When it comes to spreading their seeds, many trees in the rainforest rely on large-bodied animals and birds, clinging to their fur or hitching a ride within their digestive tract. As the seeds are spread around, the plants’ prospects for survival and germination are increased.

But these animals and birds are the favorite quarry of hunters for bush meat and over-hunting is diminishing populations and  changing the make-up of the forests themselves.

A new study of the Amazon rainforest by researchers at the University of Connecticut  and the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation and Research, published in the Journal of Ecology, examines what happens to plants if their seed dispersers are no longer present.

Less devastating

They found that theoretical models predicting a dire impact on plant communities and huge decreases in the amount of carbon stored in tropical forests are not supported by the facts. Instead, the effects on the ecosystem are less straightforward and less immediately devastating.

Robert Bagchi, assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Connecticut said: “Yes, there is a negative effect, but there isn’t 100 percent mortality. The story is more complex and much more subtle.”

In Western Amazonia, as many as two-thirds of all tree species rely on native, fruit-eating mammals such as spider monkeys and tapirs, or birds like guans, trumpeters and toucans, who are able to travel fairly large distances and carry any ingested seeds far from their parent trees.

Dispersal is advantageous for seeds because spreading out will give seedlings an edge over specialized natural predators who might otherwise wipe out clusters of undispersed plants.

Carbon storage

“The idea is that the seeds escape,” says Bagchi. “A lot of pathogens and insects are quite specific about which plants they will eat, and if there is no dispersal and their desired plants are densely aggregated, those plants will be clobbered.”

In addition, the tree species dispersed by these animals also store the most carbon. The researchers examined tree communities in the tropical rain forests of Western Amazonia, in terms of forest spatial organization and carbon storage capacity. 

They found  that tree communities in hunted forests appear to be undergoing a reorganization, where saplings of species that rely on large hunted animals for dispersal are now growing closer to each other and forming denser clumps in hunted forests.

Positive findings

But the long-term implications for biodiversity and the biomass of forests are not yet clear. 

And the expectation that without their dispersers, seeds of these plant species will land in the “kill zone” of insects and diseases under their parents and be replaced by other species that store less carbon, culminating in huge decreases in the amount of carbon stored in tropical forests, has not materialized.

A number of factors could be contributing to the reason that previous theories are not proving true, Bagchi says. Smaller seed dispersers that often increase when their larger competitors are hunted out may be compensating. 

Additionally, the trees analyzed in the study were already at least 10-15 years old, so follow-up studies will instead focus on the early lives of these trees, starting at the germination stage.

Further research

Questions the researchers hope to pursue include, What are the survival rates of undispersed seeds in hunted forests? Is limited dispersal by smaller animals enough to ensure a seed’s survival? How do these stages fit together – does high survival at a later stage compensate for low survival of undispersed seeds?

“We can’t simplify the process to just a linear one,” says Bagchi.

Bagchi also cautions that although these findings are somewhat hopeful in light of previous modelling studies, tropical forests in South America, Asia and Africa are becoming ever more stripped of their diversity of flora and fauna, fundamentally changing the structure of these complex systems. 

This Author

Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist.

ClientEarth made legal history today after a High Court judge ruled that the court should have effective oversight of the UK government’s next air pollution plans.

The ruling came at the end of a judgment which saw the government defeated for the third time by ClientEarth over air pollution.

It means, for the first time ever, that ClientEarth can immediately bring the government back to court if it prepares a plan which is unlawful.

Government’s actions

This move, which means the environmental lawyers will not need to apply for permission to bring judicial review, was described by the judge as “wholly exceptional”.

Anna Heslop, a lawyer at ClientEarth, said: “The Judge has effectively allowed us to bring this matter straight back to court without delay if the government continues to fall short of its duties.

“We are extremely grateful for this because it means we will be able to monitor the government’s actions even more effectively and hold them to account.”

Valuable monitor

Handing down judgment, Mr Justice Garnham said: “The history of this litigation shows that good faith, hard work and sincere promises are not enough… and it seems court must keep the pressure on to ensure compliance is actually achieved.”

He added that this is the third unsuccessful attempt by the government to produce a plan to bring down air pollution to legal levels as quickly as possible and all the while people in towns and cities are at “real risk” from air pollution.

Mr Justice Garnham praised ClientEarth as a “valuable monitor of the government’s efforts”.

Immediately after the judgment the Prime Minister and Defra wrongly claimed  the judge had “dismissed two of the three complaints” brought by ClientEarth. In fact, the judge ruled in ClientEarth’s favour on two of the three grounds.

This Author

Jon Bennett is communications manager for ClientEarth.

Medical practitioners have long been troubled by a debilitating sequence of events that commonly occurs when patients fall sick. The illness causes fatigue. Fatigue affects mobility, with an accompanying decline in both the energy and motivation to leave the house.

Read our news exclusive

The will to do such domestic tasks as cooking and cleaning weakens. So, too, the readiness to drive and go about the business of making a living. Such inertia leads to social isolation and, with it, a diminishing sense of self-worth. In such depleted circumstances one’s sense of identity begins to blur. Soon one may begin to wonder whether there’s any point remaining on this Earth.

Loneliness is frequently the cause as well as the effect of such decline, and, as George Monbiot stated in a recent Resurgence article (Rebuilding with a Sense of Belonging, Issue 305), chronic loneliness increases the risk of early death by more than 20 percent. It’s what can happen when ailing people lack the surrounding presence of a compassionate community.  

