Environment-Habitat Preservation

These wild lands in California and the West may soon get federal protection

LA Times SAMMY ROTHSTAFF DEC. 10, 20206 AM But that’s not the end of the story. There are still legions of activists working to get the bill across the finish line. They’ll keep at it when the next Congress is seated in January, with an eye toward protecting 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030.

The Disappearance of Quitobaquito Springs: Tracking Hydrologic Change with Google Earth Engine

Bellingcat October 1, 2020 Written by Logan Williams

Quitobaquito Springs in Pima County, Arizona, is one of these life sustaining oases. The Quitobaquito Pupfish and Sonoyta mud turtle, which are protected under the US Endangered Species Act, depend on it. So too do desert mammals and millions of migratory birds that travel the North American Flyway.

Yet in the summer of 2020, water levels in the pond fed by Quitobaquito Springs began declining precipitously. Environmental advocates and members of the Tohono O’odham nation, for whom the springs are a sacred site, correlate this with the construction of President Trump’s border wall which is being built nearby under a waiver from standard environmental regulations.

To Manage Wildfire, California Looks To What Tribes Have Known All Along

NPR August 24, 2020 Lauren Sommer

When Western settlers forcibly removed tribes from their land and banned religious ceremonies, cultural burning largely disappeared. Instead, state and federal authorities focused on swiftly extinguishing wildfires.

But fire suppression has only made California's wildfire risk worse. Without regular burns, the landscape grew thick with vegetation that dries out every summer, creating kindling for the fires that have recently destroyed California communities. Climate change and warming temperatures make those landscapes even more fire-prone.

So, tribal leaders and government officials are forging new partnerships. State and federal land managers have hundreds of thousands of acres that need careful burning to reduce the risk of extreme wildfires. Tribes are eager to gain access to those ancestral lands to restore traditional burning.

Indígenas denuncian crisis humanitaria en la Amazonia colombiana por contaminación

<embed>http://eltiempolatino.com/news/2019/dec/01/indigenas-denuncian-crisis-humanitaria-en-la-amazo/</embed> El Tiempo Latino 12/01/2019

La Organización Nacional de los Pueblos Indígenas de la Amazonia Colombiana (OPIAC) y la Mesa Regional Amazónica (MRA) denuncian que la Amazonia colombiana, una vasta mancha selvática superior a las 40 millones de hectáreas que hace parte del denominado pulmón del planeta, atraviesa por su peor crisis humanitaria, reseñó Semana.

Según ambas organizaciones, la minería ilegal, uno de los principales protagonistas en la hecatombe ambiental por la que pasan los recursos naturales nacionales, es uno de los mayores detonantes en la actual crisis humanitaria de los pueblos indígenas amazónicos, una etiqueta que “aunque ha sido reconocida por el Estado, es negligentemente desatendida”.

The National Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon (OPIAC) and the Amazon Regional Board (MRA) denounce that the Colombian Amazon, a vast jungle spot greater than 40 million hectares that is part of the so-called lung of the planet, crosses its worst humanitarian crisis, Semana reported .

According to both organizations, illegal mining, one of the main protagonists in the environmental catastrophe through which national natural resources pass, is one of the biggest triggers in the current humanitarian crisis of the Amazonian indigenous peoples, a label that “although it has been recognized by the State, is negligently neglected. ”

The 66 indigenous groups that are part of these groups base their assertion on the forty-seventh session of the Amazon Regional Board, in which several State entities presented some reports of the actions they have developed on the illicit exploration of gold, in compliance of the prior consultation and consultation agreements of the Ministry of Mines and Energy.

Amazon deforestation 'at highest level in a decade'

<embed>https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/18/amazon-deforestation-at-highest-level-in-a-decade</embed> The Guardian 11/18/2019

Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon has hit the highest annual level in a decade, according to new government data which highlights the impact the president, Jair Bolsonaro, has made on the world’s biggest rainforest.

The new numbers, showing almost 10,000 sq kms were lost in the year to August, were released as emboldened farm owners scuffled with forest defenders in Altamira, the Amazonian city at the heart of the recent devastation.

The assault on the planet’s biggest terrestrial carbon sink by land-grabbers, agribusiness, miners and loggers is accelerating. In the year until 30 July 2019, 9,762 sq kms were lost, an increase of 29.5% over the previous 12 months, the Brazilian space agency INPE said.