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Sviatoslav Zabelin, SEU coordinator

Digest of Socio-Ecological Union International for September 09, 2023. №60

September 14 marks the 50th anniversary of Gaujas nacionalais parks - the largest national park in Latvia. It stretches over an area of more than 90 thousand hectares on the most beautiful section of the ancient Gauja Valley from Valmiera to Muryani. This is untouched nature, rocks, caves, forests, castles, lakes and hundreds of mystical legends that these places are associated with.

Ecuadorans have voted to stop an oil drilling project in an Amazon reserve, according to the results Monday of a referendum hailed as a historic example of climate democracy.

Ecuador is one of eight nations sharing the Amazon basin, a vital carbon sink facing widespread destruction at a time when the world is grappling to curb climate change. Almost 59 percent of voters chose to halt the exploitation of an oil block in Yasuni National Park, one of the most diverse biospheres in the world.

A Petroecuador oil platform is seen in Yasuni National Park in June 2023.

"This is a historic victory for Ecuador and the planet," environmental group Yasunidos posted on social media. "This consultation, born from citizens, shows great national consensus in Ecuador. It is the first time a country has decided to protect life and leave oil in the ground." Read more

President Biden moved Wednesday to protect more than 10 million acres of Alaska’s North Slope from development, barring oil drilling across giant swaths and canceling leases in the iconic Arctic National Wildlife Refuge issued under President Donald Trump.

Caribou and geese in North Slope Borough, Alaska, in May 2019. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

The conservation push covers nearly half of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A), the nation’s largest expanse of public land, which provides habitat for a range of sensitive Arctic wildlife, including caribou and shorebirds. It would impose a permanent ban on oil and gas development for 10.6 million acres of the reserve but would not block ConocoPhillips’ Willow project, which Biden approved there earlier this year and is poised to produce 576 million barrels of oil over the next three decades. In a separate move, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland is canceling all seven outstanding leases the Trump administration awarded for oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, in the state’s northeast corner. Drilling had been banned in the refuge, one of the nation’s most pristine natural areas, for decades until Congress ordered lease sales there in 2017. As a candidate, Biden pledged to undo those leases as part of his sweeping climate agenda. Read more

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell by 66 percent in August versus the same month last year, the government said Tuesday, while also announcing the demarcation of two new Indigenous reserves. "In August, we had a reduction of 66.11 percent in deforestation" in Brazil's share of the world's biggest rainforest, Environment Minister Marina Silva told a ceremony marking Amazon Day.

A forest fire burns in Mato Grosso state, Brazil in September 2021.

That followed a similar year-on-year drop of 66 percent in July—both crucial months in the Amazon, where deforestation typically surges this time of year with the onset of drier weather. "If there is no future for the Amazon and its people, there will be no future for the planet either," Lula said in his announcement of the two new reserves. His government in April already issued decrees recognizing six new Indigenous territories, authorizing Indigenous peoples to occupy the land and have exclusive use of its resources. Another six could be demarcated by the end of the year, the government said Tuesday. The country has some 800 reserves, but around a third of them have not been officially demarcated, according to Brazil's Indigenous affairs agency. Read more

In the remote west of Colombia, where virgin rainforest and pristine beaches collide, a group of politicians and businessmen dreamed of building a massive port on the Pacific. It took almost two decades, but a small community managed to sink the project, betting on a different development model to preserve their slice of paradise. In June, UNESCO declared the Gulf of Tribuga a biosphere reserve, putting a definitive end to plans to build a deepwater port and some 80 kilometers (50 miles) of highway through the untouched jungle.

Some 18,000 Afro-Colombians and members of the Embera Indigenous community live in the rich environment of the Gulf of Tribuga, an area with no roads connecting it to the rest of the country.