Nature of illness

But these days increasing numbers of otherwise healthy people also suffer from a devastating sense of loneliness and a consequent loss of self-esteem; so the plight of sick people is highlighting problems that reach beyond the provision of health care. It has become an urgent murmur at the failing heart of our communities.

Recent developments in the Somerset town of Frome, in South West England, suggest that the most effective answer to such a growing crisis lies in the restoration of an active sense of compassion within the wider pattern of community life.

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We are probably never more human than when we are moved by the distress of others, and such compassion is an aspirational quality in which most people hope to share. But true compassion is more than just a feeling – it’s a transformative act of the empathic imagination.

The innovative work of the Compassionate Frome project has shown how, by translating impulses of kindness born out of concern for one’s fellow human beings into effectively organised social action, a town can do more than restore a sense of value and purpose in both carers and those in need of care: it can also bring significant practical and financial benefits to the whole community.

The Compassionate Frome project began three years ago when the town’s medical practice saw the need to rethink the way it considered the nature of illness.

Our evolution

The rethink was prompted by concern for people who presented at surgeries with no clearly defined medical condition yet who evidently needed care and attention, and also by the number of patients who occupied hospital beds only for want of more appropriate means of tending to their welfare.

Through the remarkable vision of lead GP Helen Kingston and the imaginative insight of Jenny Hartnoll, leader of the community development service at Health Connections Mendip, a new scheme of community-based welfare was brought into action with the enthusiastic financial and strategic support of the independent Frome Town Council. 

By interlinking the health centre, the community hospital and social services with care provision available from local charities and other groups, and by then recruiting a growing network of individual volunteers, Compassionate Frome has devised a model that has significantly lowered emergency admissions to hospital, with consequent savings in costs.

The scheme also carries considerable implications for ways in which the creative power of compassion might be applied to the enrichment of community life across wider society.

A sense of compassionate community has of course existed for a long time. Throughout our evolution, humans have always lived in communities and have helped each other out, even in times of conflict.

Pleasure of performance

Though it may not always be apparent, a fund of good-heartedness is still abundantly available among friends and neighbours, but increased social mobility and the consequent fragmentation of society have weakened many of those bonds. So the question arises of how best those bonds might be strengthened and extended. 

In addressing the issue, the Compassionate Frome project identified four key areas for action: the mapping of all existing community resources and the subsequent compilation of a service directory; the formation of a network of willing volunteers, known as Community Connectors, offering support to those in need and guiding them to appropriate sources of help identified in the service directory; the formation of groups requested by members of the community to meet newly identified needs; and the creation of one-to-one support relationships through liaison with Health Connectors.

At the start of the project the Community Development Service within Frome Medical Practice mapped out the wide range of active groups and other resources already available in the town and surrounding area.

That list has continued to grow. For a population of 28,000 residents there is now a directory of almost 400 varied groups and organisations offering support, advice, companionship and creative activity.

Not all of these might immediately be thought of as sources of welfare provision, but the value of becoming, for example, a member of a choir reaches beyond the pleasure of performance. A choir is a communal enterprise that requires the will to attend rehearsals, and may involve the need to recruit help to do so.

Natural human kindness

Once there, the new member can find a rich source of possible friendships as well as the affirmative sense of harmony that arises from the act of singing together. Other forms of joint creative activity – weaving and writing workshops, for example –offer similarly rewarding social contexts.

Once the town’s resources were mapped, the list of available support was placed on the Health Connections Mendip website and made accessible both to the general public and to the health professionals working within the practice.

With the cooperation of Frome Town Council, this directory opened opportunities for recruiting volunteer Community Connectors who would help friends, family, neighbours and colleagues find support and obtain advice on things such as housing, education and debt.

The Community Connectors receive bespoke training on the most appropriate methods to identify, support and guide those in need of help. During 2017, training sessions were also run for patients, carers, schools and colleges, care agencies, housing associations, community police, town council staff and people working in residential and nursing homes.

The emphasis throughout was on respect for the dignity of personal privacy, because any sense of interfering in the lives of others, whether family members, neighbours or friends, would go against the grain of that natural human kindness to which we all have access and on which the success of the entire project depends.

Times of hardship

The overall aim has been to create a loose but caring social infrastructure that gives larger scope to deploy that kindness, and to do so in a manner that affirms the feeling that the community is genuinely concerned for the welfare of its members.

In that respect, the needs of people in poor health may be best met by the one-to-one support service offered through Health Connections Mendip. By asking, “What is important to you?” the Health Connector begins the process of helping the patient to set goals and find the best means to achieve them.

Thus, a lonely 90-year-old diabetes sufferer living on the fourth floor of a block of flats who wishes to take part in a choral group that meets on the ground floor may need help to get there.

By giving that help, a kindly volunteer, identified through the directory, will bring companionship and encourage increased mobility, while the pleasures of socialising with the group will give the patient more reason to attend to their diabetic condition. In this way, rather than conventional care planning, a new horizon-widening, goal-based, patient-centred pattern of care has been put in place.

One of the most significant aspects of the Frome project has been its success in helping people make use of existing informal supportive networks. For many reasons, we may fail to reach out to those we know and love in times of hardship. We may not know how to ask for help, or how to accept it when offered. We may feel that we are burdening people who are already preoccupied with busy lives.

