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national parks

Protected Areas Are Not Protecting Insects | Earth Wise

March 24, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Insects are not being protected by protected areas

Insects can be found in every environment on Earth and play crucial roles in the planet’s ecosystems.  In fact, Biologist E. O. Wilson once said that “if all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago.  If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.”

While his statement may sound extreme, it’s really not an exaggeration.  Insects are critical to most ecosystems.  They pollinate more than 80% of plants – both those we eat and those that provide food and habitat for other species.  Insects are also a food source themselves, eaten by other insects, birds, fish, and mammals. Without insects, we wouldn’t have the rich biodiversity that supports life on earth today. 

But insect populations are collapsing around the globe, and they continue to be overlooked by conservation efforts.  Protected areas, like national parks, refuges, and sanctuaries, can safeguard threatened species, but only if those threatened species actually live within the protected areas. 

According to a new study recently published in the journal One Earth, 76% of insect species are not adequately covered by protected areas, including several critically endangered insects such as the dinosaur ant, crimson Hawaiian damselfly, and harnessed tiger moth. Alarmingly, the populations of 1,876 species do not overlap with protected areas at all.

Insects have been historically overlooked by conservation programs and need to be included in future conservation assessments. 

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Protected areas fail to safeguard more than 75% of global insect species

Photo, posted August 21, 2014, courtesy of Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Wildfires And Giant Sequoias

October 28, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Two massive California wildfires that erupted during a lightning storm on September 9 have continued to threaten groves of giant sequoia trees in the southern Sierra Nevada mountains.  As of the beginning of October, flames from the KNP Complex fire had burned in or passed through 11 sequoia groves, including the famed Giant Forest in Sequoia National Park.

Hundreds of firefighters battled to protect some of the most renowned trees, including the 275-foot-tall General Sherman tree, widely considered to be the largest tree on earth by overall volume.  That tree and many near it are over 2,000 years old.

Firefighters wrapped the base of the General Sherman and several other trees with fire-resistant blankets to protect them from the intense heat of approaching fires.  Sequoias are actually well-adapted to fires because of their thick bark that protects them from heat.  But intense fires like the KNP Complex and Windy fires are more than the trees can handle.

As of the beginning of October, both fires continue to blaze, but thanks to the efforts of firefighters, most of the giant sequoias have survived.  One massive tree in the Giant Forest recently toppled over after burning for several days, but most are still standing and haven’t suffered serious damage.

As of early October, the two fires had blackened over 140,000 acres across national parks, national forests, the Tule River Indian Reservation, and local communities.  These two are among multiple wildfires burning in California this past summer.  The largest – the Dixie fire – has burned nearly a million acres as of early October.  In total, over 2.5 million acres have already burned in California this year.

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KNP Complex fire triggers flurry of new evacuations, as flames threaten more giant sequoia trees

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Hundreds of California firefighters battle to protect ancient sequoia groves from raging wildfires – with world’s largest tree General Sherman wrapped in aluminum foil blanket

Photo, posted November 5, 2017, courtesy of Ken Lund via Flickr.

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Carnivores Eating Human Food | Earth Wise

December 1, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Carnivores increasingly relying on humans for food

A recent study by ecologists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has found that carnivores living near people often get more than half of their diets from human food sources rather than from their traditional prey.  This represents a major lifestyle disruption that puts North America’s carnivore-dominated ecosystems at risk.

The researchers studied the diets of seven predator species across the Great Lakes region using bone and fur samples taken from animals from areas as remote as national parks to metropolitan areas including Albany, New York.  What they found – unsurprisingly – is that the closer carnivores lived to cities and farms, the more human food they ate.  Dietary contributions of human food varied with species, but on average was more than 25% in most human-altered habitats.

The researchers studied the diets of carnivores like bobcats, coyotes, red and gray foxes, fishers, and American martens by chemical analysis of samples from Minnesota, Wisconsin, upstate New York, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  The diets of the animals could be analyzed on the basis of the carbon content of bone and fur samples.  Human food, heavy in corn and sugar, lends these samples a distinctive carbon isotope signature.  In contrast, prey species confer their own carbon signatures.  The ratio of these isotope fingerprints provides information on the proportion of an animal’s diet that came from human sources.

Relying upon human food increases how much carnivores overlap one another in their competition for food.  Compared to when these predators vie for distinct prey, there can be more conflicts between animals.  Changing how a species gets their food can have far-ranging effects on ecosystems.

