Mt Falakro, Greece
Bird of the Day: European Robin
Mt Falakro, Greece
Community Income From Rewilding
Rewilding Spain’s sustainable forest management support service helps municipalities generate income through activities such as resin extraction. NEIL ALDRIDGE
In the decade since we have been watching the work of Rewilding Europe we have seen income generation growing in importance:
Allowing trees to grow old in healthy ecosystems can help to lock up and store huge amounts of carbon.
JUAN CARLOS MUÑOZ ROBREDO /Rewilding forest generates revenue for communities in the Iberian Highlands
Rewilding Spain has signed its first agreement to protect an old-growth forest in the Iberian Highlands. A change in forest management will support natural regeneration, delivering benefits to both nature and people. With other owners of old-growth forests interested in signing similar agreements, there is significant scaling-up potential.
The old-growth forest protected by the new agreement is popular with mushroom pickers.
SEBASTIAN URSUTAThe importance of old-growth forests
Letting forests naturally regenerate is one of the most practical, immediate, and cost-effective ways of addressing our ecological and climate emergencies. As vital ecosystems that support millions of animals and plants, mature natural forests – or old-growth forests – lock up and store huge amounts of carbon. They are more resilient to climate change and disease than young tree plantations, with their diverse mix of native species allowing them to better adapt to a far wider range of conditions. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Ridgway’s Rail
Tijuana Slough National Wildlife Refuge, California
Trillion Cicada Thrill
Illustration by Bjorn Lie
Cicadas were in our pages a few times a decade ago but now is the real time for celebrating them. This story by Rivka Galchen is as good as any:
The Peculiar Delights of the Enormous Cicada Emergence
As loud as leaf blowers, as miraculous as math, the insects are set to overtake the landscape.
Their parents passed away thirteen, or maybe seventeen, years ago. They grow up alone, hidden in tunnels of their own making, nursing from the rootlets of trees. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Louisiana Waterthrush
Finca Forestal Rubel Chaim, Guatemala
The Light Eaters
Thanks to Hanna Rosin, an Atlantic writer whose podcast conversation with this author brought the book above to my attention:
If Plants Could Talk
Some scientists are starting to reopen a provocative debate: Are plants intelligent?
When I was a kid, my best friend’s mother had a habit of singing arias to her houseplants. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Golden-olive woodpecker
Guatemala
Not The End Of The World
This book came to my attention through an episode of Ezra Klein‘s podcast:
Cows Are Just an Environmental Disaster
The environmental data scientist Hannah Ritchie argues that climate technology is increasingly catching up to the world’s enormous need for clean energy and with a few changes, a more sustainable future is in sight.
Bird of the Day: Blue Grosbeak
Adule Female
Christmas Mountains Oasis, Brewster County, TX
English Apple Heritage
Today completes a trifecta of shared articles about trees, and Sam Knight gets extra thanks for the link with a part of food heritage our family is especially fond of (which led to finding the video above):
Illustration by Nicholas Konrad / The New Yorker
The English Apple Is Disappearing
As the country loses its local cultivars, an orchard owner and a group of biologists are working to record and map every variety of apple tree they can find in the West of England.
In June, 1899, Sabine Baring-Gould, an English rector, collector of folk songs, and author of a truly prodigious quantity of prose, was putting the finishing touches on “A Book of the West,” a two-volume study of Devon and Cornwall. Baring-Gould, who had fifteen children and kept a tame bat, wrote more than a thousand literary works, including some thirty novels, a biography of Napoleon, and an influential study of werewolves. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Blue Grosbeak
Adult Male
Christmas Mountains Oasis, Brewster County, TX
How Many Trees Are Needed In The Amazon?
Forest restoration workers planted native Amazonian seedlings on degraded pastureland in Mãe do Rio, Brazil.
We do not know how many trees are needed but hope that the answer to the question below is yes:
Can Forests Be More Profitable Than Beef?
Cattle ranches have ruled the Amazon for decades. Now, new companies are selling something else: the ability of trees to lock away planet-warming carbon.
The residents of Maracaçumé, an impoverished town on the edge of the Amazon rainforest, are mystified by the company that recently bought the biggest ranch in the region. How can it possibly make money by planting trees, which executives say they’ll never cut down, on pastureland where cattle have been grazing for decades? Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Bat Falcon
Guatemala
How Much Communication Between Trees?
Baobab trees in Madagascar.
Photograph: Dave Carr/Getty Images
Ancient oak trees in Glastonbury, Somerset. Photograph: Eddie Linssen/Alamy
I acknowledge my enthusiasm for the idea that there is something going on between trees. I always want to hear more about it. Those who know me well joke that I am anti-woo-woo; but this one topic betrays a soft spot for the as-yet not fully explained. So I am thankful to Daniel Immerwahr for reminding me of the boundaries of what we know (so far):
A bristlecone pine tree, one of the oldest living organisms on Earth. Photograph: Piriya Photography/Getty Images
Mother trees and socialist forests: is the ‘wood-wide web’ a fantasy?
In the past 10 years the idea that trees communicate with and look after each other has gained widespread currency. But have these claims outstripped the evidence?
There are a lot of humans. Teeming is perhaps an unkind word, but when 8 billion people cram themselves on to a planet that, three centuries before, held less than a tenth of that number, it seems apt. Eight billion hot-breathed individuals, downloading apps and piling into buses and shoving their plasticky waste into bins – it is a stupefying and occasionally sickening thought. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Gray-hooded Parakeet
Bolivia
Honeybees & Salvation
Sarah Kliff
We had an experience with honeybees in our home in Costa Rica that echoes the one related below. We did get someone to help us extract the colony from under our roof and re-situate it as you can see in this photo. We were fortunate to find that man who did the extraction, but my takeaway was not that honeybees do not need saving. Read on:
Honeybees Invaded My House, and No One Would Help
Responding to fears of a “honeybee collapse,” 30 states have passed laws to protect the pollinators. But when they invaded my house, I learned that the honeybees didn’t need saving.
I noticed the first bee one afternoon as my dog gleefully chased it around the house. When the pest settled on a window by the stairwell, I swatted it with a cookbook and cleaned up the mess. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Orchard Oriole
Leander Khil Photography
Guatemala
Seaweed Mining Explained
Scientists still have a lot to figure out, but the idea of sourcing critical minerals from seaweed is too tantalizing not to look into. Photo by Upix Photography/Alamy Stock Photo
Plenty of links to articles about the importance of various types of seaweed in our pages, but in Hakai Magazine the environmental journalist Moira Donovan asks and provides a cogent answer to the most basic question:
What the Heck Is Seaweed Mining?
Preliminary research suggests seaweed can trap and store valuable minerals. Is this the beginning of a new type of mining?
Seaweed is versatile; it provides habitat for marine life, shelters coastlines, and absorbs carbon dioxide. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Nashville Warbler
NW Austin, TX
Andrea Vidaurre, Making Good Trouble in California
Take five minutes to celebrate Andrea’s activism and its accomplishments:
Andrea Vidaurre
Andrea Vidaurre’s grassroots leadership persuaded the California Air Resources Board to adopt, in the spring of 2023, two historic transportation regulations that significantly limit trucking and rail emissions. The new regulations—the In-Use Locomotive Rule and the California Advanced Clean Fleets Rule—include the nation’s first emission rule for trains and a path to 100% zero emissions for freight truck sales by 2036. The groundbreaking regulations—a product of Andrea’s policy work and community organizing—will substantially improve air quality for millions of Californians while accelerating the country’s transition to zero-emission vehicles.
Organikos 