Emergency admissions

Perhaps we simply don’t understand the importance of caring networks to community life, or that people can feel good about themselves – heartened and enlarged, rather than burdened – when their offer of help is gratefully received. Because building networks of support is a skill we have largely lost, we may not even know they exist. But they are, and have always been, a vital part of the fabric of our lives.

A common misperception is that caring networks are there only to attend to the physical or emotional needs of a person who is unwell, but assistance with the everyday business of life – shopping, cooking, cleaning, walking the dog or mowing the lawn – can be equally important.

Simply asking someone how they are feeling, or inviting them to join you for coffee and a chat can immediately improve the quality of their day, and it’s an important aspect of the caring network that such selfless gestures give a lift to the morale of the carer too.

But the benefits are not just personal. The combination of the primary care team’s revised view of illness with the introduction of the compassionate community approach has had a remarkable and measurable impact on Frome.

While emergency admissions to hospitals across Somerset have increased by 30 percent, incurring a 21 percent increase in costs, Frome has seen admissions fall by 20 percent, with a 21 percent reduction in costs. This represents five percent of the total health budget. No other interventions on record have reduced emergency admissions across a population.

Greatest strengths

The implications of what has happened in Frome are profound. It suggests that perhaps a third of the people currently in hospital are there not because they need more or better medication, but because they are isolated individuals with poor networks of support.

Such diminished circumstances occur because, in a society dominated by the pressures of getting and spending, we have lost touch with an essential ingredient of what it means to be human – that active quality of compassion which motivates us to create nourishing and supportive patterns of community life.

More and more people are being admitted to hospital with serious illness, and increasing numbers of them are dying prematurely. So perhaps it’s no surprise that recent gains in longevity now seem, unpredictably, to be slowing down. Yet, in such a critical state, to focus solely on dealing with ill health is not enough.

Severe illness often comes at the avoidable end of a lengthy process. People can endure months, even years, of social isolation before they are finally rushed into crowded hospital wards. An urgent need to revive and sustain our community life is demanded by the recognition that warm social interaction has been fundamental to human evolution.  It remains so, and deprived of it we suffer enormously.

The building of compassionate communities makes sense in many contexts. First and foremost, it’s right because it exercises and demonstrates that essential quality of human kindness which is among our greatest strengths as a species. In a time of increasing social isolation it emphasises the life-enhancing value of human contact, and thereby generates and affirms a vital sense of meaning and purpose.

Inspiration and aspiration

It also significantly reduces the costs of health care and social welfare, while simultaneously creating a cultural environment more conducive to happiness and good health. These are surely compelling reasons for making this approach a fundamental building block of a better future.

Frome’s successful efforts to build a more compassionate community have inspired the conviction that what works well in the context of health and welfare can also be applied to other areas of social enterprise.

A Manifesto for Compassionate Communities has been written out of that conviction and is published on the Resurgence website as a source of inspiration and aspiration. Compassion belongs to no one and to everyone. May it spread across the globe for the benefit of all.

These Authors

Julian Abel is a consultant in palliative care. Lindsay Clarke is a freelance writer.

Ta’ah is preparing a ceremony. She is an Indigenous elder of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, in what has been known as Canada for the last 150 years, since it was colonized. Calling on the strength of her ancient ancestors, Ta’ah brushes the six women before her with a cedar branch and purified water.

These women make up the Indigenous Climate Action team, and they are meeting with each other face-to-face for the first time in Vancouver. The ceremony marks the beginning of the first meeting of this Indigenous-led climate justice organisation, and a way for them to bring their traditional roots into the space.

“This is how we want the water to be,” Ta’ah says, signalling the purified water. Before the ceremony, she spoke of water pollution, and the impact industrial activities are having on sacred water bodies.

Indigenous children

Water ceremonies, canoeing, and swimming are all embedded in the history of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, but Ta’ah says they now come out of the water covered in red rashes.

Ta’ah suddenly stops, and the colour drains from her face. After a pause, she says: “I just saw a really sick whale. He was just lying limp on the beach. We have to speak for them.”

This is a stark reminder of why the world needs Indigenous Climate Action. This Indigenous-led group is speaking up for Mother Nature, and helping to channel Indigenous knowledge and experience into real solutions to protect the planet.

Whether it be whales around Vancouver, the water tainted by oil refineries, or the sacred Indigenous land turned over to pipelines and land trains.

Ta’ah, and other Elders we speak to across what is now known as British Columbia, all carry so much pain, from the destruction of their sacred land, to the residential schools that Indigenous children were forced to attend by the Government.

A larger problem

These boarding schools were designed to wipe out native culture and language, and assimilate children into “Canadian” culture. The elders we speak to all say they experienced years of torture and abuse: verbal, physical, and sexual.

Ta’ah and her fellow Elders now look to the next generation, like the six women of Indigenous Climate Action. They, she explains, can harness the pain that their parents and grandparents have felt firsthand, but are not so broken as to be powerless. They can do something.

“I am Eriel Tchekwie, and I am Thunder Woman. I carry the sound from the lightning.”

Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, the executive director and founder of Indigenous Climate Action (ICA), has seen her native Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation land face destruction from tar sands, where bitumen is mined to be turned into oil.

These tar sands, Eriel says, are a symptom of a larger problem: Indigenous groups have been marginalised and left out of decision-making.

Changing ecosystems

“It’s so important to empower Indigenous communities. We have been left on the sidelines of so many discussions. In this country we just celebrated 150 years of Canada. For a lot of our communities that means celebrating 150 years of being oppressed,” she says.