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Carnivores living near people feast on human food, threatening ecosystems

Photo, posted August 18, 2007, courtesy of Jitze Couperus via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Wildlife Reclaims Yosemite National Park | Earth Wise

May 12, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Wildlife reclaim Yosemite National Park

Our stories often discuss how human activities change the natural environment.  With most of us confined to our homes, the lack of human activities is having profound effects on the environment.  We are talking about some of these this week.

Yosemite National park is normally awash in humanity – there were over 300,000 visitors in April of 2019 and typically 4 million people visit each year.  But as of March 20, the park was closed to tourists to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.  Only a skeleton crew of employees remains in the park.

Without all the people, wildlife is coming out of hiding.  It did so in previous park closures during government shutdowns, but those closures were pretty short.  This one is expected to be the longest on record.

The bear population within the park has quadrupled and many larger animals – such as bobcats and coyotes – are congregating outside of cabins and other buildings and prowling empty roads and walkways instead of hanging back at the edges of human settlements. 

In addition, the air at Yosemite is cleaner due to the lack of exhaust and diesel, and Yosemite Valley is nearly silent, apart from natural sounds from the river and the wind.  According to some observers, the park’s current condition is probably similar to what visitors in the 19th century witnessed. 

The few park employees sheltering in place are taking advantage of the virtually unimpeded natural amenities of the park.  Many are hiking to its lakes and waterfalls, enjoying trails that are empty apart from animals.  As some of the people staying in the park have noted, one could not ask for a better place to be isolated.

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Coyotes, bobcats and bears: Wildlife is reclaiming Yosemite National Park

Photo, posted October 30, 2019, courtesy of Ania Mendrek via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Price of Chocolate

April 18, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The Ivory Coast has lost more than 80% of its forests in the last 50 years, mainly as a result of cocoa production.

The Ivory Coast is a West African country the size of New Mexico and it produces more than a third of the world’s cocoa.  But around 40% of the country’s cocoa crop – supplying more than a tenth of the world’s chocolate bars – is grown illegally in the country’s national parks and 230 supposedly protected government-owned forests. 

Over the decades, as many as one million landless people from drought-stricken places like Mali and Burkina Faso moved into national parks and protected forests and started farming cocoa.  The Marahoue National Park alone has 30,000 illegal inhabitants.

Most cocoa is grown in monocultures of what is known as the full-sun system, which requires the removal of all surrounding trees.  As a result, many allegedly protected areas have been completely converted into farms.  Most of the cocoa in the Ivory Coast is grown on small farms, typically plots of 7 to 10 acres.  The farmers are caught in an exploitative and corrupt system of cocoa trading and land appropriation, and most earn less than a dollar a day.  Meanwhile, government agencies charged with protecting the forests are more interested in collecting bribes than safeguarding woodlands.

The Ivory Coast government is unveiling a plan to actually remove protection from most of its remaining forests and hand them over to the world’s chocolate traders.    The claim is that this will protect other forests by improving cocoa productivity in already deforested areas.  Needless to say, conservation groups are dubious that the new plan will positively impact an already terrible situation.

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The Real Price of a Chocolate Bar: West Africa’s Rainforests

Photo, posted April 17, 2015, courtesy of Tom Coady via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Sand Mining And The Environment

April 2, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

In discussions of the environment, we don’t hear much about sand mining.  But sand mining is the world’s largest mining endeavor, responsible for 85% of all mineral extraction.  Sand and gravel are mined on a huge scale around the world.  The UN estimates that the total exceeds 40 billion tons a year.  Most of this activity is unregulated and unmeasured, and much of it is corrupt and environmentally destructive.

Concrete is the predominant use for sand.  Every ton of cement requires six to seven tons of sand and gravel in order to make concrete.  But sand also makes up 90% of asphalt on roads and it is used for land reclamation in places like Singapore.  Sand is also widely used in industries such as glass manufacturing and fracking.

There are different sorts of sand.  Desert sand is mostly useless for making concrete because its grains are too rounded by erosion and don’t bind well in the concrete.   Marine sand is not great for concrete either because it has to be washed clean of corrosive salts.

As a result, salt miners mostly get sand from pits on land and dredged up from lakes and riverbeds.  Dredging massive quantities of sand from rivers and lakes drastically alters river flow, erodes riverbanks, dries up tributaries, lowers water tables, and trashes wetlands and fisheries.  In many countries, this even goes on in national parks where officials turn a blind eye to the activity.  India is the world’s second-largest sand mining country (after China) and widespread illegal extraction occurs throughout the country run by highly organized and even violent “sand mafias.”

Sand mining is a huge problem and, to date, is one that is pretty much off of most people’s radar.

