GoGreenNation News

A second sighting of this invasive species has Oregon wildlife officials concerned

Wildlife officials worry people may illegally import these creatures for food, then release them into Oregon waters.

A Chinese mitten crab was discovered in the Willamette River near the Sellwood Bridge in late November, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife said. It’s at least the second sighting of the invasive species in Oregon this year. State officials are working with the federal government, Portland State University and other agencies to investigate whether more of the 3-inch crabs are living in the Willamette.Chinese mitten crabs, which live in freshwater, could impact Oregon’s fish and crayfish populations by eating local species or fish eggs and competing for food, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife says. Oregon’s native crabs live along the coast. The Chinese mitten crab lives its adult life in freshwater, while Oregon's native crabs live along the coast. Oregon Department of Fish and WildlifeThe agency previously warned that the crabs “caused significant infrastructure and ecological damage in and around San Francisco Bay when the population was at its height in the late 1990s.”They are illegal to have or to sell in Oregon. Latest environmental newsMitten crabs can be identified by several distinctive features: a notch between the eyes, four spines on each side of the carapace and hairy mitten-like claws. The crabs’ color varies from greenish-brown to brownish-orange, according to an agency news release.Anyone who catches a Chinese mitten crab is asked to report it with the location to 1-866-INVADER or through an online invasive species hotline. - Kjerstin Gabrielson contributed to this report.

Food

Water

Sea lions keep eating the salmon in the Columbia River. Some lawmakers want to kill more of them

A committee of the U.S. House of Representatives spent more than two hours debating the Pacific Northwest’s sea lion problem.

Pacific Northwest sea lions got the spotlight in a Congressional hearing last week.The U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Natural Resources spent nearly two and a half hours Wednesday debating the long-standing issue of the Columbia River sea lions, who are known to feast on the salmon that swim down and upriver. It wasn’t great news for the sea lions, as the debate centered primarily around how best to kill the pinnipeds. The hearing featured testimony from Aja DeCoteau, executive director of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fishing Commission, who urged the committee to expand efforts to remove the animals and research the problem, The Columbian reported. “Historically, our elders remember an occasional sea lion reaching Celilo Falls,” DeCoteau said at the hearing. “However, these occurrences were rare. Now, a combination of hydro-system infrastructure, changing environmental conditions and the success of the Marine Mammal Protection Act has resulted in unprecedented numbers of sea lions in the Columbia River.”For years, state wildlife managers have sought ways to keep sea lions from gobbling up salmon. Exclusion gates have been installed at the entrances to fish ladders. Sea lions have been hazed with underwater explosives and firecracker shells fired from shotguns. Agencies have tried using fake orcas and arm-flailing inflatables. Animals that have been trapped and relocated, driven hundreds of miles and released into the ocean, have returned upriver within days.In 2008, Oregon was given permission to kill some of the sea lions, though officials were required to capture and brand individual animals, and catch them in the act of consuming salmon, before they could euthanize. The frustrated efforts led to a 2020 federal law that permitted Oregon, Washington and Idaho, as well as some tribes, to bypass the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act, allowing them to trap and kill up to 540 California sea lions and 176 Steller sea lions from the Columbia River and its tributaries. In the five years since, only 230 total sea lions have been killed.While the 2020 federal permit to kill the sea lions was renewed without controversy this September, extending the law through 2030, lawmakers are now examining how effective the legislative efforts have actually been. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Democrat who represents Washington’s 3rd Congressional District, which runs along the lower Columbia River, sat in on the Congressional committee Wednesday, asking why more sea lions haven’t been killed.“Ask yourself, why are these numbers so small?” she said. Gluesenkamp Perez argued the removal process is arduous and expensive, estimating the cost of removing one sea lion at $38,000, or roughly $203 per salmon saved.She recommended expanding the reach of the permits and suggested a process that would allow local fisherman and tribal members to bid on permits to assist with sea lion killings. “I have seen and heard firsthand how much work goes into managing sea lion populations and preserving local fisheries,” she added. “As the name implies, sea lions are a species that belong in the sea, not in our rivers.” Larry Phillips, policy director for the American Sportfishing Association, who also testified before the committee Wednesday, said he thought people would “line up” to participate in sea lion removals.“I also think that we need to be really careful, make sure we’re investing in good science to monitor the outcomes of any type of programs that we implement or decide to implement, and that’s that clearly is going to be the foundation of how we move forward,” Phillips said. “But you know, I would certainly support being creative and coming up with unique ideas.” Killing sea lions in the Pacific Northwest has long been a contentious issue. A 2023 video of a fishing boat repeatedly charging large groups of sea lions demonstrated the animosity many fishers feel toward sea lions, though it shocked even fellow anglers, who condemned the act of aggression toward the animals.

Resources

Science

A land fight pits a sacred Apache tradition against a copper mine

An Apache girl comes of age in a traditional ceremony, possibly the last at Oak Flat before copper mining threatens to transform the sacred site in Arizona.

