Building Better With Bees

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Late spring is swarm season, the time of year when bees reproduce and find new places to build hives. John Clift/Flickr

Thanks to National Public Radio (USA):

Spring Is Swarm Season, When Beekeepers Are On The Hunt For New Hives

Late spring is swarm season — the time of year when bees reproduce and find new places to build hives. Swarms of bees leave the nest and zoom through the air, hovering on trees, fences and houses, searching for a new home.

While a new neighborhood beehive can be stressful for homeowners, it’s an exciting time for beekeepers, who see it as an opportunity.

Recently, these vital pollinators have been under threat. U.S. beekeepers report losing about a third of their honeybee colonies each year in recent years. And North America’s 4,000 other species of native bees are also declining.

So, when a swarm is announced on the Bee Town Bee Club Facebook page in Bloomington, Ind., beekeepers race to call dibs. Continue reading →

Celebrating Two Decades Of La Paz Group

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The exact date of La Paz Group’s founding precedes the date on which the company was formally incorporated; it is fair to say that moving to Costa Rica was the inception. At about this time of year in 1996 our family moved to Costa Rica so that I could begin field work on the initiative I had already accepted responsibility for starting in 1995.

It was an initiative perfectly suited for me, just completing my doctoral dissertation at the same time that Costa Rica’s President, Jose Maria Figueres, was two years into his quest to make Costa Rica a model of sustainable development. My dissertation research provided theoretical foundation for the initiative, and motivation for me to “test it” in the marketplace. I was extremely fortunate to be in the right place at the right time.

Two decades later, the concept of entrepreneurial conservation, which was at the heart of the sustainable development initiative in Costa Rica’s tourism sector starting in the mid-1990s, is thriving. La Paz Group is, as well, as we will begin illustrating on these pages starting today.

New Carbon Capture Method in Iceland

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Site close to the Hellisheidi geothermal power plant, where CO2 was injected into volcanic rock. In two years it was almost completely mineralised. Photograph: Juerg Matter/Science via The Guardian

We’ve discussed carbon capture before, in the chemical sense with scrubbers at coal-plants and regarding the history of coal, but most of our posts have been concerned with lowering carbon emissions rather than sequestering it. Today we learned that a new technique tested in Iceland turned CO2 released from a geothermal plant into a limestone of sorts, where it appears to no longer contribute to global greenhouse gases. Damian Carrington reports for The Guardian:

Carbon dioxide has been pumped underground and turned rapidly into stone, demonstrating a radical new way to tackle climate change.

The unique project promises a cheaper and more secure way of burying CO2 from fossil fuel burning underground, where it cannot warm the planet. Such carbon capture and storage (CCS) is thought to be essential to halting global warming, but existing projects store the CO2 as a gas and concerns about costs and potential leakage have halted some plans.

Continue reading →

Murphey Candler Park

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Not far from where my grandmother lives just outside of Atlanta, there’s a public park with a lake that I have recently visited several times to go birding. On eBird, the park’s hotspot boasts one hundred and fifty-four species of birds, so it was a natural place for me to check out, especially given that the park’s lake might attract some water birds I haven’t seen yet.

In addition to the thirty-eight species I saw myself during three morning walks around the lake–several of which will become Bird of the Day photos over the following months–I also enjoyed the forest scenery in this suburban oasis, and got to see Continue reading →

Bravo, Tim Samuel

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Associate Professor Ian Tibbetts, a fish biologist at the Centre for Marine Science at the University of Queensland, says that while it’s difficult to tell from photos alone, the fish looks like it could be a juvenile trevally, which are known to seek shelter among the stingers of certain jellyfish. In this case, the situation may have taken a surprise turn for the small fish, which ended up inside the jellyfish.

Glancing at this image does not give clarity on what it is, so someone’s description is required. It is an intersection of nature’s surprises and the even greater surprise of a photographer capturing nature’s surprises. As if you needed us to remind you how awesome nature is, we send you to Tim Samuel’s portfolio, where you can also order prints and learn that he:

Continue reading →

Farm-Table Symbiosis

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Preparing tear peas at Nerua, a restaurant at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. The peas are known as “green caviar” among Spain’s top chefs. Samuel Aranda for The New York Times

Mr. Minder’s reporting from the field, in this case the rarified field of Michelin-starred chefs, reminds us that the foodie phenomenon (sometimes now bordering on annoyingly precious, and risking the celebrity-worshipping tendencies that will ruin all good fun) is spreading good old fashioned common sense practices far and wide:

Top Chefs and Local Farmers in Spain Regenerate Their ‘Green Caviar’

By RAPHAEL MINDER

ARRIETA, Spain — Making his way down a row of pea plants, Iker Villasana Hernaez, a Basque farmer, leans down to feel each pod individually before deciding whether it is ready to pick.

