Latest / Mostly Good Environmental News / Mostly Good Environmental News #18
Transcript
- Lenlibrizzi: Hi, this is Lenny Librizzi along with Dominique Burel, Mark Latour, Charlie Olson, and Jim Scarcella. Welcome to the Mostly Good Environmental News Report, where we cover positive local and global environmental issues, milestones, and activities that you may not hear about. Very often, the news about the environment is not good. We hear about Dominique Borel: Okay. Lenlibrizzi: climate chaos and all of its manifestations, drought, wildfires, floods, species loss, weakening of environmental regulations. But there are good things happening in the environment we will share with you in this podcast. We hope you enjoy listening. And if any listeners have ideas for stories we should do, please let us know in the comments. For our first Good news item. Dominique Burel will tell us how beavers are restoring wetlands in the western United States. Let's hear some good news, Dominique. Dominique Borel: Across the American West, land that used to get baked into clay and dust is turning green again. Not through concrete dams or massive pumps, but through the teeth and tails of beavers. Where people once saw a wasteland, ecologists now see an opportunity to enlist a native engineer that works for free and never clocks out. The result is a quiet transformation of rivers, meadows, and even deserts. as communities put beavers back into place where they were trapped out generations ago. The idea sounds almost implausible. Move a few dozen animals into a dry or degraded valley and wait for them to rebuild the plumbing. Yet from high mountain creeks to low desert channels, the evidence is growing that if you give beavers water and a bit of space, they will rewire entire watersheds. One of the most vivid examples of this strategy unfolded in the mid 20th century in the rugged back country of Idaho. Wildlife managers there faced a dilemma. Booming human development meant beavers were gnawing trees and flooding fields in the wrong places. Yet the high country had become empty of beaver after they were trapped out in the 1800s. The solution they settled on was audacious. Crews boxed up live beavers loaded them into planes and parachuted them into remote valleys that were nearly impossible to reach by road. One of those drop zones was Bow Creek, a modest stream that had been little more than a trickle through dry sagebrush. As the beavers settled in, they built dams, dug canals and spread water across the valley floor. Over time, the dry corridor turned into a ribbon of willows and wetlands so lush that the greenery could be seen from outer space. For much of the 20th century, beavers were treated as a problem to be removed, not a partner in restoration. and road crews saw flooded culverts and chewed up fence posts, not the slow motion hydrological work happening behind those muddy dams. But that perception is shifting as beavers are being dispatched to canyons and headwaters that desperately need water. The science behind this rebranding is straightforward. By constructing dams across streams, beavers raise local water tables, reduce erosion, and recharge groundwater reserves. And these are the benefits that river restoration groups lean on as they confront longer droughts and hotter summers. Beavers create a mosaic of ponds and side channels that spreads water laterally instead of letting it rush straight downstream. Beaver dams improve water quality, reconnect streams to their floodplains, and provide refuge for species to escape fire. The most dramatic test of this approach has come in places that barely seem like beaver habitat at all. Along the San Pedro River in Arizona, where a stretch of channel had become a dry, sandy trout. managers released 15 beavers into the river. Within four years, those beavers built more than 30 dams, reviving the waterway and rewetting a corridor that migratory birds and wildlife depend on. Similar logic drove an effort in the Utah desert, scientists ⁓ beavers to save rivers that were losing flow and habitat. The beavers spread water across floodplains and buffered streams against flash floods. The beavers created habitat that dozens of other species rely on, from small fish and amphibians to songbirds. In California, the shift towards beaver-led restoration has been slower, shaped by decades of flood control and water politics. But that is changing. Biologists highlighted a meadow where beaver had been released in 2023, California's first beaver translocation in 70 years. Each year since the release, new ponds and water channels have appeared in the meadow. The project is part of a broader recognition that California cannot rely solely on concrete reservoirs to ride out droughts. The number of services beavers provide and the ways that they build resilient landscapes include building dams that offer shelter for fish, reducing flood peaks downstream, breaking down harmful compounds in the water, restoring native woodlands, and creating new wetlands. Even in welter reasons like the Pacific Northwest, managers are reassessing floodplains as candidates for beaver-driven change rather than as sites to be diked and drained. Beavers are now being viewed less as nuisances and more as ecosystem engineers. And that is good news for the environment. now Charlie is going to talk to us about Canada's plan to plant 2 billion trees. Charlie Olson: Thank you, Dominique. In the 1800s, the forests that surrounded some of Canada's biggest cities were key to the economies of European settlement and helped lay the foundation for a new country. Now those same forests could become essential to Canada's future, not through further tree cutting, but by encouraging the trees to grow back. That's the takeaway from a study that seeks to optimize the country's 2 billion trees effort. This federal program was launched to help Canada meet its climate objectives by planting 2 billion trees, that's billion with a B, over a 10-year period for carbon storage. So far, the program is not on track to meet that goal, but Ottawa has pressed ahead. 