The girl danced for hours in the knee-deep water as slanting rain pelted her slight frame weighed down by a sodden buckskin dress. Each step brought her closer to the end of a ritual that also signified a beginning.The Washington Post was allowed to record parts of the Sunrise Dance ceremony without audio, to preserve its spiritual power.Several days earlier, Lozen Brown-Lopez had arrived at the top of Oak Flat. She was 11 years old, from the San Carlos Apache Tribe and about to endure a grueling four-day ceremony that has been practiced by Apaches for centuries. Surrounded by a hundred family and fellow tribal members, dancers, singers and medicine men, she would perform the Sunrise Dance, reenacting part of the Apache creation story. At the end, after she had been daubed in clay to represent the mythological mother of all Apaches and ritually cleansed, Lozen would emerge as a young woman.What worried many of those who came to this mesa in mountainous southern Arizona in early October was the very real possibility that this Sunrise Dance might be the last one at Oak Flat.Oak Flat sits on one of North America’s largest undeveloped deposits of copper. The mineral is used in dozens of items, including smartphones, electric vehicles and solar panels. The company Resolution Copper believes there are 20 million tons of copper under Oak Flat that could supply up to one-quarter of the U.S. copper demand over 40 years. At today’s prices, experts say that much copper would be worth about $200 billion. The company asserts it will create more than a thousand jobs in an area with high unemployment.Map shows the location of major copper deposits in the Southwest.Mining Oak Flat, however, would eventually transform the landscape, creating what geologists say would be a vast crater. To prevent this, the tribe and other opponents of the mine have filed multiple lawsuits and tried unsuccessfully to get one of the cases heard before the U.S. Supreme Court. A federal appeals court will hold a hearing for several of the suits in early January.“If they take Oak Flat, they destroy our religion and who we are,” said Vanessa Nosie, an archaeology aide for the San Carlos Apache Tribe who also helps her father lead a nonprofit fighting the mine. Lozen, she added, is “dancing to carry the fight for all we’re trying to save.”As the singers drummed in the downpour, Lozen pounded her ceremonial cane into the muddy ground. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and she faltered for a moment.A woman in the crowd whooped. Another onlooker yelled, “Go, Lozen!” She pulled her shoulders back, lifted her head and looked straight ahead to the sprawling landscape of cacti and Emory oaks that give the region its name.She kept dancing.For many in the San Carlos Apache Tribe, Oak Flat — or Chi’chil Biłdagoteel — is where time began.Some believe the Creator, or Usen, made a corridor between heaven and earth on Oak Flat, and Ga’an, mountain spirits, live in the hills. Not all of the roughly 41,000 members in the eight federally recognized Apache tribes consider Oak Flat to be sacred ground. Those who do, however, revere it as one of the few places to reenact the story of White Painted Woman. Some believe earth was first covered with water, and when the floodwaters receded, White Painted Woman emerged from the earth as a sign of renewal of life. Apaches believe she was touched by the rays of the sun and gave birth to twins who were guided by Ga’an and fought off evil monsters on earth.“It’s no different than Mount Sinai and how the Holy Spirit came to be,” said Wendsler Nosie Sr., who runs Apache Stronghold, the nonprofit group fighting the mine, and who is a former chairman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe. “It’s a holy place that gives the teaching of God’s creation to all of us. It makes us who we are.”Gold, silver and copper were found in the area in the 1870s. As miners moved in, Native Americans were forced out by the U.S. military. In one spot, called Apache Leap, U.S. cavalry pushed warriors to the edge of the cliff. They chose to jump to their deaths rather than surrender.Since then, the history of the land has been a continuing fight among tribes, the federal government and mining companies. For more than 80 years, the Magma Copper Co. ran an operation near Oak Flat. When geologists discovered a huge untapped deposit with high-grade copper at Oak Flat in 1995, the pressure intensified to build a mine. But Oak Flat, which lies within the Tonto National Forest and is controlled by the U.S. Forest Service, has part of the deposit that has been protected from mining. Congress found a way around this problem in 2014 when it passed a law that lifted the ban, allowing a private company to swap land it owns for access to public land.Resolution Copper has offered to exchange 5,000 acres elsewhere in Arizona for 2,400 acres around Oak Flat, but a court injunction has temporarily stopped the transfer. Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Arizona) introduced legislation Wednesday to repeal the land exchange with Resolution Copper, a bill similar to one her father filed unsuccessfully in 2015.Mining the ore beneath Oak Flat would not be easy. Roughly a mile beneath the surface, material would be removed from below the deposit and transported underground to a processing facility about 2.5 miles away. As the ore gets removed, the rock above would gradually collapse.In a report this year, the U.S. Forest Service said such mining would ultimately create a crater 1,000 feet deep and two miles wide. By comparison that’s about two times the height of the Washington Monument and the length of the National Mall.Apache Stronghold, environmentalists and the San Carlos Apache Tribe argue in their lawsuits that the mine project violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and an 1852 treaty with the U.S. government to protect certain lands for Apaches.“Religious Indigenous claims are subject to a double standard and get lesser protection,” said Luke Goodrich, a lawyer for Apache Stronghold and senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. “Because of the nation’s history of dispossessing Indigenous people of their land, their sites are on land that’s controlled by the federal government. Their practices are uniquely tied to land in a way that other religions aren’t, so they disproportionately have to rely on the government for practicing their religious practices.”The legal arguments have mostly failed so far. In May, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear one of the cases. Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, a strong defender of Native rights, issued a dissenting opinion, calling the decision a “grievous mistake.”“The government has long protected both the land and the Apaches’ access to it. No more,” Gorsuch wrote. “Just imagine if the government sought to demolish a historic cathedral on so questionable a chain of legal reasoning. I have no doubt that we would find that case worth our time.”Other lawsuits based on similar religious claims and the potentially negative environmental impacts from the mine are making their way through the courts. In early January, the Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit will hear arguments in three lawsuits filed against the federal government and the company by several Apache women, the San Carlos Apache Tribe and the Arizona Mining Reform Coalition, which represents conservation and environmental groups.Adam Gustafson, principal deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, said in a statement: “These baseless lawsuits are just the latest effort to block development of natural resources that benefit the American people.”Four days before the start of Lozen’s Sunrise Dance, the Supreme Court again declined a request to hear one of the cases.Lozen’s mother, Sinetta Lopez, told her daughter the news.