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The Hidden Environmental Toll of Mining the World’s Sand

Photo, posted June 3, 2017, courtesy of Andrey Talalov via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Dirty Air In The National Parks

August 27, 2018 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

https://earthwiseradio.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/EW-08-27-18-Dirty-Air-in-National-Parks.mp3

Our national parks are supposed to be places that allow us to commune with nature.  They offer incredible vistas and amazing sights.  As a result, millions of Americans and visitors from around the world are drawn to these places – too many millions, in fact.

[Read more…] about Dirty Air In The National Parks

Saving The Siberian Tiger

March 13, 2018 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

https://earthwiseradio.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/EW-03-13-18-Saving-the-Siberian-Tiger.mp3

The northeastern part of China, wedged between North Korea to the south and Russia to the northeast, is home to two highly endangered big cats:  the Siberian tiger and the Amur leopard.   Siberian tigers, which can weigh over 600 pounds and grow to more than 10 feet in length, now number only about 500 in the wild, mostly in Russia.  Amur leopards, weighing more than 100 pounds and growing to more than four feet in length, number only about 80 in the wild.  While both species are right on the edge of extinction, both are slowly rebounding.

[Read more…] about Saving The Siberian Tiger

Making Room For Wildlife

February 28, 2018 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

https://earthwiseradio.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/EW-02-28-18-Making-Room-for-Wildlife.mp3

Protecting biodiversity is a critical challenge facing humanity.  Global vertebrate populations – from elephants to amphibians – declined by 58% from 1970 to 2012 and losses are expected to reach 67% in the next two years.  Think about it:  at least two-thirds of all vertebrate animals on earth have vanished over the lifetime of anyone fifty years old or over.

[Read more…] about Making Room For Wildlife

National Parks Are Too Popular

August 31, 2017 By EarthWise

https://earthwiseradio.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/EW-08-31-17-National-Parks-Are-Too-Popular.mp3

National Parks are often thought of as America’s natural cathedrals – serene places we visit to commune with nature and soak up its grandeur.   Millions of Americans and other people from around the world are drawn to these amazing places.  Unfortunately, it is now too many millions.

[Read more…] about National Parks Are Too Popular

Changing National Parks

January 12, 2017 By EarthWise

https://earthwiseradio.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/EW-01-12-17-Changing-National-Parks.mp3

America’s National Parks are special places of incomparable beauty and fascination.  When the National Park Service was first created 100 years ago, it was instructed to leave these places “unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”   We now live in a time when the changing climate is altering many aspects of the landscape including in many national parks.  The parks are protected, but they are changing.

[Read more…] about Changing National Parks

Wildlife Corridors

December 28, 2016 By EarthWise

https://earthwiseradio.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/EW-12-28-16-Wildlife-Corridors.mp3

It is widely thought that we are in the midst of the 6th great mass extinction of species on Earth and, unlike the previous ones that were caused by things like asteroid impacts or ice ages, this one is caused by us.  Our impact on the climate, on natural resources, on landscapes and habitats, and more, has wreaked havoc on ecosystems across the globe.

[Read more…] about Wildlife Corridors

A Giant Ocean Reserve

October 7, 2016 By WAMC WEB

https://earthwiseradio.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/EW-10-07-16-A-Giant-Ocean-Reserve.mp3

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the National Parks and this year the largest protected area anywhere on Earth has now been created.  Twice the size of Texas, the marine park also has the longest name among National Parks:  it is the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument.

[Read more…] about A Giant Ocean Reserve

Size Matters

August 10, 2016 By WAMC WEB

https://earthwiseradio.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/EW-08-10-16-Open-Space.mp3

One of the crowning achievements for wildlife protection in the US was the establishment of the National Wildlife Refuge system in the 1930s, when the populations of waterfowl were perilously low. Refuges provided breeding and migratory habitat that has allowed a remarkable recovery of many species of ducks and geese.

[Read more…] about Size Matters

Sponsoring National Parks

June 13, 2016 By WAMC WEB

https://earthwiseradio.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/EW-06-13-16-National-Parks-Sponsors.mp3

Everybody loves national parks. They offer scenic wonders, opportunities to commune with nature, and a chance to get away from the pervasive commercialization that fills our lives.  But that may soon change.

[Read more…] about Sponsoring National Parks

Trash At National Parks

August 19, 2015 By EarthWise

yosemite

https://earthwiseradio.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/EW-08-19-15-Trash-at-National-Parks.mp3

Our national parks are shining examples of the American wilderness whose natural wonders attract millions of visitors from around the world.  This popularity has a cost:  national park visitors generate more than 100 million pounds of garbage each year, most of which ends up in landfills.

[Read more…] about Trash At National Parks

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