IPBES Invasive Alien Species Report

"We are seeing unprecedented increases in the numbers of alien species worldwide."

"It's about 200 new alien species every year. And, yes, with those kinds of numbers, we will also see the impacts increasing."

"There’s a feeling that invasive species contribution to biodiversity loss is being vastly underestimated. This is an opportunity to really highlight the huge threat that invasive species pose to nature and to people."

"The accelerating global economy, intensified and expanded land- and sea-use change, as well as demographic changes are likely to lead to increases in invasive alien species worldwide. Even without the introduction of new alien species, already established alien species will continue to expand their ranges and spread to new countries and regions. Climate change will make the situation even worse." 

Helen Roy, professor, UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, ecologist, entomologist, British Ecological Society member, study leader

"Usually the poor communities are the ones that suffer the most."

"At the same time, with climate change,  you're going to have mosquitoes going higher, you know."

"So getting, for example, to New York."

Anibal Pauchard, study assessment leader

"It is a perfect storm."

"It is the intersection of global warming with invasive species that is creating these terrible, terrible, feedbacks."

Dawn Bazely, professor of Biology, York University, Toronto

Black rats are the third most widespread invasive species according to the IPBES report

The key findings of the report include:
•    More than 37,000 alien species have been introduced by many human activities worldwide, of which around 3,500 are harmful
•    These invasive species play a key role in 60% of global extinctions of plant and animal extinctions 
•    They pose a challenge to people in all regions of the world, particularly indigenous peoples and local communities which have greater direct dependence on nature
•    The global annual cost to economies has quadrupled every decade since the 1970s, to at least US 423 billion dollars, though the actual figure is likely to be much higher
•    83% of countries do not have national legislation to tackle Invasive alien species and 45% of countries do not invest in the management of biological invasions.

Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity

 According to the conclusions reached by the authors of a new study produced by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services for the United Nations -- which expands on a wide-sweeping 2019 report produced by the same panel finding up to 1 million plant and animal species at risk of extinction -- invasive non-native species are recognized as a major factor in 60 percent of recorded extinctions of plants and animals.

Over $424 billion in estimated losses to the global economy annually results from thousands of invasive species introduced to new ecosystems globally by harming nature, damaging food systems and threatening human health, according to the scientific report presented on Monday. Since 1970, the costs have quadrupled each decade, based on 2019 data. Of the 37,000 species introduced unintentionally and intentionally by human activity, over 3,500 are considered invasive as a result of the harm they prove in their new ecosystems.

The report represents the most exhaustive view to the present on how invasive non-native species drive biodiversity loss. 86 experts from 49 countries compiled the report, drawing on thousands of scientific studies and contributions from Indigenous people and local communities. The report points out that species have been introduced with intention in view of perceived benefits, and then have spread out of control, a situation, write the researchers, for which solutions must be found.

 

Invasive species like this Harlequin Ladybird (Image Credit: PJ Taylor, Pixabay)

 

The study cites non-native species that are benign, such as chickens and potatoes, which have been successfully domesticated, playing vital roles in agriculture and food supply. It is unchecked non-native species that become invasive that can severely damage food systems. As an example, the European shore crab invades commercial shellfish beds in New England, while key fisheries in India have been damaged by the introduction of the Caribbean false mussel.

Human health can be directly impacted by invasions when mosquitoes transmitting diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and the Zika virus become invasive world-wide. Ecosystems that have been disturbed may then be incapable of delivering services humans are dependent upon, like the maintenance of fisheries, regulation of rain patterns, and purificiation of drinking water. Ecosystems are made more vulnerable through invasive species reducing the biodiversity that makes them resilient to diseases and other threats.

In over a quarter of the world's islands, invasive non-native species out-number native species. A target set in 2010 for countries to reduce invasions has failed. Almost every country in the world in December of 2023 agreed to protect biodiversity as part of a sweeping agreement to reduce the introduction and establishment of invasive species by at least 50%. The most important way to fight the growing crisis of invasive non-native species, according to the researchers, is to prevent their arrival in new regions -- calling for the assessment of risks prior to moving species, or adopting biosecurity measures that can be quite simple to mount protectively.