“I told her: ‘You could be the last one to dance at Oak Flat or the first one to win the fight,’” she said.Just after sunrise on the first day of the ceremony, Lozen’s godmother — Tanya Rogers — adorned her with items symbolic of becoming a young woman.A floor-length buckskin dress. A T-shaped beaded necklace. An abalone shell tied with a thin leather strap on her forehead. In Lozen’s long dark hair, she pinned an eagle feather — a symbol of prayers for a long and healthy life. She passed her a cane made from trees at Oak Flat.“Every knot, every piece of leather from a deer, it’s done with prayer and a song that goes with it,” Vanessa Nosie said. “When it’s placed on her, it’s her protection, her shield. It’s her story of our people.”Dozens of Apache girls choose to go through the ritual every year, mainly in the spring and summer. Lozen’s was late in the season to accommodate the class schedule at the charter prep school in Scottsdale where she plays volleyball and basketball and runs cross-country. Not all Sunrise Dances happen at Oak Flat. Some perform the ceremony at their reservations.By tradition, a girl is ready for her Sunrise Dance within four days of her first menstruation. Most families spend months planning the ceremony. Lozen, who is named after a well-known Apache woman who fought alongside Geronimo, had gone as a young girl to the ceremonies of her older cousin and her sister.“She’d play with dolls as a kid and paint their faces with the yellow pollen that we believe is for blessings and prayers,” her mother said.Now it was Lozen’s turn.A week before the ceremony, Lozen’s family brought truckloads of tents, blankets, clothing, pots, pans, grills, folding tables, chairs, firewood and food. One morning, a group of men cut down willow trees for Lozen to build her wickiup — a traditional dome-shaped Apache home.“The home she learns to build is a symbol of how she will form her life,” her mother said. “It has to be strong and keep her family warm in the winter and cool in the summer and be able to withstand life.”Lozen and her cousin, who had already performed the ceremony, stayed in the structure for several nights. No smartphones and no metal were allowed inside.“I got to see more things at Oak Flat that you don’t get to see if you’re on your phone — like hummingbirds,” she said.On that Saturday morning, Lozen began to reenact the story of White Painted Woman. Facing the rising sun, she bounced on her knees with her hands beside her face for roughly 20 minutes.“She’s dancing to the sun, just like the White Painted Woman came out and saw the sun,” said Theresa Nosie, Wendsler’s wife.Two tall mine towers poked from the ridge about a mile away. Resolution Copper, a joint venture of two multinational mining companies (Rio Tinto and BHP), has redeveloped some of the old Magma operation as part of its plan for the new mine.The company says about 80 of the approximately 400 workers preparing the site come from the San Carlos Apache Tribe. When the mine is fully operational, Resolution Copper has said, it will employ about 1,400 workers. Some tribal members see the jobs as a boon to the estimated 10,000 tribal members who live on the reservation, where the unemployment rate hovers above 60 percent. But the tribe’s consultants have disputed the jobs estimate, saying much of the work at the mine will be automated.“People will ask me: ‘Are there any jobs?’ ‘Can you get my son or my uncle a job?’” said Brenda Astor, a member of the San Carlos Apache who lives on the reservation, about 60 miles from Oak Flat. For three years, she has worked as a principal adviser for Native affairs at Resolution Copper. “This is a chance for our own people to help ourselves by getting jobs and bringing that salary back home and providing for their families.”That evening, a few men built a huge bonfire. Dancers dressed as Ga’an — with tall wooden headdresses, bells tied on their ankles and sacred symbols painted white on their bodies — appeared around the blaze. Lozen and a few other girls who had already gone through their sunrise ceremonies danced with them.As the bonfire’s flames stretched into the night sky, a red light atop the mine towers blinked in the distance.Heavy rain and flash flooding arrived before the third day. Women chased pots and pans that floated away in the current. Men carried children in pajamas on their backs, ferrying them from tents filled with water and mud to their vehicles.But no one considered calling off the ceremony as it approached a crucial moment.Lozen’s godfather took white clay — made from water and ash — and painted her face, shoulders and hair with it. In the Apache creation story, the White Painted Woman is covered in ash when she emerges from the earth.Lozen closed her eyes as the dripping clay hardened on her face. After a few minutes, her godmother carefully wiped her eyes with a scarf, marking her official transition to womanhood. Lozen was now seeing with new eyes.“You watch your child go from baby to toddler and then to a young girl,” Sinetta Lopez said. “And then to watch her eyes as they’re wiped as she transitioned to a young woman in front of you. It’s like she’s reborn.”Naelyn Pike, one of Wendsler’s granddaughters, said watching Lozen was powerful. “She’s this young girl telling the world: ‘I’m here. I exist. We, my people, still exist,’” she said.Resolution Copper believes the mine will not impact the Apaches’ desire to preserve their sacred ground.“The copper at Oak Flat is one of the deposits that really counts,” said Lawrence Cathles, a geologist at Cornell University. But getting to the deep reserve, which in spots is more than a mile below the surface, is tricky and involves a method known as panel caving. Workers must bore deep shafts and tunnels to get to the ore. Gradually, the surface at Oak Flat will collapse like a sinkhole, mining experts said. Many conservationists and Native Americans worry about the environmental harm to plants, animals and water supplies.Resolution Copper’s general manager and president, Vicky Peacey, disagreed. She said 70 percent of Oak Flat will be untouched, including the campground where the sunrise ceremonies are held. “It’s possible it may never be impacted,” Peacey said.As part of the land transfer, Resolution Copper agreed to give public access to the campground as long as the company deems it is safe.Peacey said her company has worked with 11 Native American tribes in the region to protect parts of Oak Flat, including historic Apache Leap, and avoid some spots where there are significant streams and medicinal plants. Resolution Copper has said it plans to set aside $54 million in an endowment for the 11 tribes to use for education, helping youths and preserving cultural heritage.“We’ve worked with them,” Peacey said of the tribes, “on how we can change things so culture and nature can coexist with mining.”For Lozen, there was one final step in her passage to womanhood.Still covered in white clay, Lozen rode about two miles down an unpaved road with her mom, sister and a few other women. Then the women hiked, climbing over slippery boulders down into a canyon where rocks rose steeply on either side of a pool of water.Lozen lay on her back on the rocks, her long dark hair flowing in the pool. Her sister and other girls cut open yucca they had carried from camp. Her mother squeezed the yucca so it foamed, making shampoo, and gently washed the clay from Lozen’s hair.After the hair washing, Lozen laughed and swam with her cousin in the pool. Her mom later said: “The trees, the water here. This is all going to be wiped out with the mine, as they dig deep into the ground.”Storm clouds rolled above the canyon wall. Lozen scrambled out of the water in front of the older women and emerged as one of them.

