Digest of Socio-Ecological Union International for January 30, 2024. №63

Dear friends and co-fighters!

Welcome to the next issue of Positive News.

Let you spread it among your friends and co-fighters in your countries and around the Earth.

We will be glad to receive and publish your positive news from the fields and offices.

Welcome to send us photos of your country's Nature Reserves.

Sviatoslav Zabelin, SEU coordinator

Digest of Socio-Ecological Union International for January 30, 2024. №63

The Ubsunur Basin Nature Reserve was established on January 24, 1993. The reserve is located in the southern part of the Republic of Tyva, Russia on the border with Mongolia, and is one of the main key territories of the Altai-Sayan ecoregion, included in the list of "Global 200" — virgin or little-changed ecoregions of the world, in which more than 90% of the planet's biodiversity is concentrated. The Ubsunur basin is one of the unique places in Inner Asia, where nature has created an exceptional phenomenon – a kind of “parade of landscapes”, characterized by an extraordinary variety. Enclosed by mountains, with the great salt lake Ubsunur at its bottom and rivers running down to the center from mountain ranges, the Ubsunur basin is an amazing combination of ecosystems representing almost all natural zones of the temperate zone of the Earth and almost three quarters of the ecosystem diversity of the extratropical part of Eurasia.

In late 2023, the federal government, British Columbia and the First Nations Leadership Council signed a $1 billion Nature Agreement to protect 30% of B.C.'s lands by 2030. The agreement stressed the full collaboration of Indigenous Peoples in alignment with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The Nature Agreement follows a series of historic federal investments in nature conservation over the past several years. Like the previous announcements, the 2023 Nature Agreement includes funding for Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas, or IPCAs.

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault stated about the agreement, "I think people will look at this agreement and say, 'OK, this is how it needs to be done going forward now in Canada'… It's nature, it's conservation, it's restoration, but it's also about reconciliation." Read more

The Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation, Resighini Rancheria, and Cher-Ae Heights Indian Community designated the first ever Indigenous Marine Stewardship Area (IMSA) in the U.S. along the northern California coast. The tribes plan to steward nearly 700 mi2 (1,800 km2) of their ancestral ocean and coastal territories from the California-Oregon border to Little River near the town of Trinidad, California. As sovereign nations, the tribes say they’re not seeking state or federal agencies’ permission to assert tribally led stewardship rights and responsibilities; rather, they want to establish cooperative relationships recognizing their inherent Indigenous governance authority. 

Race Naa-wet-ne Richards, Marine Program Tribal Resource Specialist for the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation samples sea water as part of the Tribe’s phytoplankton monitoring efforts. Image courtesy of the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation.

The tribes aim to restore traditional ecological knowledge and management practices that sustained the area’s natural abundance before colonial disruption. Read more

Mexico recently announced 20 new protected areas covering roughly 2.3 million hectares (5.7 million acres) across the country.

Camera traps were installed by the local community in their ejidos to monitor species on their land. Image by Joaquín Núñez Medrano.

The protected areas, which include national parks, sanctuaries and flora and fauna protection areas, are located in the states of Quintana Roo, Oaxaca, Zacatecas, Chiapas and eight others, as well as the Gulf of Mexico and Gulf of California. Read more

A decade of research, litigation, and listing proposals has resulted in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service classifying wolverines as threatened in the Lower 48, the USFWS announced on Wednesday.

Wolverine numbers are shrinking in the Lower 48. Now, they're a federally protected species. Richard Seeley / Adobe Stock

This classification will add the elusive mustelid species to the federal endangered species list and apply the protections of the Endangered Species Act to every wolverine across its home range in the Rockies, Cascades, Sierra Nevadas, and other high-alpine mountain ranges in the Lower 48. (For more on the history of wolverines and the listing debate, read here.) Read more

A court in New Caledonia’s capital Noumea has ordered authorities to stop culling sharks, a practice brought in after a series of attacks last year, one of which killed an Australian tourist. The administrative court said that the systematic culls were “disproportionate in regard to the aim of protecting human life,” in a judgment made public on 28 December.

A board warning about shark dangers on a beach in Noumea, New Caledonia, in 2023. Photograph: Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Images

According to local media reports, the court expressed concern over the absence of a scientific evaluation on the impact of the culling programmes, as well as the lack of data on populations of targeted shark species. Read more

The emergence of the lethal fungal pathogen (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis; “Bd”) has devastated global amphibian biodiversity, with hundreds of species experiencing declines or extinctions. With no broadly applicable methods available to reverse these impacts in the wild, the future of many amphibians appears grim. The once-common mountain yellow-legged (MYL) frog is emblematic of amphibians threatened by Bd.

Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog (Rana sierrae)

Although most MYL frog populations are extirpated following disease outbreaks, some persist and eventually recover. Frogs in these recovering populations have increased resistance against Bd infection, consistent with evolution of resistant genotypes and/or acquired immunity.

Mountain yellow-legged frog

We conducted a 15-year landscape-scale reintroduction study and show that frogs collected from recovering populations and reintroduced to vacant habitats can reestablish populations despite the presence of Bd. In addition, results from viability modeling suggest that many reintroduced populations have a low probability of extinction over 50 years. Read more  

Belgium sealed a landmark decision by unanimously approving a bill to prohibit the import of hunting trophies from endangered species – hailed by animal protection organisations as a momentous triumph for wildlife conservation and animal welfare.

Wealthy individual still pay thousands of dollars to hunt endangered species. Credit: Canva

This historic agreement, secured on Thursday, came nearly two years after Parliament’s initial call for such a ban. It will protect revered species such as lions and rhinos. "It was urgent and necessary to protect these threatened and endangered species," said Belgian Climate Minister Zakia Khattabi. "With the approval of my legislative project this Thursday in plenary, the Parliament is providing a legal basis to the resolution it unanimously adopted on 24 March 2022." Read more

Greenpeace Nordic and Natur og Ungdom (Young Friends of the Earth Norway) secured a historic win against the Norwegian State, rendering the approvals of three oil and gas fields in the North Sea invalid. In November 2023, environmental organisation Greenpeace Nordic and youth group Natur og Ungdom took the Norwegian State to court once again.

Environmental Groups Confront Norway in Court over New Oil Fields © Rasmus Berg / Greenpeace

The organisations argued that recent approvals of three new oil and gas fields, Breidablikk, Yggdrasil and Tyrving, all in the North Sea, violate the Norwegian Constitution, European Economic Area law and Norway’s international human rights commitments. They also argued the Ministry of Energy failed to consider the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child during the approval of the fields, thus rendering the approvals invalid. Read more

German emissions were at their lowest point in around 70 years as Europe's largest economy managed to reduce its dependence on coal faster than expected, a study published Thursday showed. Europe's biggest economy emitted 673 million tonnes of the greenhouse gases last year, 9.8 percent lower than in 2022, according to the energy think tank Agora Energiewende.

Electricity generation from renewable sources was over 50 percent of the total in 2023 for the first time, while coal's share dropped to 26 percent from 34 percent.

The figure was 46 percent lower than in 1990, getting closer to the European Union's 2030 target to have cut emissions by 55 percent compared with the same reference year. In fact, Germany's emissions were at their lowest point "since the 1950s", Agora said in a statement, while warning that the government had work to do to further reduce pollution. Read more

Global renewable energy capacity grew by the fastest pace recorded in the last 20 years in 2023, which could put the world within reach of meeting a key climate target by the end of the decade, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Additions to the world’s renewable energy grew by 50% last year to 510 gigawatts (GW) in 2023, the 22nd year in a row that renewable capacity additions set a new record, according to figures from the IEA.

Guardian graphic. Source: IEA. *2023 capacity estimated. Note: IEA main case projection shown assuming growth trajectory under existing policies and market conditions

The “spectacular” growth offers a “real chance” of global governments meeting a pledge agreed at the Cop28 climate talks in November to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 to significantly reduce consumption of fossil fuels, the IEA added. Read more

Nuclear power went backwards last year and shrunk to below 10 percent of global electricity generation despite all the hype about a new nuclear ‘renaissance’. Meanwhile, renewables enjoyed record growth for the 22nd consecutive year and now accounts for more than 30 percent. The nuclear renaissance of the late-2000s was a bust due to the Fukushima disaster and catastrophic cost overruns with reactor projects.

The latest renaissance is heading the same way - nowhere. There were five reactor start-ups and five permanent closures in 2023 with a net loss of 1.7 gigawatts (GW) of capacity. There were just six reactor construction starts in 2023, five of them in China. Read more

A law banning single-use plastic bags will take effect in Dubai on Monday. The resolution, issued by Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, Crown Prince of Dubai, bans the import and trading of single-use plastic products in a phased approach, starting with plastic bags on January 1. A decision to ban single-use plastic bags in all Emirates was taken at the start of 2023 by the UAE government.

A nationwide ban on single-use plastic bags comes into effect on Monday. Chris Whiteoak / The National

Each will begin to do so from Monday according to each emirate's own resolutions. In Dubai, non-plastic single-use products, including single-use bags, will be included in the ban from June 1, 2024, according to Wam. Read more

17.12 | В мире Digest of Socio-Ecological Union International for December 17, 2023. №62

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