If the peas inside feel slightly hard, “best to leave it for one more day,” he said. “It’s really all about the perfect timing.” Continue reading →

A Downside to Lights in the Dark

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Photo by homeanddecor.com

Although the titles are similar, this post and the previous one from today are not about related subjects other than light and darkness. The lights referred to in this post’s title are artificial ones on land, not bioluminescence under the sea. Lights from houses and street lamps that distract moths from pollinating plants that need their pollen transported, and often result in moth deaths (by predation or getting trapped indoors). Sarah DeWeerdt reports for Conservation Magazine on a recent UK study on the disruption of pollination by light:

Everyone knows moths are attracted to light, but scientists are just now learning that this attraction may have negative consequences for other parts of the ecosystem. Moths drawn to artificial sources of light may do less work pollinating plants, according to research published last week in the journal Global Change Biology.

Researchers sampled moths at 40 sites along hedgerows bordering agricultural fields in Oxfordshire, England. Half of the study sites were lit with streetlights and half were not. Surprisingly, no one had previously investigated how this very common source of artificial lighting affects the behavior and ecological function of moths.

Continue reading →

Lights in the Dark

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Galiteuthis. Credit: MBARI

In the past three days, two of the blogs we visit have shared a total of three posts concerning animals that live in the deep sea, where light is scarce. Ed Yong has written for NatGeo’s blog about a “squid that has glowing eyeshadow that acts as an invisibility cloak,” as well as the genetic branches and diversity of species exhibiting bioluminescence; Matt Miller wrote for The Nature Conservancy’s blog about a new book by photographer Danté Fenolio called Life in the Dark: Illuminating Biodiversity in the Shadowy Haunts of Planet Earth. Below, a quick excerpt from each, starting with the squid:

The oceans of the world are home to animals that render themselves invisible with glowing eyeshadow.

They’re called glass squid and, as their name suggests, they are largely transparent. They’d be impossible to see in the darkness of the open ocean were it not for their eyes—the only obviously opaque parts of their bodies.

Continue reading →

Farming, Students, Sustainability

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A weekday work session on the Student Organic Farm at Iowa State University has members weeding a perennial bed. Amy Mayer/Harvest Public Media

Thanks to National Public Radio (USA) for this story:

A Student-Run Farm Cultivates Passion For Sustainable Agriculture

A weathered wooden shed that holds wheelbarrows, hoes and other basic tools is the beacon of the Student Organic Farm, a two-acre swath within the larger horticultural research farm at Iowa State University.

On a warm spring evening, a half-dozen students gather here, put on work gloves and begin pulling up weeds from the perennial beds where chives, strawberries, rhubarb and sage are in various stages of growth.

“I didn’t know how passionate I [would] become for physical work,” says culinary science major Heidi Engelhardt. Continue reading →

Microplastics Killing Fish

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Microplastics visible in a pike. Photograph: Oona Lönnstedt/Science

We’ve posted about microplastics before, since they are becoming a problem for oceans’ health. They can be found in sea salts and all over our shores, but also in fish, where the tiny particles stunt growth and alter the behavior of some species that ingest the plastics. Fiona Harvey reports for The Guardian:

Fish are being killed, and prevented from reaching maturity, by the litter of plastic particles finding their way into the world’s oceans, new research has proved.

Some young fish have been found to prefer tiny particles of plastic to their natural food sources, effectively starving them before they can reproduce.

The growing problem of microplastics – tiny particles of polymer-type materials from modern industry – has been thought for several years to be a peril for fish, but the study published on Thursday is the first to prove the damage in trials.

Continue reading →

Pristine Nature

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Chan Chich

In writing about Belize recently, I had mentioned time spent with a tapir, favored in the diet of jaguar throughout Central America. The photo above was taken on property at the lodge my posts were referring to. Rule of thumb, it seems to me, is that a jaguar population requires relatively pristine nature to be sustainable, and that seems to be the case where this photo was taken. But what do I know, really? I am dedicated to entrepreneurial conservation but I am not a biologist so I depend on experts to inform my thinking, and to discipline it with a heavy dose of realism. In reading this post from earlier today I am better prepared to think about the mission of Chan Chich Lodge (more on which in a subsequent post), and the history of the 30,000 acre wilderness conservation area that it sits on:

Gallon Jug

At one time, the venerable 150 year old Belize Estates Company owned roughly one fifth of the entire country, about one million acres including much of the northwest corner of the country. From the turn of the century until the 1960’s, timber, mainly mahogany, cedar and santa maria, were selectively logged from this area. Gallon Jug, originally a logging camp located where the current GJ offices are, was named after a B.E.C. foreman, Austin Felix, discovered many discarded items from a Spanish camp, including a number of ceramic gallon jugs. Continue reading →

Pristine Nature?