 

A tree-of-heaven, another widespread invasive species mentioned in the IPBES assessment.

Original Stewards of the Land

"These plants never grow together in the wild. It seemed obvious that people put them there to grow all in one spot -- like a garden."

"On the north-west coast, conifer forests are stubborn. They will re-establish themselves 20 to 30 years after a disturbance."

"Elders and knowledge-holders talk about perennial management all the time. It's no surprise these forest gardens continue to grow at archaeological village sites that haven't yet been too severely disrupted by settler-colonial land-use." 

"This shows humans have the ability to not just allow biodiversity to flourish, but to be a part of it."

Chelsey Geralda Armstrong, ethnobiologist, archaeologist, Simon Fraser University, British Columbia

The Sts’ailes forest garden near Vancouver, British Columbia seen from the air. (Nick Waber)

 Forest gardening is practised in Indigenous communities world-wide, most particularly in tropical regions of the world. It represents a common practise of cultivating food combining it with agroforestry. Ancient Indigenous forest gardens which have been untended for over a century and a half along the northwest coast of Canada still thrive. Coast Salish and Ts'msyen peoples once designed these forest gardens, planted and cared for plots of fruit and nut trees native to the area, along with shrubs and medicinal plants. A new study by Simon Fraser University published in Ecology and Society represents the first time these open, orchard-like plots have been studied in North America.

Typically in these coastal forest gardens a canopy consisting of crabapple, hazelnut, wild cherry and plum trees shield understory plants and trees like cranberry, elderberry and hawthorn, along with wild ginger and wild rice root. Greater species diversity than the surrounding conifer forests are to be found in these coastal forest gardens. Patches of diversified food vegetation intentionally planted now provide a habitat for birds, bears and pollinators.

Indigenous peoples practised controlled burning, coppicing (the cutting back of trees or shrubs to ground level to encourage new growth), fertilizing, long-distance transplanting, pruning and weeding. Unmanaged for over a century, evidence of these historical practices can be detected at remote archaeological villages. This varied combination of species planting occupying different niches left little room for new species to take root, given the effective use of space: "There's a canopy, a sub-canopy, a bush-shrub layer, a vine layer going up and around, and then a herbaceous layer", wrote the researchers.

 

Chelsey Geralda Armstrong, Simon Fraser University

The researchers selected four archaeological sites that had been occupied for over 2,000 years; two Ts'msyen village complexes in north-western British Columbia, and two Coast Salish complexes in the south-west. (Two or more nearby villages each with five to 20 houses comprises a village complex.) These forest gardens were tended on these sites by Indigenous peoples until the late 1800s when the villagers were displaced. More biological and functional diversity was seen in forest gardens than was evident in the dominant evergreen woodlands.

Chelsey Geralda Armstrong, Simon Fraser University

"It's striking to see how different forest gardens were from the surrounding forest, even after more than a century", observed study co-author Jesse Miller, ecologist and lecturer at Stanford University. A swath of conifer forest contiguous with a garden forest, logged decades earlier, then regenerated naturally saw a mere fraction of species numbers present by comparison. Planted originally with a wide number of edible and medicinal flora for human use, forest gardens now remaining present as a rich and varied food source for resident animals.