Culture

Conservation’s Hot Topics of 2026: From Artificial Intelligence to Mirror Molecules

Forests, soil, plastic waste, war debris, and a darker ocean also appear on the annual ‘horizon scan’ addressing conservation priorities for the years ahead. The post Conservation’s Hot Topics of 2026: From Artificial Intelligence to Mirror Molecules appeared first on The Revelator.

The proliferation of artificial intelligence technologies, molecular manipulation, and literal sea changes are among the top issues a team of conservation experts anticipate will affect biodiversity in the year ahead and beyond, according to a study published this month in the scientific journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution. The study, the latest in a series of “horizon scan” papers written annually since 2009, brings together insights from more than two dozen experts from around the world. Led by Cambridge University ecologist William Sutherland, the team identified 15 technological advances and societal trends that conservation scientists, policymakers, and practitioners would do well to keep an eye on as they work to protect biodiversity in the months and years ahead. Tropical Forests Forever Incredibly rich biodiversity hot spots and unparalleled contributors to climate stability, intact tropical forests are top priorities in global conservation efforts. Protecting them, however, is a challenge, as economic pressures push for destruction. A new plan called out in the horizon scan aims to succeed where others have not. International partners led by Brazil are establishing a $125 billion Tropical Forests Forever Facility investment fund, whose income will be used to reward countries in the tropics that protect forests. Benefits over current strategies include providing more self-determination to affected nations, supporting protection efforts by local residents, and improving transparency and alignment with goals. Whether the fund will be effective, however, will depend on how the rules are set and enforced and who bears the risks and costs. Weight Loss = Biodiversity Win? Increased use of drugs that mimic a hormone known as GLP-1 helps people to suppress their appetites and reduce consumption of food, especially beef and highly processed items. This in turn stands to reduce demand for cropland and pastures — and with it, pressure to clear biodiversity-supporting habitat, use water for irrigation, and deploy biodiversity-harming agricultural chemicals. Though the impact is not yet measurable on a global scale, continued growth in adoption of these medications could carry positive implications for protecting intact ecosystems and even rewilding current crop and pasture lands. Slowing the Bloom The timing of flowering in plants is important for synchronizing pollen and egg production with the seasonal presence of pollinating insects. It also helps protect plant reproduction from adverse weather and align crop production with seasonal human needs. As climate changes, weather aberrations are disrupting the environmental signals and circumstances plants use to determine when to flower and potentially the ability to produce an abundance of seeds. Screening some 16,000 chemical compounds, scientists have discovered a few that slow the process of flowering in plants. If applied judiciously, the authors of the horizon scan write, these could help threatened species reproduce, maintain crop productivity in the face of climate disruption, and reduce weed competition with desired crops — all with potential benefits to biodiversity. Mining Meets Marine Microbes What will happen to ocean ecosystems if and when deep-sea mining becomes big business? No one knows for sure — but with contracts in place for exploratory work at more than 30 sites around the world, we may soon find out. Some 560 square miles, or 1.5 million square kilometers, of deep seafloor and ocean ridges have been targeted for possible extraction of minerals, posing threats to the microbes that thrive in these deep-sea ecosystems and potential trickle-up risks to other life forms above them. Scientists are recognizing the urgency of better understanding the poorly studied communities at the bottom of the sea and developing strategies to maintain their function as mining plans proceed. Micro AI Advances in hardware and software are making it possible to create miniature devices that can tap into artificial intelligence independent of the internet and electrical grids. These “tiny machine learning” (TinyML) technologies could benefit biodiversity by helping people monitor wildlife in remote places, assess soils, detect disease-transmitting organisms, scout for poachers, and more. On the downside, such technologies would likely be more restricted than networked systems in their ability to store data, limiting the ability to preserve information and use it for comparative purposes. Light-Powered Chips A much-publicized downside to artificial intelligence is the amount of energy, water, and materials it demands. New optical chip technologies, which use characteristics of light rather than electricity to transfer information, stand to enhance energy efficiency and processing speed, and optical neural network technologies can accelerate processing even more. Application of the technologies not only holds potential to reduce AI’s demand for energy and other resources, it also could facilitate conservation monitoring in remote locations. That said, the horizon scan authors caution that it’s not clear whether even substantial efficiency gains will outpace or even keep pace with increased use of AI sufficiently to mitigate its adverse environmental impacts. Digital Twins: Friend or Foe? Increasingly sophisticated information systems are making it possible to run highly detailed models of current and future conditions that incorporate predictions about human behavior as well as physical settings. This could bring conservation benefits by providing realistic scenarios of possible outcomes of different actions that can then be used to guide decisions. On the flip side, the computational capacity required to produce them could bring adverse environmental impacts associated with increased use of energy and land. Such realistic prognostication could also adversely alter the behavior of financial markets and other real-life systems in unpredictable ways. Fiber Optic Drone Debris Thousands of miles of fiber optic cables litter the ground in the Russia-Ukraine conflict zone. Deposited when jettisoned from drones or by drones that crash, the cables — which aid in communication between controllers and devices — pose threats to wildlife through entanglement and chemical and microplastic contamination. And it’s not just Ukraine: As drones become more widely deployed for both war and peaceful pursuits, the prospect for harm spreads to new venues and new biodiversity hot spots. Efforts to produce biodegradable alternatives and/or clean up cables before they accumulate could help reduce the adverse effects on birds, mammals, and other life forms. Dry Land – Getting Drier Recent studies cited by the horizon scan revealed that the amount of moisture in the world’s soils — particularly in southern South America and central North America, Africa, and Asia — has been declining, likely due to climate change. Because organisms who live in or grow from soil depend on moisture for life, the change stands to destabilize ecosystems. The problem could interact with land use trends in complex ways — potentially worsening as climate mitigation efforts increase vegetation and/or encouraging additional land conversion to agriculture as reduced water availability worsens conditions for crops. To date this water loss is estimated to have caused the world’s oceans to rise more than a centimeter; it’s likely to only become more severe if today’s climate change trajectory continues. Messing With Soil Microbes A growing trend around the world involves injecting fungi that associate with plant roots into agricultural soils to boost crop health and productivity while minimizing use of harmful pesticides and fertilizers. However, the efficacy of this approach as currently practiced is suspect, and unintended consequences are unknown. Even as the practice grows, the jury is still out regarding implications for sustainable agriculture, soils, and ecosystem health. From Plastic Waste to Good Taste? The ubiquitous use of plastic has produced literal mountains and oceans of plastic waste — and there’s no end in sight as the durable material builds up faster than recycling opportunities arise. But a new opportunity to use it to help mitigate another environmental challenge could hold promise for reducing the threat of plastic to wildlife and their habitats. Researchers have discovered a way to feed one type of plastic, polyethylene terephthalate, to bacteria that in turn can be processed into a nutritious food for people or livestock. Bringing this innovation to scale and expanding it to encompass other plastics could reduce both plastic waste and pressure to clear biodiversity-rich lands for food production. Now You Seaweed, Now You Don’t Diverse species of macroalgae, aka seaweed, are linchpin elements of marine ecosystems around the world. They also face multiple threats, including climate change, overgrazing, commercial farming, and a lack of sustainable management. As a result, their overall extent, currently covering more area than coral reefs and coastal wetlands together, is expected to decline even as their range expands poleward. Insufficient attention to understanding and managing marine macroalgae, the horizon scan warns, bodes poorly for the future of these ecosystem superstars and the biodiversity they support. Darkness in the Depths Earth’s oceans are getting darker, and that could spell trouble for the creatures who call them home. Satellite data recently revealed that in 2003, light penetrated 21% farther beneath the surface of the water than it did in 2022. Possible causes for the decline include increased nutrient and particulate inputs and changes in water circulation, surface temperature, and sea ice. Although the implications for ocean ecosystems are unknown, scientists are concerned that the loss of light could alter the ability of phytoplankton to capture sunlight and so to serve as the food base for zooplankton, fish, and other marine creatures. All Eyes on the Southern Ocean What’s up with the Southern Ocean? For decades, surface waters were becoming less saline. But about a decade ago, satellite imaging began to show an increase in salinity, and no one knows why. The surprising shift may exacerbate polar ice melting and is expected to alter circulation of water in the oceans and the trajectory of climate change in unknown ways. These changes, the horizon scan warns, are likely to affect species, ecosystems, and the ability of people — particularly those of island nations — to adapt to climate change. Mirror Life Some biological molecules, such as proteins and nucleic acids, have “handedness” – they can exist in forms that are mirror images of each other. Life systems that have evolved to build, work with, and demolish molecules of one handedness may be unable to deal with the other, even though they are composed of the same kinds of atoms arranged in the same order. The ability to synthesize molecules — and potentially entire cells — that mirror natural ones offers both opportunity and threat. Such innovations could be exceptionally durable and help prevent adverse immune reactions. However, they could also interact with and potentially confound evolved biological processes, to the detriment of humans and ecosystems alike. Read about last year’s horizon scan, addressing threats such as PFAS chemicals, increased wood consumption, and water shortages — as well as several conservation opportunities. Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. The post Conservation’s Hot Topics of 2026: From Artificial Intelligence to Mirror Molecules appeared first on The Revelator.

