2012, when I started scouting for birds in the grasslands. Clement Francis showed me the birds of Hesaraghatta. Clement is a topnotch bird photographer. I was amazed at his skills. He could identify every bird there and explained their features and behaviour. We roamed around the grasslands in our car and upon sighting a raptor on the ground, Clement would approach the bird from the car, going around it in wide circles, gradually reducing the distance from the bird. As I sat on the passenger seat with my lens rested on the car door, Clement whispered to me not to make eye contact with the bird, or make any large movements while he parked the car at the comfort-distance and with the sunlight behind us. He approached the bird with such skill that it never felt threatened as he mumbled the ideal camera settings for perfect photographs under his breath. He gave me very valuable lessons in approaching the various species of the grasslands, while advising on the ideal light conditions and inculcated patience in making handsome pictures. Continue reading
Nearing the end of the northern summer, one for too many of the wrong kind of record books, some notion of hope is more than welcome. This edition of his newsletter offers some:
With Your Help. (An annual update!)
In the guise of my annual report on our nifty online community I’m going to show you my vacation pictures! Lucky you!
It’s possible I’m just feeling guilty because I took a couple of days off in this Summer To End All Summers. But Sunday and Monday, while Hillary was introducing southern Californians below the age of 85 to the concept of ‘tropical storm,’ I went on a wander with an old friend through the middle of the Wilcox Lake Wild Forest in New York’s Adirondack Mountains, a splendidly remote chunk of land that I’ve lived on the edge of, off and on, for much of my life, and which I never tire of exploring. Continue reading
Thanks to Kathryn Schulz for this review:
The sexual system Linnaeus favored for classifying plants brought a whiff of scandal, which helped spread his name. Illustration by Karlotta Freier
How Carl Linnaeus Set Out to Label All of Life
He sorted and systematized and coined names for more than twelve thousand species. What do you call someone like that?
For the Tyrannosaurus rex, as for Elvis and Jesus, being extremely dead has proved no obstacle to ongoing fame. Last seen some sixty-six million years ago, before an asteroid wiped out three-quarters of the life-forms on earth, it is nonetheless flourishing these days, thanks in large part to Michael Crichton, Steven Spielberg, and elementary-school children all over the world. Continue reading
Illustration by Benoit Leva
Yesterday a writer, whose care for nature is as famous as his books are popular, posted this:
To succeed—to get people to care about preserving the world—it can’t be only about nature.
The Bible is a foundational text in Western literature, ignored at an aspiring writer’s hazard, and when I was younger I had the ambition to read it cover to cover. After breezing through the early stories and slogging through the religious laws, which were at least of sociological interest, I chose to cut myself some slack with Kings and Chronicles, whose lists of patriarchs and their many sons seemed no more necessary to read than a phonebook. Continue reading
The Futarasan Shrine in Nikkō, Japan. Ancient forests surrounding Japan’s Shinto temples cover more than a quarter-million acres. NORTOPHOTO / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
We are agnostic when it comes to how conservation of nature is motivated, and how it is accomplished. Thanks as always to Fred Pearce:
Sacred Groves: How the Spiritual Connection Helps Protect Nature
From Ethiopia’s highlands to Siberia to the Australian rainforest, there are thousands of sacred forests that have survived thanks to traditional religious and spiritual beliefs. Experts say these places, many now under threat, have ecological importance and must be saved.
Governments from across the world made grand promises last month at the biodiversity conference in Montreal to save nature by protecting 30 percent of the planet’s land and oceans by 2030. Continue reading
‘In the woods, there will be much more fungi and even more colour: scarlet elf cup (above), orange witches’ butter, yellow stagshorn, green elf cup, blue roundheads.’ Photograph: fotoco-istock/Getty Images/iStockphoto
This recommendation from Lucy Jones is as good as any we might otherwise recommend:
‘Wet weather makes for particularly juicy moss.’ Water droplets on moss on a wall. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA
The winter world may seem gloomy – but look closely, and you’ll see nature casting a spell
For less than a tenner, do as I do: buy a hand lens, head outside and discover fungi and moulds lighting up the darkness
‘You won’t believe how exquisite slime moulds are.’ Photograph: Alastair Hotchkiss/Woodland Trust/PA
The profound therapeutic benefits of connecting with nature and spending time outside are well known. But in winter? When it’s cold, gloomy and everything looks dead? In fact, especially in the winter, when we are susceptible to fatigue, illness and seasonal low mood. And actually there is plenty of life, beauty and wonder right outside our doors, if we look closely.
Come and take a short walk with me in my nearest wild patch – an urban cemetery, a common environment across the British Isles. Continue reading
Human activity has impacted the amount of temperate rainforest in the UK but it still exists in a few places, such as the Brecon Beacons in Wales. Photograph: Henk Meijer/Alamy
We already knew that rainforests are not only tropical ecosystems. But when you live in the tropics, you can forget. Our thanks as always to Patrick Greenfield, and to the Guardian, for this reminder:
Exclusive: campaigners call for protection and careful tree-planting to help restore the temperate rainforests that once covered swathes of the country
Rainforest, which has been decimated over thousands of years, has the potential to be restored across a fifth of Great Britain, a new map reveals. Continue reading
The trees, according to the ecologist Constance Millar, give you a “sense of infinity.” Photo by Adam Perez
We know that getting to a trillion trees is a stretch, but we might be able to sense infinity from a certain species of tree, according to Soumya Karlamangla in the New York Times article we link to here. Photos by Adam Perez help alot.
