September 2022 Newsletter |
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| Dear *{{First Name}}*,
How have you been lately?
I recently found myself reflecting on my personal journey into the world of activism. I became an environmental activist because of my fierce love and care for the natural world. As I grew older and became increasingly aware of the human-caused harm being projected onto nature - this network of systems and living beings that I held so close to my heart - I decided that I could not just stand by and let it happen. I was raised to stand up for family no matter what, and, well, nature is my family, too. I will fight for the protection, stabilization, and restoration of nature with every fiber of my being until there is no longer a need.
At its core, I think activism comes from a place of care and love. It is caring and caretaking turned into action that becomes what we call activism. We become activists because we care about a cause; we demonstrate our care for the focus of the cause, whether it be people, animals, or the environment, by becoming activists.
Here at Bio4Climate, we are gearing up for a very exciting virtual mini-conference featuring a panel made up entirely of youth climate activists who embody these very values. The event, called Youth Eco Restorers for Climate will take place on Zoom on September 17 from 10am ET to noon ET. We welcome anyone young, or young-at-heart!
We hope to see you there! Best, Abby |
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Abby Abrahamson Community Engagement Coordinator |
In This Issue: - Upcoming Youth Eco Restorers for Climate Mini-Conference
- Jim Laurie’s Fall 2022 Course
- Suggest a Featured Creature!
- Voices of Water Corner
- Eco-Restoration Stories Currently Inspiring us
- New on the Bio4Climate Blog
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Compendium Notes
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Youth Eco Restorers for Climate Mini-Conference |
Saturday, September 17 from 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM ET |
Around the world, young people are organizing in a variety of ways to restore our ecosystems and heal planet Earth. Please join us on Saturday, September 17 to hear from three remarkable youth leaders - Sergio Baez, Ayushi Gaur, and Carol Viana - who are doing excellent work to help protect and restore the Earth through ecosystem restoration, art, and advocacy.
Learn more and register here! |
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Bio4Climate Fall 2022 Course Offering |
Biodiversity 7: Rewilding Half the Earth to Create a Future We Want |
Biodiversity 7 will be a 12-week course beginning on Wednesday October 12. There will be two Zoom classes each Wednesday until early September: 12 noon to 2pm and 7pm to 9pm, both US Eastern time. Students can attend either time, and the only prerequisite is curiosity!
In the Biodiversity 6 course, the students used Systems Thinking as a tool to explore several of the Earth’s past extinction episodes. The present loss of healthy wetlands, forests, and grasslands is leading us toward another extinction episode and climate crisis which is already deeply affecting humanity. We also worked on Scenarios to imagine ways to reverse these ominous trends.
The Biodiversity 7 course will look at possibilities to do just that … including protecting half the earth, creating mini-forests using the Miyawaki method, and increasing wetlands. Connecting these biodiverse areas by creating wildlife corridors to allow movement of species is another way to bring back biodiversity in degraded areas.
Learn more and register here! |
Suggest A Featured Creature |
Each week at Bio4Climate, we write about a Featured Creature for our email list. We share information on a creature whose evolutionary traits, special role within its ecosystem, or fun facts have captured our attention. We’d love to hear from you about species you’d like to see featured. We welcome any and all suggestions of plant, animal, and fungal species to spotlight in future editions of Featured Creature!
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Seeking Submissions for the 2023 Stockholm Water Prize
The Stockholm Water Prize is accepting nominations for 2023! We encourage you to nominate your favorite water ambassador for this prize. This award is like the Nobel Prize for water, and will be awarded in Stockholm during World Water Week. Previous prize recipients include Professor Wilfried Brutsaert (2022) and Sandra Postel (2021). The due date for this submission is September 29, 2022.
Voices of Water and Bio4Climate recommend you choose one of the following water ambassadors as nominees: Judy Schwartz, Anastassia Makarieva, Michal Kravčík.
Click here for the 2023 Stockholm Water Prize nomination form:
Nominate to Stockholm Water Prize
Honoring Queen Elizabeth II Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II understood the importance of nature-based water management. This past April, she approved a program for restoration and natural ecological engineering to reduce flooding.