Waste

Australia has new laws to protect nature. Do they signal an end to native forest logging?

What do Australia’s new nature laws mean for native forests? The reforms closed a loophole that stopped legal scrutiny of logging. But we need the full detail.

Reforms to Australia’s nature laws have passed federal parliament. A longstanding exemption that meant federal environment laws did not apply to native logging has finally been removed from the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Native forest logging will now be subject to national environmental standards – legally binding rules supposed to set clear goals for environmental protection. This should be a win for the environment, and some have celebrated it as an end to native forest logging in Australia. But the reality is such celebrations are premature. We don’t have all the details of the new standards, or know how they will be enforced and monitored. Business as usual? Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt has told the forestry industry, including in Tasmania, that native forest operations will continue as usual. In an interview with ABC Radio Hobart, he said the changes keep day-to-day forestry approvals with the state government, but introduce stronger federal oversight. If that is the case, the logging of habitat for endangered species, such as the swift parrot, will continue, pushing these species closer to extinction. The Tasmanian government has shown no signs of willingness to change its current approach. And if “business as usual” logging persists, the environment reforms will fall far short of what Australia’s forests – and their plants and animals – need. Uncertain standards We don’t yet know what the national forestry standards will contain. But the draft standards for some threatened and endangered forest species aren’t enough to arrest ongoing declines, based on drafts I’ve seen that are yet to be publicly released. Crucially, we can’t meet the habitat requirements for many forest-dependent species by simply replanting previously cleared land. This is because the trees in replanted forests won’t be mature for several hundred years. Many forest-dwelling species live in holes and hollows that occur only in mature trees. In other words, allowing loggers to “offset” the forests they damage by replanting other areas is broadly impossible. This reinforces longstanding concerns about the limitations of biodiversity offsets as a way to conserve endangered forests and animals. Swift parrots are fast-flying migratory parrots. They are critically endangered, partly because the forests they nest in are being logged. Thirdsilencenature/Flickr, CC BY-ND Industry pushback Parts of the forest industry are already seeking to rebrand damaging practices such as mechanical thinning (the removal of large numbers of trees), as forms of so-called “active management” to create healthy forests. The Australian government’s Timber Fibre Strategy makes extensive reference to the use of “active management”. However, the scientific evidence shows the opposite: such activities can degrade forest structure (by removing key understorey vegetation), facilitate the invasion of weed species, and undermine the ecological integrity of forests. Different forests Australia has a vast range of different forest types, and many support a variety of animals and plants threatened by forestry operations. Effective national standards therefore need to be detailed and sophisticated to deal with such complexity. This will take considerable time to design. And it’s possible each species and forest type will need a different set of standards. These will need to account not only for the direct impacts of logging – such as the death of animals when their habitat trees are felled – but also indirect impacts. For example, logging can increase fire risk, promote the spread of weeds and feral animals into disturbed areas, and trigger long-term changes in vegetation structure. Developing national standards is only part of the challenge. Implementing them will demand significant new resources, as well as robust monitoring to ensure governments and logging contractors actually stick to the rules. Better recovery Many of Australia’s threatened species don’t have up-to-date recovery plans that will guide the best way to prevent their extinction. And when plans do exist, there is often a lack of resourcing to put them into action. Without substantial investment, many plants and animals will fall between the cracks, and these new environmental standards will not deliver the change so desperately needed. They must be matched with careful monitoring of species in forests and properly-funded plans for their recovery. A simple solution There is a straightforward way to avoid the ecological, administrative, and financial problems created by native forest logging – stop it altogether. The evidence shows ending native forest logging would deliver significant benefits for biodiversity, forest ecosystems, and reduce fire risks. It also would benefit government finances because taxpayers would no longer need to subsidise an economically unviable industry that currently loses large amounts of money. The environment law reforms are to be welcomed. But the devil will be in the detail as to whether hopes for better environmental outcomes and improved forest conservation are realised. David Lindenmayer receives funding from the Australian Government, NSW Government and the Victorian Government. He is a Councillor with the Biodiversity Council and a Member of Birdlife Australia, the Ecological Society of Australia, and the Australian Mammal Society. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, Fellow of the American Academy of Science, Fellow of the Ecological Society of America, and Fellow of Royal Zoological Society of NSW.

Nature

Business

It’s Not Safe to Live Here.' Colombia Is Deadliest Country for Environmental Defenders

Jani Silva is a renowned environmental activist in Colombia’s Amazon, but she has been unable to live in her house for nearly a decade