 

The Ts'msyen forest garden in northwestern B.C. is part of a groundbreaking new study by Simon Fraser University. Photo by Storm Carroll

Crisis Management : Great Barrier Reef Corals

"Because COTS [Crown-of-Thorns starfish] juveniles have the ability to stay in an algae feeding form for up to six years, there could be an accumulation of multiple generations of juveniles that are happily feeding on algae until there is a specific cue that catalyzes their transition to feeding on corals."
Paul Barber, professor, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California at Los Angeles

"The science tells us that elevated fertilizer and other pollutants from primary production run-off is causing an increase in phytoplankton, which is the main food source for COTS larvae."
Anna Maraden, managing director, Great Barrier Reef Foundation

"Given the extreme size of the Great Barrier Reef and many threats to humans, we wanted a 'tool' that could allow the authorities to scale back the manual eradication program."
"In 2006, I developed a robot which proved that vision can be used to allow a robot to estimate its position in the reef and avoid obstacles."
"[We] have been integrating them with robotic boats to further increase their ability to deliver large amounts of coral larvae to damaged reefs."
Matthew Dunbabin, professor of science and engineering, Queensland University of Technology

Crown-of-thorns starfish eat coral, and their booming population is causing major problems in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. (Tarasovs/iStock)

As an irreplaceable wonder of the natural world, the Great Barrier Reef is immense, with its 3,000 reef systems spanning over 214,000 miles, home to over 1,500 species of fish, 400 kinds of hard coral, and one-third of the planet's soft coral. Half of that coral has been lost in the past thirty years, however, both to bleaching events and to outbreaks in the communities of crown-of-thorns starfish which feast on the coral.

As the world's largest coral reef system, the Great Barrier Reef has been attacked by this starfish with its long spikes covering its body, capable of reaching 2-1/2 feet in diameter, looking somewhat like a colourful landmine with 14 to 21 movable arms. The crown-of-thorns matures at four months of age, eating live coral continuously, up to their own body weight in one sitting. One such animal alone is capable of consuming 20 to 32 feet of living coral annually.

The 865 acres the Great Barrier Reef covers off the coast of Australia is host to an estimated 350 billion of the starfish considered to be the most fertile invertebrate in the world. They have stripped 150 reefs of coral and damaged 500 more, in just a few years within the Great Barrier Reef. It was recently discovered that crown-of-thorns are able to delay transition to adulthood for up to six years during which time they can be static, awaiting the healing of a damaged reef, which when healed, and healthy coral regrown, is ripe for the COTS to mature and resume feeding.

LarvalBot gently squirts the coral larvae onto damaged reef areas. Credit: QUT Media

Yet overfishing and the absence of the starfish's natural predators, the giant triton snail, have also contributed to outbreaks. Where under normal circumstances crown-of-thorns starfish have a useful role in reef vitality and diversity, preferring to consume the faster-growing coral which helps slow-growing coral varieties gain a foothold, when their population is not kept in check they have the capability of becoming a devastating invasive species.

The Great Barrier Reef Foundation recently launched a $37.5 million crown-of-thorns starfish control program, exploring innovative surveillance and control methods. The foundation has also been working with local farmers in reducing the amount of pollutant (fertilizer) run-off into the reef's waters to decrease outbreaks. Since the early 1960s when the escalation in outbreaks was first seen, scientists have been exploring methods of crown-of-throrns outbreak mitigation. Researchers at James Cook University in 2015 discovered a 20-millilitre dose of vinegar would kill a starfish in 48 hours.

A crown-of-thorns starfish. (tae208/iStock)

A practical, workable culling tool was considered only part of the battle of injectable poison such as bile salts or vinegar where diving crews were tasked with hunting the starfish one by one, making it difficult through such a laborious regimen to much diminish the population. Between four and 12 million crown-of-thorns starfish lived at the Great Barrier Reef in 2015. Two crews working full time were able to eradicate 350,000 of the creatures. To place matters into perspective, a female lays roughly 68 million eggs yearly.

A seemingly hopeless situation, but one with a more practical solution in scooping them up when an autonomous underwater vehicle, a vision-based robot specifically designed to protect coral reef systems was devised. Developed by a team of scientists led by Matthew Dunbabin, with Deep Learning technology, by 2014 Professor Dunbabin's team constructed a robot that could be programmed to detect and inject the starfish with bile salts, through autonomous operation.