We appreciate her personal interest in restoration and her state visit to Slovakia, which included interest in the post-fire forest restoration after ravaging hurricane-force winds, fires and subsequent flooding in the Tatra mountains, Slovakia. (We reported on a similar weather phenomenon and urban fires in Denver, CO on December 31, 2021). In 2008, her husband, Duke Phillip, met personally with the co-founder of Voices of Water, Michal Kravčík. Together, they visited and observed the rainwater retention measures put in place at the forest restoration site, the Vodný les. This year, rainwater harvesting became an official strategy in England’s flood risk and erosion management policy. |
We believe that Michal Kravčík’s experience and cooperation with the UK's Flow Partnership also contributed to her recent program. Here are some highlights of England's Flood and Erosion Risk Management Policy: - Plant trees and hedges to absorb more water
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Catch rainfall, and slow down surface water runoff
- Improve soil cover with plants to reduce water pollution and runoff
- Divert high water flows and create areas to store water
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Create leaky barriers to slow water flow in streams and ditches
- Restore salt marshes, mudflats, and peat bogs
These strategies can be effective on their own or used alongside engineered solutions, such as flood barriers, as part of a whole-catchment approach to reduce the risk for communities that flood regularly. Learn more here: Use nature-based solutions to reduce flooding in your area - GOV.UK |
EcoRestoration Stories Currently Inspiring Us |
We believe it is important to amplify the enormous positive work people are doing in the world of eco restoration, and to pay tribute to those people already actively regenerating the lands around them. |
Photo: Re:wild Your Campus |
As school starts up again for many across the world, now seems like the perfect time to share this story about a group of student leaders who are working to eliminate pesticides on college campuses. Back in 2017, two students at UC Berkeley named Mackenzie and Bridget learned about the dangers of the chemical glyphosate, and began a campaign on their campus (including bringing in an organic horticulturist) to transition the UC Berkeley campus into a pesticide-free zone. Since then, herbicide use has been eliminated on 95% of the campus and the campaign has expanded to other schools and universities. According to the article, “Now, the group brings on about 20 student fellows every year, guiding them through the same processes to make changes on their own campuses. This summer, the organization joined Leonardo DiCaprio’s Re:wild organization, adding new branding and an expanded team to help in their mission.”
Read more here: These College Students Want to Abolish Pesticides on Campus Grounds - Modern Farmer |
Our latest blog post, published earlier this week, features the activism story of one of our interns, Carlos Mdemu. Here is an excerpt from the article:
To me, ecosystem restoration means valuing the social, economic, emotional, spiritual, and cultural values embedded in nature, and how those values impact us. I also believe that the ocean is an important part of eco-restoration. It drives climate and weather, supplies oxygen for all and protein for many. To me the ocean means life. It’s very unfortunate how the ocean is so threatened and continues to be under assault from all sides. We need immediate efforts to address this challenge, such as beach cleanups. If we stop plastic waste from reaching ocean environments, and advocate for sustainable fishing, we will make significant steps towards a healthier and sustainable ocean, and that will benefit every other ecosystem.
You won’t want to miss this post - click here to read more. |
Below is a passage from our Compendium of Scientific and Practical Findings Supporting Eco-Restoration to Address Global Warming. This article is from our tenth issue, Volume 5 Number 2, (p. 21), published January 2022. Let more big fish sink: Fisheries prevent blue carbon sequestration—half in unprofitable areas, Mariani et. al 2010
The ocean sequesters about 22% of global anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Marine vertebrates contribute to the ocean’s carbon sink capacity in various ways: they fertilize coastal vegetated habitats, and (through the work of marine predators) protect this vegetation from overgrazing. Additionally, fish sequester carbon in the deep sea when they sink to the bottom after their natural death, whereas fishing releases the carbon embodied in fish back into the atmosphere when the catch is processed and consumed. Large fish (tuna, mackerel, shark, and billfish) that die in the ocean particularly contribute to “blue carbon” because these species are more likely to sink than to be eaten near the surface. Unlike the CO2 released by terrestrial animals after they die, the embodied carbon in marine corpses remains in the deep ocean.
This study estimates the extent to which fisheries have obstructed blue carbon sequestration. Mariani et al. report that between 1950 and 2014, fishing prevented 21.8 ± 4.4 Mt C (million metric tons of carbon) from being sequestered in the deep ocean. Industrial fisheries (as opposed to smaller, artisanal fisheries) are responsible for 85% of this extraction.
The amount of blue carbon extracted from the ocean through the harvest of large fish increased by almost one order of magnitude during those 65 years (from 0.13 Mt C in 1950 to 1.09 Mt C in 2015). Combining CO2 emissions from fishing fleet transport and that of the fish removal itself amounts to 20.4 MtCO2 emitted in 2014, which is equivalent to the annual emissions of 4.5 million cars. Moreover, the authors found that government subsidies are encouraging overfishing. Almost half of the blue carbon extracted from the world’s oceans comes from areas that would be economically unprofitable without subsidies. Our findings thus show that government subsidies, through supporting large-scale exploitation of large-bodied fish that are economically unviable, exacerbate the depletion of a natural carbon sink [Mariani 2010: 2]. Limiting and managing all fisheries on the unprofitable areas of the oceans could reduce CO2 emissions, rebuild fish stocks, and promote carbon sequestration by increasing the populations of large-bodied fish and the eventual deadfall of their carcasses to the depths. |
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You're a valuable part of your community, ecosystem, and planet, and we're so thankful for you. Would you share the love and join our Eco-Restoration Team of Monthly supporters? |
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All contributions help in our vital work to build a livable climate that sustains into the future. Many thanks! |
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