PUERTO ASIS, Colombia (AP) — Jani Silva sits inside the wooden house she built on the banks of Colombia’s Putumayo River — a home she hasn't slept in for more than eight years.The longtime environmental activist has been threatened for work that includes protecting part of the Amazon from oil and mining exploitation. She describes a tense escape one night through a back window after community members tipped her that armed men were outside.“Since leaving because of the threats, I’m afraid ... it’s not safe to live here,” she told The Associated Press. She only comes now for brief daytime visits when accompanied by others. “The two times I’ve tried to come back and stay, I’ve had to run away.”Activists like Silva face steep risks in Colombia, the deadliest country in the world for people protecting land and forests. Global Witness, an international watchdog monitoring attacks on activists, recorded 48 killings in Colombia in 2024, nearly a third of all cases worldwide. Colombia says it protects activists through its National Protection Unit, which provides bodyguards and other security measures. Officials also point to recent court rulings recognizing the rights of nature and stronger environmental oversight as signs of progress.Silva, 63, now lives under guard in Puerto Asis, a river town near the Ecuador border. She has had four full-time bodyguards for 12 years provided by the National Protection Unit. Yet the threats have not pushed her from her role at ADISPA, the farming association that manages the Amazon Pearl reserve she previously lived on and has worked to protect.“I have a calling to serve,” Silva said. “I feel like I am needed … there is still so much to do.”Colombia's ministries of Interior, National Defense and Environment did not respond to requests for comment.About 15,000 people nationwide receive protection from the NPU, the Interior Ministry said in a 2024 report. They include environmental and human rights defenders, journalists, local officials, union leaders and others facing threats, though watchdog groups say protections often fall short in rural conflict zones. Community buffer stands in a violent corridor The Amazon Pearl is home to roughly 800 families who have spent decades trying to keep out oil drilling, deforestation, illicit crops and the armed groups that enforce them. Silva describes the community-run reserve, about 30 minutes by boat down the Putumayo from Puerto Asis, as “a beautiful land … almost blessed, for its biodiversity, forests and rivers.”The preserve's 227 square kilometers (87 square miles) host reforestation projects, programs to protect wetlands and forest threatened by oil exploration and efforts to promote agroecology. The farming association has community beekeeping projects to support pollination and generate income, organizes community patrols, supports small sustainable farming and has carried out major restoration, including cultivating more than 120,000 native seedlings to rebuild degraded riverbanks and forest corridors.Silva has been a main voice challenging oil operations inside the reserve. As president of ADISPA, she documented spills, deforestation and road-building tied to Bogota-based oil company GeoPark's Platanillo block and pushed environmental regulators to investigate. Advocates say those complaints, along with ADISPA’s efforts to keep new drilling and mining out, have angered armed groups that profit from mining and oil activity in the region.GeoPark said it complies with Colombian environmental and human-rights regulations and has not received environmental sanctions since operations began in 2009. The company maintains formal dialogue with local communities, including Silva, and “categorically rejects” threats or links to armed groups and its activities require environmental licenses and undergo regular inspections, GeoPark said in a written statement to the AP. Rubén Pastrana, 32, runs one of the Pearl’s beekeeping projects in the riverbank community of San Salvador, where ADISPA works with children using native stingless bees to teach biodiversity and forest conservation. “They’re very gentle,” he said of the bees, and their calm nature lets children learn without fear.More than 600 families now take part in conservation and agroecology projects, many launched through community initiative.“The first project was started on our own initiative,” Silva said. “We started setting up nurseries at our homes … and reforesting the riverbank.”Women exchanged native seeds and organized replanting drives, and the community agreed to temporary hunting bans after seeing pregnant armadillos killed — a move Silva said allowed wildlife to recover. Families now map their plots to balance production with conservation. Border Commandos control the territory Armed groups known locally as Comandos de la Frontera, or Border Commandos, operate throughout this stretch of Putumayo, controlling territory, river traffic and parts of the local economy. The Commandos emerged after Colombia’s 2016 peace accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the Marxist guerrilla army whose demobilization ended a half-century conflict but left power vacuums across the Amazon and Pacific regions. In places like Putumayo, those gaps were quickly filled by FARC dissidents, former paramilitaries and other criminal networks.The Commandos enforce control through extortion, illegal taxation and by regulating, or profiting from, coca cultivation, clandestine mining and key river routes. Residents say the group forces some communities to perform unpaid labor or face fines, further eroding livelihoods in an area where most families rely on tending their farms. The AP saw illegal coca growing near the beekeeping project via drone imagery.Human Rights Watch on Friday said armed groups in Putumayo have tightened their control over daily life and committed serious abuses against civilians including forced displacement, restricting movement and targeting local leaders. Andrew Miller, head of advocacy at the U.S.-based advocacy group Amazon Watch, said Colombian authorities must go beyond providing bodyguards and prosecute those behind threats and attacks on defenders. Developing the next generation Pastrana, from the beekeeping project, said Silva’s long-term vision has nurtured new leaders and guided young people, helping them develop the grounding to resist recruitment by armed groups.Silva's daughter, Anggie Miramar Silva, is part of ADISPA’s technical team. The 27-year-old grew up inside the reserve’s community process and watched her mother move constantly between meetings, workshops and patrols, pushing others to defend the land. She admires that resolve, even as she lives with the same fear that trails her mother. While people often suggest she might one day take her mother’s place, she is not convinced. “My mother’s work is extremely hard," Miramar said. “I don’t know if I would be willing to sacrifice everything she has.”Jani Silva knows the risks. But stopping doesn't feel like an option.“We have to continue defending the future," she said, "and we need more and more people to join this cause.”The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Nov. 2025

Activism

Climate

It’s the world’s rarest ape. Now a billion-dollar dig for gold threatens its future

Tapanuli orangutans survive only in Indonesia’s Sumatran rainforest where a mine expansion will cut through their home. Yet the mining company says the alternative will be worseA small brown line snakes its way through the rainforest in northern Sumatra, carving 300 metres through dense patches of meranti trees, oak and mahua. Picked up by satellites, the access road – though modest now – will soon extend 2km to connect with the Tor Ulu Ala pit, an expansion site of Indonesia’s Martabe mine. The road will help to unlock valuable deposits of gold, worth billions of dollars in today’s booming market. But such wealth could come at a steep cost to wildlife and biodiversity: the extinction of the world’s rarest ape, the Tapanuli orangutan.The network of access roads planned for this swath of tropical rainforest will cut through habitat critical to the survival of the orangutans, scientists say. The Tapanuli (Pongo tapanuliensis), unique to Indonesia, was only discovered by scientists to be a separate species in 2017 – distinct from the Sumatran and Bornean apes. Today, there are fewer than 800 Tapanulis left in an area that covers as little as 2.5% of their historical range. All are found in Sumatra’s fragile Batang Toru ecosystem, bordered on its south-west flank by the Martabe mine, which began operations in 2012. Continue reading...

