The Wilderness Society’s Post

By now, we've all met Moo Deng, the adorable baby pygmy hippo who has captured our hearts and filled our social media feeds. But did you know her species is endangered? Less than 2,500 pygmy hippos remain in the wild, facing threats from habitat destruction, deforestation, and poaching. And their numbers are continuing to decrease. The forests of West Africa, their only natural habitat, are rapidly disappearing due to logging, mining, and agricultural expansion. On #WorldAnimalDay, let’s highlight the urgent need to protect our forests, rivers, and ecosystems – not just for pygmy hippos, but for every precious species that depend on them for survival.

A brief story here on a fascinating subject. The Alaskan glacier buttercup is an extra-rare subspecies of a rare flower that grows in specialized high-latitude and high-altitude habitats elsewhere in the world. It's threatened by climate change, which is shrinking that specialized habitat. There are implications for a proposed graphite mine and other potential mining activity. #Arctic #glacierbuttercup #Alaska #climatechange #mining https://lnkd.in/gynMKe4W

NEWS: The Asian elephant in Borneo is #Endangered, following its first assessment as a distinct subspecies on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™.   The assessment found there are an estimated 1,000 Bornean elephants remaining in the wild. The population has diminished over the past 75 years, initially due to extensive logging of Borneo’s forests destroying the majority of the Bornean elephants’ habitat.   Further habitat loss from agriculture (especially palm oil), timber plantations, mining, and major infrastructure projects threaten the future of Bornean elephants.   Learn more https://t.ly/8tIMp

Please sign this petition to stop a devastating 35-year sandmining operation proposed for Bream Bay: https://lnkd.in/gdEsmQtX McCallum Brothers, whose destructive sandmining practices have already scarred Mangawhai and Pakiri, are set to expand north if this project is approved as one of 149 fast-track projects. This decision threatens fragile coastal environments, including Langs Beach, Waipu Cove, and Ruakākā, and puts endangered species like the critically endangered tara iti (New Zealand fairy tern) at greater risk.

A NEW PAPER OF MINE : ) https://lnkd.in/d3bMZ5mh

NPCA is in on the ground in Washington, DC with Alaskan Tribal advocates to passionately urge decision makers to say "no" once and for all to the proposed Ambler mining road. On Saturday night, advocates took the stage at a sold-out @portugaltheman show at The Anthem to speak out against the 211-mile road, and how it threatens Indigenous communities and ways of life. Today, we met with the House Natural Resources Committee and the Biden administration so leaders could hear directly from the communities this road would affect the most. During our meetings, Quinn Christopherson, an Athabascan singer-songwriter told HNRC: "It's time to stop gambling our nature in exchange for oil." We're expecting the Biden administration to make a final decision this spring on the road. A few more reasons NPCA stands ardently against the Ambler road: 🛢It would be built atop permafrost, unsettling the ecosystem 🪹 It would slice through Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve 💧 It would bulldoze over more than 3,000 waterways, harming already at-risk food sources 🦌 It would interrupt the Western Arctic Caribou herd and their migration path #NoAmblerRoad #NoRoadToAmbler #Alaska #ProtectOurParks #ParkProtection #AlaskanParks #GatesOfTheArctic #ParkAdvocacy #NativeVoices

This is important for so many reasons.

From today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution's coverage of a virtual public meeting: “There’s just no sense in risking the (Okefenokee) National Wildlife Refuge just to make rich people richer by mining for an extremely nonessential mineral,” Howard said. [Josh Howard is the president of the nonprofit Friends of the #Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge] "Titanium alloys can be used in aircraft and weapons systems, but the element’s most common use is in titanium dioxide, a whitening agent used in toothpaste and other household products." Yeah. Toothpaste. Let's screw around with North America's largest blackwater swamp, located in Georgia, so we can add a whitener to our toothpaste. This is not just about Georgia. Part of the permitting process calls for drawing down more than 1 million gallons a day from the #FloridanAquifer. This aquifer lies under Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi. It covers 100,000 square miles, and provides drinking water to 10 million people, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Not only that, but the peat beds in the swamp, some of which are 15 feet deep, store the equivalent of 95 million tons of carbon dioxide. Please oppose this mining proposal at the Okefenokee Swamp, which straddles the Georgia-Florida state line. Email TwinPines.Comment@dnr.ga.gov with your comments. Please mention that the Okefenokee is being nominated as a UNESCO's #worldheritagesite. Georgia regulators are taking public comment on the draft permits for Twin Pines until 4:30 p.m. on April 9. And please share this post. Paddler image by Timothy

Check out this Mineral Tracker -- a terrific tool devised by my WCS Canada colleague Meg Southee, MSc, GISP (see below). Some additional back story: Since the introduction of online staking in Ontario (2018), people no longer must physically visit the site but can simply pick an area of land through the Mining Land Administration System and pay a fee. Ontario uses a free-entry mining system which means that Indigenous communities are not informed when land in their traditional territories are being staked as a mining claim. Once a mining claim has been staked and recorded with Ontario's Ministry of Mines, the owner gains the exclusive rights to explore for minerals on the claim. Only when a company applies for a mineral exploration permit, is the proposal posted on the Environmental Registry of Ontario (ERO) for 30 days. During this timeframe the public can submit a comment to support or object a pending environmental decision. A key challenge is that it is not possible to see the footprint of where the claims are located, making it difficult for people to understand where mineral exploration activities are being proposed. This inspired Meg to create tools that generate maps for new mineral exploration permit proposals during the 30-day window that they are open for comment on the ERO. 

RTNR’s June column from D Llegs touches on a story of what happens when you get things right. And how in regenerating our landscapes we can also build better connections between each other too. The Lennox Head Community tree planting day celebrated 19 years of coastal rainforest revival this year. It’s a testament to the drive, hard work and determination of a few people in particular. Those unfamiliar with the headland at Lennox would probably just assume it always looked that way, as they see yellow robins and noisy pittas dart across the well-trodden path atop the volcanic headland. But the Point and neighbouring lagoon in behind Boulders were ravaged by the unyielding combination of dairy farming followed by the disastrous consequences of sand mining along the coast almost a century later. It wasn’t until the forward thinking of a few committed souls led to the beginnings of a revival. The Point stands as a small but inspiring symbol of what things can look like if we prioritise ecosystems and provide a platform for them to thrive again. And as Llegs says: “by building a greener environment, hopefully we also build a more connected and harmonious community. The benefits will be seen by future generations of plants and animals, as well as people.” It’s worth reading the whole thing. https://lnkd.in/gzvqAUjc #revivethenorthernrivers #lennoxhead #rainforest