160 million trees have been planted and funding has been announced for another 160 million. The new study will help make the program more effective. It is a systematic attempt to identify the optimal locations for restoring forest cover. It's asking where in Canada are we going to achieve the highest growth rate of trees at the least cost. And it addresses other goals beyond climate mitigation, such as benefiting species at risk, and improving access to nature-based recreation. Overall, the optimal results are not to be found in the remote boreal wilderness, but in the diverse pockets of land that are relatively close to cities and towns. The study finds that the best value comes from restoring mixed and deciduous forests to parts of rural Ontario and Quebec. restoring appropriate forest types to the maritime provinces and to southern British Columbia. All of these are places where tree cover has been eliminated through two centuries of overcutting. The study though left out cities and high quality agricultural land, which it should. It left out vast areas where dense forest cover is not natural, such as the prairies. Why put it there and waste our money? It leaves out also the wetlands and tundra of the far north, areas that are already tree covered. No sense in putting more where they're not needed. And also areas where industry is obligated to replace trees after logging. If we added those numbers, that would be a form of greenwashing. This left an area of opportunity for forest restoration of 47 million acres spread across lands with widely different ecological characteristics. In total, about three million acres are needed to plant two billion trees at a typical density of a normal, regular Canadian forest. The best places to add trees depends on the goal. Citing scenarios consider factors such as lowest cost, areas of the fastest tree growth, areas of sufficient rainfall. the ease of access to that site, the greatest benefit to wildlife species at risk, the best for connectivity between natural areas, the best place for providing fresh water, and the best for nature-based recreation. Lenlibrizzi: Thanks, Charlie. the good news is that the number of monarch butterflies that overwintered in Mexico this past winter was up significantly over the year before. Each fall, the monarchs fly to the same forested area in Mexico to overwinter. This past winter, they occupied 7.2 acres of forest. That's significantly more than the 4.4 acres they occupied the year before, or the 2.2 acres in the winter of 2023, 2024. While this number is still less than ideal, it is an improvement and hopefully the start of an upward trend towards sustainability. What is the reason for this improvement? One theory is that this past fall saw significant rainfall along the migratory route, thereby increasing the number of flowers and amount of nectar that the butterflies depend on to fuel their journey. Also, in another example of local actions contributing to environmental improvements, the pollinator gardens planted by people across the country contributed to the amount of food sources that the monarchs needed. There is still work to be done banning neonicotinoid coated seeds and giving the monarch the added protection of being listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, as well as increasing the planting of milkweed species and pollinator gardens across the country to fuel their migration. For those who want to help, are plenty of resources available to the home gardener through the Xerces Society, the Nature Conservancy, and local native plant societies and pollinator protection groups. Simply search online for monarch butterflies to find out how you can help. If you are able to help, that will be good news for the monarchs and good news for the environment. And now we will hear from Scarcella. Jim? Jim Scarcella: Yes, good day everybody and thank you Lenny for that information about the monarchs and the pollinators. we have good news from California. ⁓ After decades decline, ⁓ mountain lions gained protection under California's Endangered Species Act. California agencies are now mandated to protect the big cats, which have been increasingly vulnerable due to habitat loss. More than 1,400 mountain lions across much of California are now protected, and the state's Fish and Game Commission recently announced. Opponents of the endangered species designation included the Farm Bureau and the Cattlemen's Association, voiced concerns about safety of livestock. The commission unanimously voted to include six groups of Central Coast and Southern California mountain lions ⁓ under the state's The agency determined that they are likely to become extinct without intervention. The affected species can be found from the Bay Area down to Mexico border. Mountain lions are a marvel, but too many across California are struggling in the diminished and fractured wild places they live. as we know, too, there's been a lot of wildfires and mudslides in California recently also. The state ⁓ is not to stand back and watch its wildlife vanish forever. So this is an exciting new chapter for pumas and related species. The new protection provide a legal mandate for California agencies and neighborhoods to protect the felines and also requires developments in habitats to identify and minimize potential harms to the population with added precautions including more wildlife crossings, overpasses, underpasses, large culverts, fencing, and designations. the struggling population including a new wildlife crossing across freeway 101. These particular groups of mountain lions are especially vulnerable due to isolation, loss of habitat, disease, collisions with cars, and a restricted gene pool due to the high mortality of male mountain lions. So this protection is very good news for mountain lions, and it's coming in a very timely fashion. Also, we have an update from the land down