For a long time, Eriel resisted the idea of creating an organisation and leading staff, but other members of her community persuaded her that she needed to. This Thunder Woman (the translation of her name in her traditional Athabaskan Dene language) is surrounded by five other Indigenous women, all bringing their own strength, history, and knowledge.

Now, Eriel says: “Why am I doing this? Honestly, I don’t feel like I have a choice.”

Indigenous Climate Action is not championing one specific climate change solution. The organisation exists to support Indigenous communities across Canada, giving them the capacity to become climate champions and promote the things they are already doing.

“While we’re the first and foremost to be impacted by climate change and the changing ecosystems on the planet, we are actually also the first that are able to build solutions to adapt and be resilient to them, because of our intimate relationships with the lands and the ecosystems,” Eriel says.

Easy maneuverability

The solutions to climate change stem from ancient Indigenous knowledge, and the organisation focuses on land defence, and challenging the drivers of climate change.

It makes use of Indigenous rights to territories, and uses international rights to empower people to stand in the way of projects which threaten the land. Through this, communities strive to protect both ecosystems and cultural identities.

Eriel and her team are now meeting with Indigenous communities across Canada to find out how they can support them, and work towards building an Indigenous climate change toolkit. The toolkit will connect communities, provide training resources, and amplify discussions about Indigenous rights and climate change.

One group supported by ICA is The Tiny House Warriors, which is providing climate change solutions by standing up against a threat to nature, water, and sacred land.

The group is building ten tiny houses to position along a proposed Trans Mountain Kinder Morgan pipeline route, which would transport crude oil across 518 km of Secwepemc Territory. The houses are built on wheels for easy maneuverability, and the household equipment inside is powered by solar energy.

Recycling and reusing

Leading the charge is Kanahus Manuel, an Indigenous activist and defender of the land. Her name means ‘Red Woman.’

“This pipeline that is being proposed to come from the Alberta tar sands all the way through our territory, through pristine mountains, glaciers, and rivers, is going to impact our way of life, because we are so connected to the land,” Kanahus says.

She explains that the Tiny Houses have more than one purpose. While the buildings are being used to occupy land targeted for the oil pipeline, they are also homes. They are proof that it is possible to downsize, and take less from the planet.

Kanahus says: “We don’t need to be consumers and capitalists to have a happy and successful life. We can have less of an imprint on the Earth, and show people that we can house ourselves. We can solve some of the issues that we face because of colonisation.”

Indigenous people have already tackled environmental issues like recycling and reusing, Kanahus says, because they are not big consumers. For the Tiny House Warriors, standing up to climate change means standing up to Kinder Morgan.

Like-minded

ICA is right behind this group, promoting its cause by helping raise donations, making  connections and gaining support for events, while promoting Indigenous leaders like Kanahus as climate solution ‘voices’.

In the future, ICA is planning to build a whole media strategy around groups like this. Podcasts, webinars, and mini documentaries could help to share the knowledge and efforts of the people who are committing their lives to climate action.

There are countless other groups that ICA is working with right across Canada. Just last week, it had its first meeting with the Pacific Peoples’ Partnership in Victoria, Vancouver Island, to explore ways of working together.

This organisation is rooted in environmental and social justice, and works with Indigenous communities across the Pacific. Next on the agenda, they will be organising an international climate networking conference, called the Red Tide Summit, alongside the Toitoi Manawa Trust who will host the summit in New Zealand. This will be another step in connecting Indigenous communities.

Eriel says: “Their vision is our vision, and we need to be working with people who are like-minded.”

Time to listen

Eriel Tchekwie Deranger is standing in the Elders’ lounge in Tsleil-Waututh Nation. She is listening as I interview Ta’ah, the Elder who will bless her at the meeting tomorrow, and will see the sick whale in her vision.

Ta’ah talks to me about her land, her people, and the Kinder Morgan pipeline that is ripping through everything she and her people hold close. Once she finishes speaking, there is a long silence. Both Ta’ah and Eriel weep for the pain they feel for their land and people, and it is so clear that the world needs to change.

Standing on the pebble beach just across the road from where some members of the Tsleil-Waututh live, a bald eagle flies over our heads and lands high up in a tree. The water we stand before is sacred to the Tsleil-Waututh.

Their ancestors canoed here, and held their ceremonies in this place. Right across the water, humming relentlessly and pumping smog into the sky, is an oil refinery.

Next to this is a Kinder Morgan terminal, which provides the crude oil for the refinery. It is nothing short of sickening – there is no other way to describe it.

Standing on this sacred land, it is all very obvious. Indigenous Climate Action is asking the world to listen, to cease destruction, and to include Indigenous voices in decision-making. Now is the time to listen, and to take action.

This Author

Katie Dancey-Downs is a senior writer at Lush Global Media Studio. Indigenous Climate Action was a Lush Spring Prize 2017 winner, receiving £25,000 in the Young Project Award category. The Lush Spring Prize 2018, coordinated by the Ethical Consumer Cooperative, will be held in May 2018.

Increased logging in Poland’s Bialowieza Forest has breached EU nature laws, according to a legal opinion issued today by the Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the EU.

Jan Szyszko, when minister for environment, tripled the logging limits for the Bialowieza Forest in March 2016, despite warnings from scientists all over Europe that it would be very harmful for the forest.

Environmental lawyers ClientEarth, together with six other organisations, filed a complaint to the European Commission and in July 2017 the case was brought before the Court of Justice of the EU. Szyszko has since been dismissed from the post.

