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While currently only exploratory, oil projects in the ecosystems of Namibia and Botswana potentially threaten the survival of 130,000 elephants – one of Africa’s last great wildernesses.
The company ReconAfrica is going ahead with its search despite the threats. At the current time, there are roughly 450,000 elephants in Africa, but that is down from millions just a few short decades ago.
Continue reading “Oil fields of Botswana and Namibia threaten 130,000 elephants”There are often arguments, that indigenous people need to be removed in order to balance nature back out. It is true that in some wilderness areas, so called indigenous people have moved into wilderness areas within the last 50 years. These people should not be called indigenous or be given rights over the land that their parents seized.
On the other hand, there are tribes in the Amazonian rainforest (as in the Congo and other rainforests) that have lived largely identical lives for 5000 years. Whats more, there is little evidence of damage to the ecosystem throughout the fossil record.
We need to be careful, as we try to protect these wild areas, There is a big difference between modern humans moving into the forest and clearing land for crops, and indigenous people who have lived in harmony with the forest for millenia.
In a judgement handed down in 2017, a court ruled that the Indonesian government must unveil their maps showing what land use has been decided where.
The government is still fighting.
It is odd that they are still fighting. In recent years there have been multiple problems where plantations have seemingly been given permission in areas that are also set aside for nature.
Continue reading “Indonesian government is still fighting to hide bad behaviour”As water warms up, its ability to hold oxygen decreases. This is unfortunate for the plants and wildlife that live in these waters as they cannot survive without oxygen.
Unfortunately in a recent study it became clear that this is occurring in lakes around the world.
It is true that this impact is not being had at all levels of lakes to the same degree. Unfortunately, the majority water life is very depth sensitive and are uncapable of changing their habits to survive this change.
This is a new, and less considered threat of global warming. Unfortunately it could have significant negative effects on the world.
It is unfortunately possible that in the short term this is irreversible, it is merely one more signpost to require us to change our ways faster.
Yesterday I was writing about a series of dams that have collapsed in Brazil. We need to remember that there are two imminent threats that we are facing in the natural world.
We need to cut carbon emissions dramatically, we know as the human race that if we do not cut emissions dramatically and very fast, our planet will go through horrific change from the loss of the ice caps (and the resulting sea level rise) to the desertificion of large parts of the planet – some of this previously being rainforest.
If we cannot halt the loss of areas such as rainforests, the problem becomes even larger as we destroy one of our largest carbon sinks.
In the west, we have a responsibility to not only cut our own emissions to net zero in the space of a few decades, we must also help developing countries grow their own economies and increase the standard of living for their citizens without destroying what remains of the ecosystems that still exist.
After the Paris climate accord, there are large numbers of climate activists who are becoming increasingly frustrated.
The rich countries promised dramatic cuts to their emissions. These cuts will change the way the world works. However, as they are so far from business as normal, governments need to take a leading role in incentivising and requiring cuts (carrot and the stick).
In the UK, we did some good things, but they did not last. One example, is the green housing grant. This was ostensibly a program designed to get various trades people back to work by retrofitting buildings all over the country. The retrofit should in turn cut the carbon emissions of the house that they are used for, and therefore can help towards meeting our Paris climate accord. However, the program was closed a year earlier than was discussed, with the government claiming that it had succeeded in what it was there to do – namely boost the economy.
Continue reading “Are the rich countries living up to their promises?”Dams are often talked about as a fantastic way to cut carbon emissions. Aside from the fact that many dams in the world are more like a battery (water is pumped up when electricity is cheap and then flows down when it is expensive creating electricity) dams built in rainforests have such a huge initial carbon footprint from the destruction of the rainforest that sat on the land that in some cases the carbon savings will never make up for the carbon loss.
I am not saying that dams are useless. Far from it. However, if your dam is there to cut carbon emissions, it is in the wrong place.
Brazil has gone into dams in a large way. Unfortunately, these are so poorly constructed that they are collapsing. This means that land downstream gets hit twice – firstly loosing most of their water supply as the dam fills and then again as they are deluged with months or years of water in one go. What is worse here, is that many dams here are holding back toxic mud, left over after mining work. As such even after the flood of water has gone down, much of the land it has touched will be less productive.
It is not an either or choice for countries like brazil. They aim to cut carbon emissions by 45% by 2030, however 28-33% of that will come from non-hydropower sources (70%). Indeed in Brazil wind power is generating increasing amounts of their power. Indeed, in terms of installed wind power, Brazil now ranks just 8th in the world. Also given it is a country lying in the tropics, it gets a great deal of sun – there are currently 8.5GW of solar installed meeting 1.5% of Brazils needs. However 3.4GW were added just in 2020. It is therefore highly likely that assuming this acceleration continues perhaps 20% of Brazils electricity needs could come from solar by this date.
We need to cut our emissions dramatically in the next 10 years, however political pressure is often meaning that these efforts are going in the wrong direction.
Bears are highly intelligent fascinating animals. However it must also be remembered, that they are highly efficient predators, and that they are more than capable of defending themselves.
The Slovenian bear population has tripled in the last 20-years, and there are increasingly loud calls to legalise hunting. This will only make these calls more insistent.
Continue reading “First recorded fatal bear attack in Slovenia in living memory”China has stated that they will peak their emissions by 2030 and hit carbon neutrality by 2060. These targets are just about acceptable in terms of meeting the human races target of holding temperature raise to 1.5 degrees C.
Continue reading “China must close 600 coal-fired power plants early to hit their own climate target – but this could save money”Although we set up a seeanimalswild youtube website a few years ago, due to Covid and a few other reasons we havent been able to travel and so havent had any videos to put up.
That changed today.
During half term we took our children to east Devon and managed to see the beavers a few times. Here is the video amalgamation of those sightings.
Please do like and subscribe if you like them.
The youtube channel is meant to work with this website.
The video in question is hopefully the first in a long list for the website section “in the shadow of mankind”
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