Bristlecone pines can live and reproduce even with only one branch of needles. Photo by Adam Perez
Historically I have worked to find my personal sense of infinity deep within tropical forests, but reading this and seeing the photos of these trees in a totally different type of ecysystem I can be convinced that it is elsewhere also:
In California, Where Trees Are King, One Hardy Pine Has Survived for 4,800 Years
In a harsh alpine desert, the Great Basin bristlecone pines abide amid climate change. Among them is the oldest tree on Earth (if you can find it).
Great Basin bristlecone pine trees endure in harsh conditions that other vegetation cannot withstand. Photo by Adam Perez
BISHOP, Calif. — Before the Egyptians built the Pyramids, before Jesus Christ was born, before the Roman Empire formed or collapsed, the trees were here.
Ten thousand feet up in the White Mountains of central California, in a harsh alpine desert where little else survives, groves of gnarled, majestic Great Basin bristlecone pines endure, some for nearly 5,000 years. Their multicolor trunks bend at gravity-defying angles, and their bare branches jut toward the sky, as if plucked from the imaginations of Tim Burton or J.K. Rowling.
These ancient organisms, generally considered the oldest trees on Earth, seem to have escaped the stringent laws of nature. Continue reading
Ants in Escazu
The earthworm in the photo above had been in a bag of soil where a coffee seedling started germinating earlier this year. I was moving the seedling from its small “starter” bag to a larger one, and the earthworm jumped out, wriggling under the nearby supplies I was working with. I did not see it again until it was too late. Since earthworms are good for soil, and we are in the early stages of a soil regeneration project, I was sorry to see the worm lose its life. This particular species of ant is currently everywhere on the property where we are re-planting coffee. I have not seen so many of this type of ant at any point in the last 22 years on this property, and their shocking abundance made me think of that new ant study. Normally we do not repeat sharing of news stories here, unless new information has come to light. It has only been a couple days, but I must share more on the study because my planting work is keeping the subject in front of me, and the photos in this article are that good.
Leaf cutter ants in Costa Rica. The researchers sampled 1,300 locations around the world, estimating ant abundance in different environments in areas such as forests and steppes. Bence Mate/Nature Picture Library, via Alamy
Rebecca Dzombak, who authored this article for the New York Times, will be on our radar from now on:
Weaver ants engaged in teamwork. Sunthorn Viriyapan/Alamy
Counting the World’s Ants Requires a Lot of Zeros
There are 20 quadrillion ants worldwide, according to a new census, or 2.5 million for every living human. There are probably even more than that.
Male leaf cutter ants on the move over the Sonoran Desert in search of females and to make more ants. Norma Jean Gargasz/Alamy
Right now, ants are scurrying around every continent except Antarctica, doing the hard work of engineering ecosystems. They spread seeds, churn up soil and speed up decomposition. They forage and hunt and get eaten. You may not know how much you rely on them. Continue reading
The Treefest walks are part of a £14.5m research quest investigating how to secure public benefits from forested landscapes. Photograph: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian
When is a walk in the woods more than just a walk? One answer might be biophilia, for starters. Our thanks to Miles Richardson for his work and to Patrick Barkham, as per his usual breadth of attention, for bringing another important story to our attention:
‘I’m glowing’: scientists are unlocking secrets of why forests make us happy
Research project aims to discover how age, size and shape of woodlands affect people’s happiness and wellbeing
Miles Richardson is gathering data from the Treefest research walks to examine how biodiverse spaces benefit wellbeing. Photograph: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian
How happy do you feel right now? The question is asked by an app on my phone, and I drag the slider to the space between “not much” and “somewhat”. I’m about to start a walk in the woods that is part of a nationwide research project to investigate how better to design the forests of the future.
Volunteers are being sought to record their feelings before and after eight walks on a free app, Go Jauntly, which could reveal what kind of treescapes most benefit our wellbeing and mental health. Continue reading
I See You. Wild Portraits winner. When a huge lion looks you right in the eyes, you immediately forget that you are sitting safely in a car. Instinctively, you cower and slowly retreat deeper inside the car so as not to provoke a predator. Fortunately, he and his brothers were busy consuming a young buffalo that had been hunted several minutes earlier. # © Tomasz Szpila / Nature TTL
Alan Taylor and others offer relief through nature photography contests each year, and we thank them all for that; and to Atlantic this year for sharing these from the Nature TTL contest:
Sunset Ray. Underwater winner. A pink whipray splits a school of bannerfish, photographed against the setting sun on a late afternoon at the famous “Tuna Factory” dive site located close to Malé, the capital of the Maldives. # © Andy Schmid / Nature TTL
Winners of the Nature TTL Photographer of the Year 2022
This year’s photography competition attracted more than 8,000 entries in eight different categories celebrating the natural world: Animal Behavior, Camera Traps, Landscapes, Small World, The Night Sky, Underwater, Urban Wildlife, and Wild Portraits. Contest organizers at Nature TTL were kind enough to share some of the winners and runners-up below. The captions were written by the photographers and lightly edited for style.