A small brown line snakes its way through the rainforest in northern Sumatra, carving 300 metres through dense patches of meranti trees, oak and mahua. Picked up by satellites, the access road – though modest now – will soon extend 2km to connect with the Tor Ulu Ala pit, an expansion site of Indonesia’s Martabe mine. The road will help to unlock valuable deposits of gold, worth billions of dollars in today’s booming market. But such wealth could come at a steep cost to wildlife and biodiversity: the extinction of the world’s rarest ape, the Tapanuli orangutan.This is absolutely the wrong place to be digging for goldAmanda Hurowitz, Mighty EarthThe network of access roads planned for this swath of tropical rainforest will cut through habitat critical to the survival of the orangutans, scientists say. The Tapanuli (Pongo tapanuliensis), unique to Indonesia, was only discovered by scientists to be a separate species in 2017 – distinct from the Sumatran and Bornean apes. Today, there are fewer than 800 Tapanulis left in an area that covers as little as 2.5% of their historical range. All are found in Sumatra’s fragile Batang Toru ecosystem, bordered on its south-west flank by the Martabe mine, which began operations in 2012.“This is absolutely the wrong place to be digging for gold,” says Amanda Hurowitz, who coordinates the forest commodities team at Mighty Earth, a conservation nonprofit monitoring developments at the open-pit mine. “And for what? So mountains of gold bullion bars can sit in the vaults of the world’s richest countries.”Martabe goldmine in the Batang Toru rainforest, the only known habitat of the Tapanuli orangutan, on Sumatra island. Photograph: Nanang Sujana/AFP/Getty ImagesDozens of orangutan nests lie in the vicinity of the mine’s planned expansion, according to Mighty Earth. In late September, construction began on new access roads through the forest around Martabe mine, according to PT Agincourt Resources, a subsidiary of the British multinational Jardine Matheson, which operates the mine. One of the new roads running through secondary forest has already come within 70 metres of a cluster of orangutan nests, Mighty Earth says.For Jardine Matheson, which acquired the mine in 2018, expansion is critical to their bottom line. In 2020, the company said it would open up a new pit and build the supporting infrastructure to reach at least 460,000 additional ounces of gold hidden within Tor Ulu Ala. Gold mining is intensifying across the world as companies race to capitalise on near-record prices. At today’s rate of more than $4,000 (£3,000) an ounce, Tor Ulu Ala could generate nearly $2bn.“While we understand the concerns of some critics, without the mine, which is now the income for approximately 3,500 employees – 70% of which are locals that rely on the mine operation – the alternative will be worse,” says Ruli Tanio, the vice-president director of PT Agincourt. “Being responsible miners, we can provide some opportunity for the orangutan in terms of funding.”But many scientists disagree, saying the expansion of the mine could push the critically endangered Tapanuli orangutans to extinction in a few generations. Even removing just 1% of the population a year would ultimately end in extinction, they say, as orangutans only reproduce every six to nine years.“It doesn’t take much – especially if you start killing orangutan females – for the population to go extinct,” says the biological anthropologist Erik Meijaard, director of the scientific consultancy Borneo Futures and one of the first experts to describe the species.A dominant male Tapanuli orangutan in Batang Toru forest. The animals only reproduce every six to nine years. Photograph: Maxime Aliaga/NPLConcerns about Jardine Matheson’s decision to move ahead with expanding the mine – without an agreed plan in place to reduce impacts to the Tapanulis – have spread beyond the scientific community. Last year, Norway’s $1.6tn sovereign wealth fund sold its holdings in three Jardines firms, citing concerns about the company being responsible for “severe environmental damage”.Tapanulis, with their frizzy, cinnamon hair and wide faces, are not only the rarest orangutan, but represent the oldest lineage of all orangutan species – descendants of the first ancestral orangutans that arrived in Sumatra from mainland Asia more than 3m years ago.In Batang Toru, the final holdouts of the species dwell in just three populations – the west block, east block and Sibual-buali reserve – spread across a patch of mountainous forest roughly the size of Rio de Janeiro. (Earlier this year, scientists confirmed they had found a small, isolated cluster of Tapanulis living in a peat swamp about 32km (20 miles) outside Batang Toru.)“We assume [the Tapanuli] was really widespread a couple of hundred years ago,” says Meijaard. But unsustainable hunting and fragmenting of the forest drove the last of the species to seek refuge in the higher elevations of Batang Toru.Even before the proposed mine expansion, the Tapanuli was threatened by development. A Chinese-owned hydroelectric project is being built on the Batang Toru River, which flows north-south along the eastern side of the ecosystem. The dam would affect an area that contains the highest density of Tapanuli orangutans – about 42 individuals – according to one 2019 assessment in the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology.Land cleared ahead of the building of a hydroelectric dam in the Batang Toru rainforest, August 2018. Photograph: Nanang Sujana/AFP/Getty ImagesThe expansion of the Martabe mine represents another blow, squeezing the apes from another side. “The Tapanuli orangutan really cannot afford any losses,” Meijaard says.The Martabe mine was established in 2008, near the western block of Batang Toru where an estimated 533 Tapanulis are thought to live. The mine’s footprint spans about 650 hectares (1,600 acres), with 2 hectares falling within the Batang Toru ecosystem’s “key biodiversity area”, as designated by conservation NGOs in the Alliance for Zero Extinction.The notion the mine can kill an orangutan directly has proven to be quite falsePT Agincourt says it will expand the mine by about 250 hectares (617 acres) by the end of Martabe’s operational lifespan in 2034, building not only the new pit and access roads, but a large tailings-management facility. This growth includes clearing another 48 hectares of mostly primary forest in the key biodiversity area. But the company says it is also setting aside a 2,000-hectare conservation zone within its concession, as well as creating another “offset” protected area about 40km from the mine site.“Without the [mining] revenue from this small area, it will be very hard to carry out the conservation work and the restoration work that is planned,” says Christopher Broadbent, a UK-based sustainability consultant to PT Agincourt. “If the mine were to walk away, the unintended consequences would be almost certainly disastrous for the orangutan.”PT Agincourt estimates its mine’s expansion will directly or indirectly affect between six and 12 orangutans. Tanio says: “Throughout our 13 years of operation, there have been no cases of fatality of orangutan directly from the mining activities.“The notion the mine can kill an orangutan directly has proven to be quite false.”But studies show that even indirect effects can take a toll. Female orangutans are particularly sensitive to habitat loss, as they tend not to move when they lose parts of their home range, leaving them at risk of starvation. PT Agincourt says land clearing will proceed slowly, allowing time for the orangutans to move out of the way.The mine expansion will involve clearing an additional 48 hectares of mostly primary forest in the key biodiversity area by 2034. Photograph: SOCP/Andrew Walmsley/EPA“We don’t know enough to be able to say that every orangutan that moves will find some new forest to call home,” says Phil Aikman, a campaign director at Mighty Earth. Some studies suggest that pushing orangutan groups closer together will lead to social tensions and conflicts. “The big concern here is that mitigation may or may not work.”For the past five years, environmental advocates as well as the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), have pushed to delay new construction until a mutually agreed plan is in place to protect the Tapanuli. For a time, Jardine Matheson voluntarily agreed to a moratorium on construction, engaging with the IUCN’s Avoid, Reduce, Restore and Conserve (ARRC) taskforce, which advises companies on how to avoid ape habitats and reduce impacts. But that agreement expired in December 2022.You can plant 10,000 hectares of forest … You can push them fast or push them slow. But you’re still pushing them into competition with other orangutansThe primatologist Genevieve Campbell, who leads the taskforce, says Jardine Matheson had made it impossible to proceed as they were unable to share raw data, including orangutan survey data within the mining permit. Jardines says the Indonesian government prevented the company from sharing that information.But that relationship has improved in recent weeks. In November, PT Agincourt Resources signed a new conditional memorandum of understanding with the ARRC taskforce, allowing their scientists to provide independent input on the mine’s development plans and mitigation strategy.PT Agincourt told the Guardian it would temporarily pause road construction for three weeks to allow the IUCN to complete its review. The planned protection zones, as well as a new orangutan research centre funded by the mine mean the “Tapanuli will be better off with the mine”, Tanio says.A female Tapanuli orangutan with twins in Batang Toru forest. Females are particularly sensitive to habitat loss. Photograph: Courtesy of SOCPCampbell disagrees that the mine’s overall impact will be positive for the Tapanuli. “You cannot say that any great ape species is better with mining than without.”For Meijaard, little can truly compensate for the mine’s effects on the orangutans.“You can plant 10,000 hectares of forest with lots of fruiting trees … so the orangutans potentially have somewhere to go. You can push them fast or you can push them slow. But you’re still pushing them into competition with other orangutans in an area that is, ecologically, quite restrained for the species.”“If we really want to protect the species, we have to aim for zero losses,” he says.Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow the biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield in the Guardian app for more nature coverage

