Andaman Islands
Bird of the Day: Andaman Serpent Eagle
Andaman Islands
Weeds Are Not Automatically Enemies
Credit: NPR
We missed this when it was first posted, but on this topic never too late to share:
VIDEO: Dandelions Aren’t Just Weeds. You Can Fry Them, Too
Some may think of dandelions as just unwanted weeds, but expert forager and nutritionist Debbie Naha says “a weed is just a plant growing where you don’t want it to.”
Naha loves to collect and eat dandelions when they bloom in the spring and again in early fall, when the days begin to shorten.
Some may also think of dandelions as those white puffballs whose seeds you can blow away like a candle on a birthday cake. The puffball is also considered a dandelion — it’s what the yellow flower matures into after a few days. But these aren’t especially good to eat. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: California Gnatcatcher
Baja California Sur, Mexico
Listen To Workers, Especially On This Topic
Amazon workers lead a walk out to demand that leaders take action on climate change in September. Photograph: Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images
We hope someone in the upper ranks of Amazon is listening:
Hundreds of workers defy Amazon rules to protest company’s climate failures
Employees ‘needed to stand up for what’s right’ despite policy barring workers from speaking about business
Hundreds of Amazon employees defied corporate policy to publicly criticize the company for failing to meet its “moral responsibility” in the climate crisis.
More than 340 tech workers at Amazon used the hashtag #AMZNSpeakOut in public statements that condemn the company for not taking sufficient action on the climate crisis. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Green Bee-Eater with Catch
Vijayapura, Karnataka
Albatrosses Tracking Fishing Vessels
Albatrosses tracking fishing vessels found that 28 percent of ships had turned off their equipment, possibly fishing without a license or transferring illegal catches onto cargo vessels. Alexandre Corbeau
Thanks to Katherine Kornei, who we are linking to for the first time, for some great science writing:
They’re Stealthy at Sea, but They Can’t Hide From the Albatross
Researchers outfitted 169 seabirds with radar detectors to pinpoint vessels that had turned off their transponders.
Researchers tagged an adult wandering albatross. Julien Collet
There’s a lot of ocean out there, and boats engaging in illegal fishing or human trafficking have good reason to hide.
But even the stealthiest vessels — the ones that turn off their transponders — aren’t completely invisible: Albatrosses, outfitted with radar detectors, can spot them, new research has shown. And a lot of ships may be trying to disappear. Roughly a third of vessels in the Southern Indian Ocean were not broadcasting their whereabouts, the bird patrol revealed. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Blue-fronted Redstart
male – Uttarakhand
Add Global Worming To Your List Of Concerns
Myriam Wares
Cancel Earthworms
The “crazy worms” remaking forests aren’t your friendly neighborhood garden worms. Then again, those aren’t so great either.
On a sweltering July day, I follow Annise Dobson down an overgrown path into the heart of Seton Falls Park. It’s a splotch of unruly forest, surrounded by the clamoring streets and cramped rowhouses of the Bronx. Broken glass, food wrappers, and condoms litter the ground. But Dobson, bounding ahead in khaki hiking pants with her blond ponytail swinging, appears unfazed. As I quickly learn, neither trash nor oppressive humidity nor ecological catastrophe can dampen her ample enthusiasm. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Nicobar Jungle-Flycatcher
Nicobar Islands
Alternative Glitter In The Amazon
Edmilson Estevão climbs a mature cacao tree to pick the fruit. Photograph: João Laet/The Guardian
In the Authentica shops our featured chocolates are artisanal in terms of production, and both companies are leaders in their own ways–sourcing, packaging, etc.–in terms of sustainability. We are just now tasting chocolates from a third possible supplier, one that farms the cacao organically and is in control of all stages of production and packaging–from farm to bar as they say. When we have their product on our shelves, you will be the first to know, right here. Since our thoughts are already on this topic, special thanks to the Guardian for this story that helps better understand the many ways in which cacao can create a brighter future:
Cacao not gold: ‘chocolate trees’ offer future to Amazon tribes
In Brazil’s largest indigenous reserve thousands of saplings have been planted as an alternative to profits from illegal gold mining
The villagers walk down the grassy landing strip, past the wooden hut housing the health post and into the thick forest, pointing out the seedlings they planted along the way. For these Ye’kwana indigenous men, the skinny saplings, less than a metre high, aren’t just baby cacao trees but green shoots of hope in a land scarred by the violence, pollution and destruction wrought by illegal gold prospecting. That hope is chocolate.