under, from Australia. In a victory for clean energy, the state of New South Wales, Australia, will ban new mine applications for coal and impose rules to reduce methane emissions from existing projects to meet its net zero target. New South Wales is the home of Sydney, Australia, and the state is six times larger than the state of New York. The government of New South Wales will continue to support coal production where it is already occurring and ensure that it can meet its commitments to key trading partners. But coal miners will now be required to capture, treat, or convert methane gas from their mines to stop it from being released into the atmosphere. the state of New South Wales will not approve new Greenfield coal mines, which are developed, as a financial gamble in a way. The ban will not affect existing coal mines. And coal is New South Wales' biggest export, worth $23.4 billion a year. The majority of its coal is shipped to power stations in Japan, China, and Taiwan. The New South Wales government in Australia will establish a jobs and investment authority to help transition workers into new careers. Large mines will need to drain the gas from the seams they intend to mine or flare it, and old mines with leaks will need to be resealed. So this is good news and hopefully will result in a ⁓ carbon reduction. Mark: you Jim Scarcella: now ⁓ Mark Latour has an update for us about sheep. Mark: you, Jim. ⁓ in the Midwest are finding that sheep and solar panels make a surprisingly good team. The practice known as solar grazing places flocks of sheep in large fields of solar panels to keep weeds and unwanted vegetation in check. It's a win-win. Farmers earn income from both clean energy created and the sheep, while solar companies save money on mowing and maintenance. The sheep even improve soil quality as they graze. But for sheep farmers to prosper, there needs to be stronger demand for lamb chops, leg of lamb, and cheeses like Feta, Manchego, Pecorino, and Roquefort. Today, most lamb sold in the US is imported, and American consumers often buy it only for Easter or in halal markets. But expanding the market could unlock major benefits for farmers, consumers, and the environment. According to one farmer who grazes 500 ewes across nine solar sites, there's a huge potential for solar energy and sheep farming to grow together. And unlike cattle, which can damage solar panels, sheep are perfectly suited for large solar arrays. The concept is put on more quickly in western states, which have a long tradition of sheep ranching. But in the Midwest, it's still new, especially where corn and soy dominate. Replacing some corn and soy with sheep is not much of a loss, as those crops are used either for ethanol or sold abroad. Instead, Solar grazing can provide more U.S. to energy production and food production. Groups such as the Farmland Trust are training farmers in best practices. Advocates pitch branding campaigns like Illinois Solar Lamb to help consumers link their dinner plates with clean energy and healthy farmland. Ultimately, agrovoltaics and solar grazing are great ways to support family farmers and provide locally grown, low-carb, high-protein foods. Finally, the Yangtze River in China, which has been an decline for 70 years, is showing signs of recovery thanks to a fishing ban. One of the most positive freshwater conservation stories anywhere in the world in 20 years. Government measures have really improved things. The vast waterways serve as a population of 400 million people. and some of the world's dirtiest factories. The results raise hopes of a remarkable, if still fragile, comeback. The world's third largest river, stretching 4,000 miles from Tibetan glaciers to Shanghai, was the site of one of the world's most shocking extinction events earlier this century, with the demise of the Baiji, a freshwater dolphin that was once worshipped as a goddess. But the goddess was wiped out by pollution, dams, traffic, and reckless fishing, with electricity and even dynamite. Scientists called for a fishing ban on the river to halt degradation of habitats and prevent a further decline in fish stocks, which had fallen by 85 percent. But government restrictions were piecemeal until a 10-year ban on fishing was put in place. The government spent $3 billion on compensating and finding alternative employment for 200,000 fishermen and scrapping thousands of boats. Improvements included a doubling in overall biomass and a return of several declining species. One of the most endangered species, the finniless porpoise, increased its numbers by 50%. The results provide hope that government action to support large-scale restoration can help reverse ecosystem damages of the past. Authorities governing other major waterways in the world, all of which are suffering from alarming deterioration, must learn from the Yangtze's example. The river and its wildlife remain highly vulnerable to human pressures, so authorities must strengthen conservation and enforcement. Illegal fishing remains a constant threat and requires heightened policing by local authorities. Additionally, water quality needs to be improved, and some species, such as the critically endangered sturgeon, a need to bypass giant hydropower dams to reach spawning grounds. But overall, efforts to address ecological threats are showing positive results after decades of decline. And that's good news for the environment. And I'll let it back to you. Lenlibrizzi: Thanks, Mark, and thank you for listening to the Mostly Good Environmental News Report. We hope you enjoyed hearing some good news. If you like what you heard, please share with your friends and listen to more episodes of the Mostly Good Environmental News Report wherever you listen to podcasts. We can be found on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, iHeartRadio, Amazon podcasts. And a special thank you to Fred Duca for the original music compositions we are using in this podcast. Here is a little bit of that music.