Destructive policy

Agata Szafraniuk, a lawyer at ClientEarth, said: “The increased logging in the Bialowieza Forest breaches EU nature laws because Polish authorities failed to adequately protect rare and precious species in this ancient forest.

“What’s more, they even failed to assess what impact the logging could have on the unique nature of the forest, which is also required by the law. We are not surprised by this important legal opinion. That has been our stance from the beginning. From the legal point of view this case is really very simple.

“The opinion by the Advocate General proposes a settlement of the case. Opinions are not binding for the Court but the statistics show that in a vast majority of cases, the judges follow them in the final ruling.”
 
She added: “We hope that Minister Kowalczyk, who took over from Jan Szyszko a month ago, will put an end to the destructive policy of his predecessor and grant the whole of Bialowieza Forest national park status. This is the only way to properly protect it from damaging logging for good.”

The final ruling will be published in a couple of weeks.

This Author

Catherine Harte is contributing editor of The Ecologist. This story is based on a news release from ClientEarth
 

If you ask any representative of the Spanish meat industry what day they had their worst nightmare, they would probably tell you that it was the night this month that investigative TV programme Salvados exposed the meat industry in Spain. It showed devastating scenes of animal suffering recorded on a farm supplying meat giant El Pozo – a brand stocked by supermarket chain Morrisons, Amazon, and other UK retailers.

They filmed numerous animals suffering from infected abscesses and giant hernias throughout the farm, which housed around 900 pigs (very small by British standards). There were several with severe deformities, and some with weeping ulcers covered with flies and larvae.

All of these animals were in an advanced state of ill health and were clearly suffering – all without adequate veterinary care. They also found animals living in pens with corpses in an advanced state of putrefaction, and animals unable to stand being trampled and cannibalised by other pigs. These were truly some of the worst conditions ever uncovered on a farm in Europe.

Working incognito

The head of Spain’s national pig farming lobby Interporc sent a letter to the Minister of Agriculture, Isabel García Tejerina, requesting help to defend the interests of the pig sector – four days before the broadcast of the programme on national TV. Such was the fear amongst meat industry bodies.

The call for help was answered by the minister, who appeared on TVE on Tuesday, February 6 and declaring that Spain’s pig industry is a world leader in animal welfare. And – the most scandalous of all – admitting that she had not seen the programme. I imagine that’s why El Pozo refused to participate in Salvados: why send a representative on the programme if the minister can speak for them?

On the other hand, El Pozo’s response to this complaint will be studied as an example of what should not be done in the face of a brand crisis. They attacked the programme in which they had refused to participate. They did not acknowledge any responsibility for the scenes recorded on the farm. They accused Jordi Évole, the journalist who made the programme, of manipulating the images, saying that these animals were in an isolation area. 

The managers of El Pozo have a somewhat peculiar notion of what an isolation area is. Many of those animals were dying, sharing a pen with other healthy animals. There were animals eating each other, animals with open wounds that had not received veterinary attention for weeks, as confirmed by the veterinarians consulted by the programme. The owner of the farm confirmed in the programme that they were integrated into Cefusa, a supplier company of El Pozo, and that it was a farm for human consumption. 

That the meat industry has long shadows is something already revealed at the beginning of the twentieth century by Upton Sinclair in his classic, The Jungle. After weeks working incognito in slaughterhouses of Chicago, he revealed the slavery to which the migrants were subjected, and exposed as never before the unhealthy practices of the industry. 

Ministers and spokespeople

The impact of the work was of such magnitude that it led to a Roosevelt investigation, which ended with the approval of the Pure Food Legislation. Although more than 100 years have passed, it seems that the essence of the monster portrayed by Sinclair is still untouched: labour exploitation, animal abuse and terrible environmental impacts.

At Animal Equality we have been carrying out investigations inside the meat industry for more than a decade. And the response of the sector has always been the same: “They are isolated cases”. This answer will not do. We are tired of so many isolated cases.

I have been inside hundreds of farms in my life. I have seen firsthand the hell that these animals endure, condemned to a miserable life to be turned into cheap meat. This time we as a community were with Jordi Évole inside that farm. He did not come alone. He was accompanied by the millions of people who watched the programme. This is what makes the meat industry tremble.

No matter how much money they have to pay in advertising and ministers to be spokespeople in the media, the crack that has been opened will never be closed again. Nothing will be the same again. 

This Author

Javier Moreno is the executive director of Animal Equality Spain.

Right of Reply

A Morrisons spokesman said: “The welfare of animals is extremely important to us. The images in this video are deeply distressing and we are concerned to see the condition of these pigs. El Pozo have been clear that they stopped taking any animals from this farm last year.”

In the first ever study to investigate how criminals are sourcing pangolins from African forests, experts found that local hunters in Gabon are selling increasing numbers of the animals to Asian workers stationed on the continent for major logging, oil exploration and agro-industry projects.

The solitary mammals are being transported across remote forest borders in a largely successful attempt to avoid increased law enforcement, according to groundbreaking research led by the University of Stirling.

In another significant finding, the team discovered that the price for giant pangolins has risen at more than 45 times the rate of inflation between 2002 and 2014.

Nocturnal animals

The study is published in the African Journal of Ecology today, World Pangolin Day, and experts believe it will help law enforcers tackle the increasing problem.

Dr Katharine Abernethy, of the Faculty of Natural Sciences, led the work, which also involved the University of Sussex, Gabonese researchers and other industry partners.