Pretty in Pollen. Small World runner-up. A micro-moth (Micropterix calthella) is covered in golden balls of pollen from a creeping buttercup flower found in Mutter’s Moor near Sidmouth, Devon, United Kingdom. # © Tim Crabb / Nature TTL
Aerial view of deforestation in the Western Amazon region of Brazil. Photograph: Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty Images
To state the obvious, yes:
Humans need to value nature as well as profits to survive, UN report finds
Focus on market has led to climate crises, with spiritual, cultural and emotional benefits of nature ignored
Taking into account all the benefits nature provides to humans and redefining what it means to have a “good quality of life” is key to living sustainably on Earth, a four-year assessment by 82 leading scientists has found. Continue reading
LUISA RIVERA / YALE E360
Thanks to Carl Safina for this opinion:
Protecting Earth: If ‘Nature Needs Half,’ What Do People Need?
The campaign to preserve half the Earth’s surface is being criticized for failing to take account of global inequality and human needs. But such protection is essential not just for nature, but also for creating a world that can improve the lives of the poor and disadvantaged.
Must nature and civilization be opposing interests? Is nature conservation anti-people? What must be preserved to preserve what needs preserving? Is there a single path that can reverse the three crises of apocalypse: the extinction crisis, the toxics crisis, and the climate crisis? Sixteen ecologists, including me, think the answer to that last question is yes. Continue reading
Library of American Landscape History has published this book, which came to our attention thanks to this excellent article (again) by Margaret Roach:
Three large islands at Storm King Art Center are planted with a mix of prairie grasses, including little bluestem, big bluestem, Indiangrass and switchgrass. Jerry L. Thompson
Your Garden May Be Pretty, but Is It Ecologically Sound?
Darrel Morrison, the elder statesman of the ecological landscaping movement, offers some advice for gardening in a changing world.
Mr. Morrison’s mesic prairie design for the University of Wisconsin Arboretum Native Plant Garden, with the larger Curtis Prairie restoration in the distance. Robert Jaeger
Some gardeners react to any mention of ecological landscaping — the merging of environmental science and art — as if it were a compromise or concession meant to limit their creativity. Darrel Morrison, a landscape architect who has been practicing and teaching this philosophy for some five decades, begs to differ.
“There is the implication that you are suggesting a vegan diet,” said Mr. Morrison, the creator of influential designs at Storm King Art Center, in Orange County, N.Y., the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, Texas. “A lot of people, when they hear a phrase like ‘ecologically sound landscaping,’ they think they are giving up something. But they are not — it only enhances the experience.” Continue reading
Click the image above if this is your kind of coffee table book. It is of course available elsewhere but please, support the publisher instead of the elsewhere option. We feature stories related to the national parks of the USA about as frequently as any other topic; here is a unique way to support the idea and the actions that flow from the idea.
Thanks to the Guardian’s feature on the book for bringing it to our attention:
The art director JP Boneyard ’s favourite park is Montana’s Glacier national park. “It’s breathtaking, I’m smiling just thinking about it ,” he says. For his screen-print project Fifty-Nine Parks, now collected in a book, he asked modern artists to reinterpret America’s classic national park posters, commissioned by the government in the 1900s.
“I hope they inspire people to visit the parks and connect with nature, but, heck, it’d be awesome if the book inspired folks to pick up a squeegee and start printing too,” he says.
The National Parks Conservation Association has been mentioned in our pages a couple times before, but only in passing. Finding out more about this book led me to their website for the first time, and I already see a post on that topic is needed, but on another day.
LUISA RIVERA
Michelle Nijhuis is one of several science writers who have made our pages better in the 10 years since we started this platform. This essay is in good company:
Species Solidarity: Rediscovering Our Connection to the Web of Life
As climate change intensifies and human activity impacts every corner of the planet, repairing our world increasingly means realizing that our fate is intertwined with that of other animal and plant species — not separate from theirs — and that we must think and act accordingly. Continue reading
With forest making up around 33% of Germany’s land area, woodlands have become a central part of German culture (Credit: Westend61/Getty Images)
Thanks to the BBC for this article about the Germanic tradition of waldeinsamkeit:
Waldeinsamkeit is an archaic German term for the feeling of “forest loneliness” (Credit: Marco Bottigelli/Getty Images)
Everybody is at it in Germany. They’re doing it in the trees in the Black Forest. Out in the magical Harz Mountains. In the national parks of Bavaria when silhouetted in the moonlight. And in the city centre woodlands of Berlin and Munich. Continue reading
Organikos 