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A domesticated cat and a native tropical bird, in Papua New Guinea. Environmentalism has long been a nostalgic enterprise, but the unspoiled past that it aspires to looks increasingly like an illusion. PHOTOGRAPH BY LEONARD FREED / MAGNUM

If you have been reading our blog for any stretch of time you would be aware that we believe in pristine nature, and the importance of its conservation. We do not spend alot of time picking nits about the definition of pristine nature, but from time to time we are reminded that details, aka reality, is in need of fact-checking:

THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS PRISTINE NATURE

By Michelle Nijhuis

About twenty thousand years ago, in the latter days of the Pleistocene epoch, a cat-sized marsupial from New Guinea travelled by boat or raft to the rifle-shaped island of New Ireland. The South Pacific voyage of the northern common cuscus was likely involuntary, and likely ended—unhappily for the cuscus—in a cooking fire. But it was momentous: cuscus bones excavated from the floor of a New Ireland cave are some of the oldest archeological evidence of humans transporting an animal species to a new environment. Continue reading →

Invasive Species, Natural Disasters Of Our Own Creation

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Who needs horror movies when a story like this makes for much more compelling fear, and the realism is, well, real. Click the image above to go to the story:

Biosecurity ‘weaponry’ is helping to halt the global spread of non-native species, from rampaging caterpillars to giant hornets

The best time to annihilate oak processionary caterpillars is when they are young, just a few millimetres long and still high up in the trees. At this stage, their appetite for oak is rapacious, so dousing the leaves in a biocontrol agent like Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) is one way to get the caterpillars to ingest it. When Bt toxins dissolve in the caterpillar gut they become active, puncturing the stomach and killing the insect in several days. Continue reading →

Bionic Botanic Alchemy

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The device uses solar electricity from a photovoltaic panel to power the chemistry that splits water into oxygen and hydrogen, then adds pre-starved microbes to feed on the hydrogen and convert CO2 in the air into alcohol fuels. Credit: Des_Callaghan via Wikimedia Commons

The device uses solar electricity from a photovoltaic panel to power the chemistry that splits water into oxygen and hydrogen, then adds pre-starved microbes to feed on the hydrogen and convert CO2 in the air into alcohol fuels. Credit: Des_Callaghan via Wikimedia Commons

Renewable energy is manifested in multiple forms, utilizing all the classical elements. All the better when innovation brings things full circle in this form of biomimicry.

A tree’s leaf, a blade of grass, a single algal cell: all make fuel from the simple combination of water, sunlight and carbon dioxide through the miracle of photosynthesis. Now scientists say they have replicated—and improved—that trick by combining chemistry and biology in a “bionic” leaf.

Chemist Daniel Nocera of Harvard University and his team joined forces with synthetic biologist Pamela Silver of Harvard Medical School and her team to craft a kind of living battery, which they call a bionic leaf for its melding of biology and technology. The device uses solar electricity from a photovoltaic panel to power the chemistry that splits water into oxygen and hydrogen, then adds pre-starved microbes to feed on the hydrogen and convert CO2 in the air into alcohol fuels. The team’s first artificial photosynthesis device appeared in 2015—pumping out 216 milligrams of alcohol fuel per liter of water—but the nickel-molybdenum-zinc catalyst that made its water-splitting chemistry possible had the unfortunate side effect of poisoning the microbes… Continue reading →

Invisible, With Clear Vision

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A forgotten portfolio, back for our viewing and reading pleasure a book offering the photography and writing of two giants, briefly reviewed here:

RALPH ELLISON AND GORDON PARKS’S JOINT HARLEM VISION

By Vinson Cunningham

In the summer of 1947, editors from the short-lived magazine ’47, known since its shuttering in 1948 as The Magazine of the Year, contacted Ralph Ellison—then in the thick of his seven-year labor to complete “Invisible Man”—with an idea for a photo essay on the Lafargue Psychiatric Clinic in Harlem. Established a year earlier with help from Richard Wright, the clinic had become famous for its stance against segregation, not only in the clientele it served but also, perhaps more remarkably, in its all-volunteer staff. Ellison was excited by the prospect, and, after enlisting the photographer Gordon Parks—an acquaintance from Harlem artistic and intellectual circles—he accepted the assignment, though the magazine would go out of business before the photo essay could be published. Continue reading →