“This is the first study of how illegally traded pangolins may be being sourced from African forests and it shows that the high value paid internationally for large giant pangolin scales is probably affecting their price, even in very remote villages,” Dr Abernethy said.

“However, local subsistence hunters are probably not the primary suppliers – this is likely to be criminal hunting organisations, possibly those who are also trading in ivory in the region, as the demand markets are similar.”

Found in Asia and Africa, pangolins are scaled, primarily nocturnal animals, which feed predominantly on ants and termites. The eight species of pangolin range from vulnerable to critically endangered, with their meat and scales in high demand, especially in Asia.

Relative value

With the decline of the Asian species in recent years, there has been a significant increase in the number of African pangolins seized in Asia. Consequently, in 2016, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) – a multilateral treaty to protect endangered plants and animals – banned all international trade in the African species in a bid to restrict wildlife losses.

The new study focused on Gabon, in Central Africa, where, as in many other countries, domestic hunting and eating of certain species of pangolin is legal.

The team visited communities using pangolins and other wildlife for food, as well as markets in provincial towns and the capital, Libreville, to assess the numbers sold and prices.

They found that the relative value of pangolins has increased significantly since 2002 – more than the price for other species and higher than expected under inflation. In Libreville, giant pangolin prices increased 211 per cent over the period, while arboreal pangolin prices rose 73 per cent – despite inflation going up by just 4.6 per cent.

People with Asian connections were significantly more likely to ask for pangolins than any other species, the researchers found. However, illegally-traded pangolins were not detected by law enforcers controlling traditional meat trade chains, but found associated with ivory trading across forest borders.

Further investigation

The study concluded that the high international price of scales was driving up local costs, with hunters increasingly targeting pangolins to sell them on, rather than for home consumption.

Dr Abernethy said: “We conclude that whilst there is clear potential and likelihood that a wild pangolin export trade is emerging from Gabon, traditional bushmeat trade chains may not be the primary support route.

“We recommend adjusting conservation policies and actions to impede further development of illegal trade within and from Gabon. As in the ivory trade, law enforcement and international efforts to save pangolins need to target specialised criminal hunters, rather than putting pressure on the subsistence community.”

Daniel Ingram, who was involved in the research whilst at the University of Sussex, said:  “We are still learning about the scale of trafficking in pangolin meat and scales but every new finding adds very concerning new details about this trade.

“The link between Asian industrial workers working on major projects in Africa and requests for pangolins is worrying, and warrants further investigation.”

The Universities of Stirling and Sussex collaborated on the research with Gabon National Parks Agency, Agricultural University of Harbin in China, Gabon Institute for Tropical Ecology Research, the Wildlife Conservation Society Gabon programme and the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Species Survival Commission (SSC) Pangolin Specialist Group.

The study, The emergence of a commercial trade in pangolins from Gabon, was funded by the Gabonese Government student grants service, the Gabon National Parks Agency, and the IUCN SSC Pangolin Specialist Group.

This Author

Catherine Harte is contributing editor of The Ecologist. This story is based on a news release from The University of Stirling. 

The sun’s heat bears down on a desolate prairie dog colony in America’s Great Plains. Small mounds of dirt mark the entrances to an intricate network of tunnels below the surface.

The weeds that the prairie dogs grazed on have reclaimed the soil. A sign reads, “Caution: Prairie Dogs Have Plague. Keep People and Pets in Vehicles.”

This is the grim discovery for many biologists returning to study colonies that were thriving only weeks ago. These are the Dark Ages for prairie dogs in the American West.

A new vaccine

Considered a keystone species, black-tailed prairie dogs are an essential part of the American Grasslands. Their tunnels help fertilize the soil and provide shelter for nesting birds.

Many predators rely on prairie dogs as a food source. But the plague’s 100 percent mortality rate is shattering this delicate balance.

The plague evolved in Central Asia and made landfall in the United States in 1900 when trade ships from Hong Kong carrying infected rats docked in San Francisco.

The plague spread rapidly throughout the American West where native species like prairie dogs had no immunity to the exotic disease.

Disease researcher Dan Tripp is testing a new vaccine that protects prairie dogs against the plague. The vaccine is fed to the prairie dogs using pellets that are scattered across the colonies. The problem is getting to the prairie dogs before the plague does.

Fleas and rodents

“If you wait until after the plague hits to start vaccinating prairie dogs, then you’re too late,” Tripp said. “By the time you start noticing fewer animals, that’s just the tip of the iceberg of what’s going on below the surface.”

Climate change influences the frequency and severity of plague cycles. Rising temperatures throughout the American West have led to severe droughts and wildfires in some regions and devastating floods in others. This sporadic climate could impede vaccination efforts.

Tripp explained that as the climate wavers between extremes of above average rainfall and droughts, it becomes more difficult for scientists to predict and prevent plague outbreaks.

To understand how climate and plague outbreaks are linked, some scientists are finding their answers with the fleas — the culprits for spreading the plague from one host to another.

If there are more fleas, the chances that one of them is carrying the plague are greater. A popular theory argues that plague outbreaks follow wetter and cooler years, when it’s assumed that fleas and rodents are more abundant.

Wetter times

But new research shows that fleas increase during droughts, meaning that a warmer, drier climate could increase the severity of plague outbreaks in the American West.

Wildlife ecologists David Eads and Dean Biggins counted the amounts of fleas on prairie dogs during wet and dry years to understand how climate affects flea abundance.