Extinction

How eating oysters could help restore South Australia’s algal-bloom ravaged coast

South Australians are heartbroken about the state’s unprecedented algal bloom. But eating oysters, donating shells and restoring lost reefs will boost ocean health.

South Australians are suddenly hearing a lot about oyster reefs — from government, on the news and in conversations, both online and in person. It’s not accidental. Their state is grappling with an unprecedented and harmful algal bloom. The crisis has drawn attention to another, long-forgotten environmental disaster beneath the waves: the historical destruction of native shellfish reefs. Reefs formed by native oysters, mussels and other aquatic mollusks carpeted more than 1,500 kilometres of the state’s coastline, until 200 years ago. In fact, they went well beyond the state border, existing in sheltered waters of bays and estuaries from the southern Great Barrier Reef to Tasmania and all the way around to Perth. These vast communities of bivalves, which feed by drawing water over their gills, would have helped clean the ocean gulfs and supported a smorgasbord of marine life. Their destruction by colonial dredge fisheries — to feed the growing colony and supply lime for construction — has left our contemporary coastlines more vulnerable to events like this algal bloom. And their recovery is now a central part of South Australia’s algal bloom response. Dominic Mcafee snorkels over a restored oyster reef at Coffin Bay. Stefan Andrews, CC BY-ND Rebuilding reefs South Australia’s A$20.6 million plan aims to restore various marine ecosystems, with two approaches to restore shellfish reefs. The first is building large reefs with limestone boulders. These have been constructed over the past decade with some positive results. Four have been built in Gulf St Vincent near Adelaide. Boulder reefs provide hard, stable substrate for baby oysters to settle and grow on. When built at the right time in early summer, when oyster babies are abundant and searching for a home, oyster larvae can settle on them and begin growing. But these are large infrastructure projects – think cranes, barges and boulders – and therefore take years to plan and execute. So alongside these large reef builds, the public will have the chance to help construct 25 smaller community-based reefs over the next three years. From Kangaroo Island to the Eyre Peninsula, these reefs will use recycled shells collected from aquaculture farms, restaurants and households using dedicated shell recycling bins. There will soon be a dedicated website for the project. The donated shells will be cleaned, sterilised by months in the sun, and packaged into biodegradable mesh bags and degradable cages to provide many thousands of “reef units”. From these smaller units, big reefs can grow. This combined approach — industrial-scale reefs and grassroots restoration — reflects both the scale of the ecological problem and the appetite for public participation. A 3D model of a community-based reef underwater with panels to monitor oyster settlement. Manny Katz, EyreLab, CC BY-ND What about the algal bloom? Little can be done to disperse an algal bloom of this magnitude once it has taken root. Feeling like powerless witnesses to the disaster, the ecological grief and dismay among coastal communities is palpable. Naturally, attention turns to recovery – what can be done to repair the damage? This is where oysters come in. They cannot stop this bloom. And their restoration is not a silver bullet for addressing the many stressors facing the marine environment. But healthy ecosystems recover faster and are more resilient to future environmental shocks. For shellfish reefs, South Australia already has some impressive runs on the board. Over nearly a decade we have undertaken some of the largest shellfish restorations in the Southern Hemisphere. Millions of oysters have found a home on our extant reefs, providing filtration benefits and supporting diverse marine life. And although the algal bloom has decimated many bivalve communities, thankfully native oysters have been found to have a level of resilience. During a dive last week we witnessed new baby oysters that had recently settled on the reefs, seeding its recovery. In the past decade we have built a scientific evidence base, practical knowledge, and community enthusiasm for reef restorations that benefits the broader marine ecosystem. This is why shellfish reefs feature so prominently in the algal bloom response plan. A site of oyster reef restoration in South Australia. Stefan Andrews, CC BY-ND Where will these new reefs go? We need time to identify the best sites for big boulder reefs. For now, the priority is monitoring the ecological impacts and resilience to the ongoing algal bloom. But work on community-based reef projects has already begun . These reefs will broaden our scientific understanding of how underwater animals and plants find them. Sites will be chosen based on ecological knowledge and community interest in ongoing marine stewardship. There are many ways communities can take part. Community involvement and education is a cornerstone of the work, and individuals can recycle their oyster, scallop and mussel shells. The public can also volunteer time to join shell bagging and caging events, and even get involved building the reefs. In time, there will opportunities for the community to help with monitoring and counting the oysters and other critters settled on the recycled shell. A native oyster reef in Coffin Bay, South Australia. Stefan Andrews, CC BY-ND Future built from the past The impact of this harmful algal bloom is real and ongoing. But in responding to it, South Australians are rediscovering a forgotten marine ecosystem. Rebuilding shellfish reefs won’t fix it — but alongside catchment management, seagrass restoration, fisheries management and improved monitoring and climate action, it is a powerful tool. With the help of communities, reefs that were once broken, forgotten and functionally extinct, can be returned. It will take time for these reefs to support cleaner waters and richer marine life. But these community initiatives can show people that we all have a role to play in caring for coastlines. Dominic McAfee receives funding from the South Australian Department for Environment and Water. Sean Connell receives funding from The Australian Research Council and South Australian Department for Environment and Water. He is a Director of AusOcean, a non-profit organisation in South Australia that develops and deploys open-source, low-cost marine technology to help solve ocean science and conservation challenges.

Health