Cacao seeds, which are dried and roasted to make chocolate. Photograph: João Laet/The Guardian
“We want to plant and develop income for the community,” says Júlio Ye’kwana, 39, president of the Ye’kwana people’s Wanasseduume association, which came up with the idea. “And it is not destructive for the forest.” Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Anna’s Hummingbird
female – San Francisco, California
Biodiverse Forests Are Better For So Many Reasons
A tiger in Nagarhole National Park, India. Photo © Chethan Ramesh/TNC Photo Contest 2019
Sometimes the headlines for scientific findings seem to state the obvious; but then again, these days nothing is obvious, nor can be taken for granted:
Biodiverse Forests Capture Carbon Better Than Plantations
Plantations and natural forest regeneration are leading strategies for enhancing carbon sequestration and using nature to fight climate change. New science shows that diverse natural forests with a mix of tree species provide more stable and reliable carbon capture than monoculture plantations in the long run.
The Gist
Published in Environmental Research Letters, the study focused on India’s Western Ghats Mountains, one of 36 global biodiversity hotspots. The mountains are home to several wildlife reserves that were once colonial teak and eucalyptus plantations, allowing researchers to compare the carbon sequestration of both long-lived monoculture plantations and neighboring native forest. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Green Magpie
Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary, West Bengal
Ugly, Not Deadly
Photo: Vangelis Aragiannis/Alamy
We do not like looking at them. They disrupt many otherwise pristine views of nature, in the most surprising places. And so the thought of them being dangerous to birds would be an easy stretch of the imagination. Thanks to Audubon for the clarification, that their danger to birds is just an act of imagination:
No, 5G Radio Waves Do Not Kill Birds
Here’s the truth behind a Facebook falsehood spreading across the internet.
On the internet, there is often a fine line between a healthy skepticism of new technologies and blatant misinformation. The recent claim that the radio waves from 5G cellular communication towers are causing mass bird die-offs is a perfect example of just how thin that line can be—and how quickly falsehoods can spread across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and even in the comments of Audubon magazine’s stories.
The origin of this claim is as head-spinning as it is instructive, so let’s untangle the knot: Does 5G really kill birds, and if not, why are so many people shouting about it online? Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Common Tailorbird
Bangalore, Karnataka
Perils of Posing
The couple cynically stage-managed their Western exploits for propaganda value.
Illustration by Christian Northeast. Source images from Chronicle / Alamy (woman); Bettmann / Getty (man)
Adam Gopnik’s book review illustrates the roots of today’s Instagram culture, and the perils of posing:
Pioneers of American Publicity
How John and Jessie Frémont explored the frontiers of legend-making.
Legendary development can happen with astonishing speed after a life is past. Gore Vidal, in his 1992 novel, “Live from Golgotha,” made sport of the notion of television coverage of the Crucifixion, as the kind of thing that would happen only in contemporary America, but in truth Jesus’ body was hardly cold, or gone, before the apostle Paul, in a single generation, had made the desert rebbe into a demigod. The special American contribution to legend-making has not been speed so much as absolute simultaneity, with the life and the legend developing together. The American frontier, the Wild West, was not burnished and made epic in memory. It was made epic even as its very brief life was taking place. Buffalo Bill was only twenty-three when dime novels about him began to appear in New York, and early accounts of Billy the Kid’s life read “like a press agent’s yarn,” as one biographer says, because they were. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were robbing banks and posing for mock formal photographs all at the same time. This national truth remains constant even in our own time. The Apollo missions were genuine acts of daring—and were also, as everyone knew at the time, scripted television programming, with well-wrought lines delivered live. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Pink-browed Rosefinch
Uttarakhand
A Ceiba Prototype
At the intersection of our coffee business and our work with local artisans, there is Ceiba. Today, just a snapshot and a few words celebrating this brush, a prototype that Ceiba shared with us to test out. They did not specifically identify it as a brush for use with a coffee grinder, but for me that is what it is. And it works like a charm.
Bird of the Day: Sarus Crane
Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary, Rajasthan
Small Steps Could Lead to Big Impacts
A Chinese labourer sorting out plastic bottles on the outskirt of Beijing. Photograph: Fred Dufour/AFP/Getty Images
With over a billion consumers, even with exemptions these bans will hopefully have relevant impacts. Thanks once again to the Guardian for bringing these actions to our attention.
China moves to phase out single-use plastics
Plastic bags to be banned in all major cities by end of 2020, says state planner
China is stepping up restrictions on the production, sale and use of single-use plastic products, according to the state planner, as it seeks to tackle one of the country’s biggest environmental problems.
Vast amounts of untreated plastic waste are buried in landfills or dumped in rivers. The United Nations has identified single-use plastics as one of the world’s biggest environmental challenges.
The national development and reform commission and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, which issued the policy, said plastic bags would be banned in all of China’s major cities by the end of 2020 and banned in all cities and towns in 2022. Markets selling fresh produce will be exempt from the ban until 2025. Continue reading
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