The common assumption is that plague outbreaks are more likely during wet years when there are more fleas. To their surprise, they discovered that during a drought in New Mexico the amount of fleas on prairie dogs increased by nearly 200 percent.

“When you have a drought period, flea numbers might escalate on prairie dogs,” Biggins told The Ecologist. “And as fleas get more abundant, this could increase the circulation of plague.

“If we have more drought cycles intermixed with wetter times, which could happen with climate change, you could have more plague circulation.”

Abuzz with speculations

In their study, Eads and Biggins conclude that a lack of food and water during droughts might weaken prairie dogs’ defenses against parasites that spread the plague.

They observed that the fatter, healthier prairie dogs had fewer fleas compared to others that were starving. The study explained that female fleas that feed on starving rodents tend to produce more eggs and larvae.

In light of climate models that forecast frequent droughts, prairie dog colonies in the American West could be at greater risk of plague outbreaks.

When the plague arrived in the American West in 1900, newspapers were abuzz with speculations about where the plague would hit next.

People knew that fleas spread the plague, but those living in the frigid highlands of the Rocky Mountains believed that the fleas could never survive at such high altitudes. Mountain towns in the American West seemed safely out of reach.

Plague transmission

As the climate continues to warm, northern and high altitude regions that were too cold will become tolerable for fleas and other parasites.

A similar trend is seen with the northward spread of ticks in America, leading to more outbreaks of Lyme disease in the central United States and Canada.

On the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i, climate change is accelerating the spread of mosquito-borne diseases like malaria into ecosystems in higher elevations, where cooler temperatures are no longer a defense against infectious diseases.

Megan Friggens, an ecologist for the United States Forest Service, said that plague could spread into northern regions of the American West where warming temperatures allow fleas to survive and breed longer.

This increases the amount of fleas and the chances for plague transmission. But Friggens explained that as northern climates become more tolerable for the plague, southern states might become too hot for the plague to survive.

 “This heat limitation may actually cause this plague epicenter to shift to the north,” she said. “It may get too hot for fleas in the south, so that would shorten the window for plague transmission in southern regions. You may actually see more plague in northern states because fleas will have a longer [breeding] season.”

This Author

Justice Burnaugh is a freelance journalist living in the Colorado Rockies. He’s been interested in the plague since an outbreak struck a prairie dog colony near his home.

A leaked government report predicting the size of the UK’s shale gas industry has cast further doubt on the fracking industry’s own predictions for the future.

The confidential document, seen by the Greenpeace Unearthed investigations team, shows that the government expected 155 shale gas wells by 2025, compared to forecasts of up to 4,000 wells by 2032 made earlier this decade.

This 4,000-well forecast appeared in a 2013 report from the Institute of Directors (IoD), which outlined the UK’s future shale gas potential. With such a discrepancy between this and the government’s own figures, it raises the question as to why the prediction was so wrong, but also why numbers from it continue to be used.

Recycled numbers

The IoD report received widespread media coverage and drove much of the narrative around development scale. But at the time, the numbers were flagged as unlikely, and report authors were unable to clarify the metrics behind them. The fact the report was sponsored by fracking company Cuadrilla Resources raised further questions about its credibility.

Report author Corin Taylor subsequently worked in communications for gas company Centrica, and is now a director at the UK Onshore Operators Group (UKOOG) which represents oil and gas companies. UKOOG’s chief executive Ken Cronin joined in 2013, and was previously at communications firm Kreab Gavin Anderson where he was responsible for energy companies including shale gas firm IGas Energy.

Despite questions raised about the IoD forecast, the 4,000-well figure reappeared in a 2014 report written by accountancy firm EY, commissioned by UKOOG. The report also estimated there could be over 64,000 jobs by 2032, based on the original IoD well estimate. The EY report featured a foreword by then minister of state for business and education Michael Fallon, who went on to use the 64,000-jobs figure in a speech given at a conference where he set out why the UK needs to develop shale.

Despite little progress in the shale sector, in 2016 communities secretary Sajid Javid also used the 64,000-jobs figure in justifying why he overturned a Lancashire council decision to stop fracking. And as recently as the first week of February, it was reused by UKOOG.

With little movement in shale development, it begs the question why the numbers continued to be used. There is also the more fundamental issue of why the numbers have not been reached. IoD energy policy advisor and contributory author of the 2013 report Dan Lewis, suggested two major factors: further research into the UK’s geology was held back by planning, and the fall in wholesale gas prices made exploration harder to justify.

Gas price slump

So, firstly, what of the fall in gas prices? UK wholesale prices in 2013 were particularly high, according to data from leading price reporting agency Argus Media. In December 2013, the front-month contract reached its highest level since autumn 2008, at 70 pence per therm. Thereafter, the price dropped over 60% between December 2013 and April 2016, when it reached 28 pence therm. Prices have since recovered to 51 pence per therm last month.

This price fall is unlikely to have changed developers plans on exploratory drilling. Natural gas markets are cyclical, like most extractive industries. Companies routinely make discoveries that are not developed until the economics are more favourable to do so – and it is difficult to know what the economics of a discovery will be before its been made.

Throughout, companies continued to invest in North Sea gas fields which are typically more expensive than onshore ones. This includes Shell and BP, as well as chemicals company Ineos – itself seeking to develop shale – which acquired licences for new fields in 2017. Norway – the UK’s largest overseas gas supplier – also continued to invest in new offshore gas production capacity, despite the price fall.