The remote region, with no roads linking it to the interior, boasts a bounty of plant species, while its warm Pacific waters are a breeding ground for humpback whales and turtles. In a region where unemployment stands around 30 percent, and poverty affects some 63 percent of inhabitants, the project promised "a lot of jobs," recalls Marcelina Morena, a 51-year-old Columbian of African descent. "But on the other hand, it was going to bring us destruction of the mangroves, the land, everything. So we said no to the port." Read more

Biden Designates New National Monument Near Grand Canyon, With Permanent Ban on New Uranium Mining Claims. President Joe Biden’s 2022 initiative America the Beautiful has a goal of conserving and restoring 30 percent of lands and waters in the United States by 2030. A new contribution to that goal was announced by The White House today with the establishment of the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument in Arizona, a press release from The White House said.

The newly designated monument’s name is a reflection of the importance of the Grand Canyon area to many Tribal Nations. Read more

Officials this week announced the creation of 13 new protected areas across six states in Mexico, putting the country’s list of total federally protected areas at 200. Mexico introduced six new national parks and seven “flora and fauna protection areas” covering 17,918 hectares (44,276 acres) to be overseen by the National Commission of Protected Natural Areas (Conanp).

La Sierra de Guerrero in Guerrero, Mexico. Photo courtesy of Conanp.

The commission said it expects to declare three additional protected areas by the end of the month. “It gives us much pleasure that in this administration…we can leave behind such a grand legacy for the Mexican people,” said secretary of the environment and natural resources María Luisa Albores González at a press conference. Read more

A chalk stream in Lewes, East Sussex, has been “rewiggled” to restore its natural flow and create a public wetland. The Cockshut is a 1.9-mile long chalk stream that flows from the foot of the South Downs in Kingston, joining the River Ouse at Lewes before flowing out to sea. Diggers last week broke through an artificial riverbank, allowing water from the chalk stream to rush into the 7-hectare (17-acre) wetland area. The project forms part of a shared initiative by Lewes district council, Ouse and Adur Rivers Trust (OART) and Lewes Railway Land Wildlife Trust to rewiggle and realign the stream into a new channel, restoring its natural flow and reducing the risk of flooding.

An artist’s impression of the completed Cockshut stream restoration project. Photograph: Cockshut Stream Restoration Project

Peter King, the director of the OART, said the new channel would “allow the water to move through the system a lot slower” and “increase the landscape’s capacity to hold water”. There are only 220 chalk streams in the world, an estimated 85% of which are found in England. However, a high proportion have been negatively affected by human activities. Read more

For decades it’s been a symbol of Brazil’s conservation effort, now the golden lion tamarin is back from the brink, with more of the long-tailed monkeys jumping around the Atlantic rainforest than at any time in the last half a century. Golden lion tamarins – found only in Rio de Janeiro state – were poached almost to extinction from the 1960s to feed a black-market in illegal pets.

Image: Jeroen Kransen

By 2014, enforcement meant the dwindling population of just 200 had recovered to 3,700. Numbers declined again due to an outbreak of yellow fever, but in a novel approach to conservation, scientists jabbed some 370 monkeys with an adapted human vaccine. Brazil’s Golden Lion Tamarin Association (AMLD) reports (in Portuguese) that the population has now almost doubled to 4,800 since 2019. Besides the jabs, habitat improvement has played a role, with reforestation programmes reportedly boosting connected forest by 16 per cent since 2014. Read more

The initiative of the Finnish Association of Animal Rights Lawyers to enshrine fundamental animal rights in the Constitution garnered more than 50,000 declarations of support.  Read more

The first half of 2023 saw a collapse in EU fossil generation, leading to the lowest output on record. Wind and solar continued their growth, with solar generation increasing by 13% and wind by 5%. Hydro and nuclear are recovering from their historic lows in 2022, though their long term outlook is uncertain.

Falling demand drives a collapse in fossil fuels in the EU

Year-on-year change in EU electricity generation from January to June (TWh)

The fossil fall was predominantly driven by a significant drop in electricity demand, amid persistently high gas and power prices, a reduction in industrial output and emergency measures over winter. To accommodate demand recovery at the same time as ensuring the energy transition remains on track, the EU must accelerate the deployment of clean power, with particular focus on addressing the barriers to renewables integration. Read more

14.07 | В мире Digest of Socio-Ecological Union International for July 14, 2023. №59

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