For ecologists restoring the vast bogs of remote Karelia, wild reindeer are not just part of the environment but entwined with the ancient culture of the boreal forests
The Finnish folk musician Liisa Matveinen lives in a mustard-coloured house in Ilomantsi, 12 miles (20km) from the Russian border. Large books of folk songs line her walls. Sitting in her kitchen, Matveinen sings about a humble hunter going into the woods to find reindeer.
The song tells us how they were “honoured” providers of food, clothing and a sense of place, says Matveinen, who is recognised as a doyenne of Finnish folk music.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
12/23/2024 - 02:00
12/21/2024 - 12:00
For the past decade, the Barcelona-based visual artist Xavi Bou has devoted his work to revealing “the hidden beauty of natural movement”. His initial focus was birds; now he’s moved on to insects. In collaboration with US entomologist Adrian Smith he’s created an eye-popping series that captures – by merging multiple frames into a single image – the rhythmic flutterings of butterflies and chaotic leaps of spittlebugs and treehoppers. As well as their beauty, Bou was struck by the crucial role that insects play in ecosystems, even as their numbers plummet – it’s estimated that the biomass of flying insect species has decreased by 75% over the past 27 years. “We need to move beyond seeing insects as mere nuisances,” says Bou. “They are fascinating, essential creatures, and we owe them a great deal.”
See more of Xavi Bou’s images here
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12/21/2024 - 10:00
Rosetta’s Kitchen in North Carolina now dishes up donated animal products to weather steep losses and feed people in need – but not all are happy with the change
One day in October, a trailer with an unusual delivery pulled up outside Rosetta’s Kitchen, a beloved vegan restaurant in downtown Asheville, North Carolina.
The contents: 1,500lbs of donated frozen meat, destined for area residents eating free meals at the restaurant after Hurricane Helene battered the region in late September.
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‘I didn’t realize the role rice played’: the ingenious crop cultivation of the Gullah Geechee people
12/21/2024 - 07:00
Researchers in North Carolina used underwater sonar to map a system created by enslaved people centuries ago
As a former deputy state underwater archaeologist, Mark Wilde-Ramsing can’t help but look down. While rowing around North Carolina’s Eagles Island, at the tip of the Gullah Geechee corridor, he noticed signs of human-made structures, visible at low tide. Though he’d retired, he was still active in the field and knew his former agency hadn’t recorded the structures – which meant he had come across something previously undocumented. The next step was figuring out exactly what he’d found.
Wilde-Ramsing knew the area had once been full of rice fields. His neighbor, Joni “Osku” Backstrom, was an assistant professor in the department of environmental sciences at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington whose specialty was shallow-water sonar, and he had the skills and technology to explore the area. Using a sonar device, the duo detected 45 wooden structures in the river, and the remote sensing tool allowed Backstrom and Wilde-Ramsing to acoustically map the canal beds.
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12/21/2024 - 01:00
Ministers set out plans for outlawing neonicotinoids but considering application by farmers to use Cruiser SB
Bee-killing pesticides are to be banned by the UK government, as ministers set out plans to outlaw the use of neonicotinoids.
However, the highly toxic neonicotinoid Cruiser SB could be allowed for use next year, as ministers are considering applications from the National Farmers’ Union and British Sugar.
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12/20/2024 - 18:00
From break dancing to nude bathers and the country’s best mullets, here’s a selection of our photographers’ finest work
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12/20/2024 - 13:28
Artificial intelligence can provide critical insights into how complex mixtures of chemicals in rivers affect aquatic life -- paving the way for better environmental protection.
12/20/2024 - 10:00
State’s energy and carbon management commission said fraudulent pollution data was reported for at least 344 wells
Oil and gas companies operating in Colorado have submitted hundreds of environmental impact reports with “falsified” laboratory data since 2021, according to state regulators.
Colorado’s energy and carbon management commission (ECMC) said on 13 December that contractors for Chevron and Oxy had submitted reports with fraudulent data for at least 344 oil and gas wells across the state, painting a misleading picture of their pollution levels. Consultants for a third company, Civitas, had also filed forms with falsified information for an unspecified number of wells, regulators said.
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12/20/2024 - 07:00
Forty people, aged 22 to 58, incarcerated for direct actions on climate and Gaza actions amid crackdown on dissent
• ‘You won’t find the real criminals here’: a Just Stop Oil activist in jail at Christmas
A record number of people who have taken part in protests will be in prison in the UK this Christmas, raising concern about the ongoing crackdown on dissent.
Forty people, aged from 22 to 58, will be behind bars on Christmas Day for planning or taking part in a variety of protests relating to the climate crisis or the war in Gaza. Several of them are facing years in prison after courts handed down the most severe sentences on record for direct action protests.
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12/20/2024 - 07:00
Labour seems gripped by a form of denialism. The danger is real and incremental change won’t avert it
Jeremy Corbyn is independent MP for Islington North and was leader of the Labour party from 2015 to 2020
There is no need to overcomplicate things: a rise in global temperatures of 3.1C is not compatible with human survival. That is where we are heading, unless we act now. On our current path, the world will exceed 1.5C of warming, and could reach a rise of 2.6-3.1C by the end of the century.
For you, today, that might make the difference between wearing a jumper or a jacket. For humanity, it is the difference between survival and extinction. Paris and Berlin will bake under heatwaves. New York will be hit by frequent storm-surges. Coastal towns will be submerged; 800 million people are living on land that will be underwater.
Jeremy Corbyn is independent MP for Islington North and was leader of the Labour party from 2015 to 2020
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