Planning holding back exploration?

What of the claim that further research into the UK’s geology was held back? In the absence of exploratory drilling, companies cannot make estimates of how much gas there is, and if it can be economically produced. Drilling data is crucial for any development. A lack of geological data was highlighted earlier this decade as a potential issue for the development of shale.

But the issue here is not a lack of drilling data; it is that operators underestimated the opposition they would face when trying to carry out the drilling. Surprisingly, the 2013 IoD report regarded social acceptance and public confidence (the ‘social licence’) as only moderate barriers to shale development. This hints at the two most significant problems facing shale: firstly, public support for fracking is weak. And secondly, the sector is in a state of denial about it.

This month’s public attitudes tracker from the UK’s department for business, energy and industrial strategy showed support for fracking was at just 16% – an increase from the all-time-low of 13% in November, but far below the 79% figure for renewables. In response, Ken Cronin of UKOOG said he was pleased to see support for fracking was up, while  communications officer Katherine Gray –  formerly of the pro-fracking Taxpayers Alliance – claimed the increase showed “people are increasingly for shale jobs, local investment and our security of supply.” 

Long-term forecasting in extractive sectors is inherently difficult, because of the cyclical nature of markets, externalities of supply and demand, and a range of (often unforeseen) barriers. But this is well understood, and it sits opposed to the optimistic forecasts some in the shale industry made. That said, it remains to be seen if the government’s leaked shale gas prediction will be any more accurate.

Yet, the time, effort, and expense that has been invested in court cases, legal challenges, and preparatory works at drilling sites, strongly suggests that they were – and remain – far from giving up. But in the absence of a sudden swing in public support behind fracking, it is unlikely that even the government’s much-reduced estimate for the sector will be met.

This Author

Joseph Dutton is a policy adviser at global climate change think tank E3G. He tweets @JDuttonUK

Members of the RSPB should write to the charity and demand that it ends ties with manufacturers of binoculars and camera lenses that have been revealed to promote their products to hunters, Chris Packham said yesterday.

Packham was speaking at a debate at the Lush Summit on research by Ethical Consumer magazine which found that 83% of optics companies had some link to the hunting world. It looked at marketing text and images, sponsorship links and other company material that promoted hunting of 30 companies including Nikon, Zeiss and Swarovski. 

Companies were found to advertise to hunters; sponsor hunting organisations, events and TV programmes; employed pro-hunting staff; and run training courses on how to use their optics in hunting. Images of trophy hunting were found in many of their brochures and websites, and seven were found to specifically target trophy hunters in marketing text. 

Damage conservation

The report highlighted the role of wildlife magazines, conservation charities and events such as Birdfair in promoting the companies through sponsorship and partnership ties. The RSPB had advertising in its magazine from Swarovski, which makes riflescopes and has designed apps for hunters including a ballistic program and a digital riflescope. Its marketing text refers to mountain hunting, safari hunts and big game hunts. 

The RSPB also has a 20-year partnership with Viking Optical, which was found to market some of its products to hunters, according to the report. 

During the debate, Anna Clayton from Ethical Consumer revealed that it had approached the RSPB with the findings of its report, but that it “wouldn’t touch it”. 

Packham expressed his shock, saying: “I want to draw attention to this – the RSPB, with more than one million members, one of the pre-eminent conservation organisations not only in the UK and Europe, but in the world, don’t want to touch your report?”

Clayton responded: “The argument that hunting props up a lot of conservation work seems to be such a widely-held ingrained belief that people do not want to discuss this issue in case they damage conservation work. But in having this fear, they’re missing big questions, how else might conservation be funded, and what is the role of hunting going forward?”

Neutral on the ethics

Packham urged members of the RSPB to “have a voice” and write to the charity asking it to rethink its position. “The ball is in our court, it’s no good just pointing the finger. The RSPB does an enormous amount of good work, they’re not a bad company, but it’s up to us to keep all companies on their toes. I shall be talking to them about this.”

Packham said that he had sold his binoculars and camera equipment following the publication of the first report on the issue by Ethical Consumer in 2016. He added that wildlife enthusiasts did not have to compromise quality in not buying products sold by manufacturers with unethical practices.

Brands that did not have any links to hunting were Canon, Kenko, Olympus and Visionary. Opticron had removed all reference to hunting from its marketing materials since the first edition of Ethical Consumer’s report.

On his website, Packham says it had been “a great honour” to be invited to be the RSPB’s vice president, calling it “a formidable force in conservation in the UK, indeed globally” which he had been “a keen and long-term supporter”. However, this is not the first time that Packham has criticised the RSPB and other wildlife charities – in 2015, he accused the RSPB and Wildlife Trusts of “shameful silence” on fox hunting, the badger cull and hen harriers. 

A spokesperson for the RSPB said: “As a conservation organisation, we are neutral on the ethics of sports shooting, unless there is an impact on the conservation status of a species. There are many optics companies that make high quality products that they feel would be of interest to wildlife lovers, conservationists and others who appreciate seeing our natural world. As long as the company and their message do not conflict with our values and objectives we will allow them to purchase advertising space in our publications,” he added.

These Authors

Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist, founder of Request Initiative and co-author of Impact of Market Forces on Addictive Substances and Behaviours: The web of influence of addictive industries (Oxford University Press). He tweets at @EcoMontague.

Catherine Early is a freelance environmental journalist and the former deputy editor of the environmentalist. She can be found tweeting at @Cat_Early76.