The Ranger Bot is programmed to accelerate the development process. Fully operational by late 2018 in the Great Barrier Reef, the team that assembled it was able to increase its capabilities to the point where it can help with coral larvae reseeding along the Great Barrier Reef and reefs in the Philippines.

Ranger Bot   (TheQUTube/YouTube)

Mass Migration

"The migrations themselves are totally invisible."
"We have a lot of information about every individual insect that flies over overhead, including a measure of the shape and a measure of their size."
"I think that people will be amazed by the scale of the migrations and the significance of the ecosystem services."
"If the densities observed over southern UK are extrapolated to the airspace above all continental landmasses, high-altitude insect migration represents the most important annual animal movement in ecosystems on land, comparable to the most significant oceanic migrations."
Jason Chapman, ecologist, University of Exeter, Britain

"Many of the insects we studied provide important ecological services which are essential for maintaining healthy ecosystems, such as pollination, predation of crop pests and providing food for insectivorous birds and bats."
Dr Gao Hu, visiting scholar, Nanjing Agricultural University, China

"Animal migration, especially in insects, is a very complex behaviour which takes millions of year to evolve and is very sensitive to climatic condition."
"Global climatic change could cause decline of many species, but equally other highly adaptable species thrive and become agricultural crop pests."
Co-author Dr Ka S (Jason) Lim, Radar Entomology Unit, AgroEcology Department at Rothamsted Research 

 Dr. Chapman and his colleagues operate a network of radar stations in Britain which scan the sky spotting insects, 24 hours each day. They decided recently to scan their captured images for the presence of hoverflies, small harmless flies which nature designed to mimic stinging insects such as bees, as a natural defence from predators. They are named hoverflies because they seem to hover, their wings beating, without moving from the same spot until such time as they do.

In their larvae stage hoverflies eat aphids, a bonus for gardens and agriculture in general. When they reach their adult stage they function to pollinate flowers as a byproduct of supping on nectar and pollen, just as bees do. Dr. Chapman's research team determined the distinctive radar signature of a marmalade hoverfly, studying it in their laboratory, then launched a search for that signature presence in scans produced by their radar stations.

I was found that great hordes of hoverflies zip about overhead with an estimated 4 billion of the tiny flies migrating into and departing southern England annually. This finding was published in the journal Current Biology in June. The identified mass migration has an immense impact on the environment.  Dr. Chapman and his researchers estimate the larvae produced by migrating hoverflies yearly devou on average 6 trillion aphids; the aphids estimated to weigh a collective 6,350 tons.

(NWSSanDiego/Twitter)

On June 4, American meteorologists in California looked over radar images and saw what appeared to be a wide area of rain; curiously no clouds were to be seen -- so they made contact with an amateur weather-spotter located directly beneath the mysterious disturbance who informed them no rain was falling at all. What he did see was every bit as puzzling as the no-cloud-perhaps-rain scenario; a broad phalanx of ladybugs in flight.

Adult aggregation of convergent ladybugs. (Drobincorvette/CC BY-SA 3.0/Wikimedia)

An immense cloud of migrating ladybugs spaced 130 kilometers wide with a dense core, circulating 1,525 to 2,740 meters in the atmosphere was finally identified, to the astonishment of all involved. Needless to say, the intention of the meteorologists was to continue tracking the giant swarm. Despite which the ladybugs appeared to vanish with no one the wiser as to their purpose nor their final destination.

Like the marmalade fly, Eupodes corollae is a migratory species whose larvae feast on pest aphids.

WILLIAM HAWKES, UNIVERSITY OF EXETER

Leading to the speculative theory that other species of insects may also, hitherto undetected, regularly crowd the skies, their presence, let alone their destination anyone's guess. Researchers do not ordinarily tend to use radar for tracking purposes, though in Australia scientists there scan for the appearance of locusts, destructive insects which can swarm in huge numbers to eat their way speedily through agricultural crops.

Biologists have knowledge of migration habits of animals, but those of insects are as yet a scientific mystery as insects move from place to place without any but entomologists taking particular notice. Unless they're associated with outbreaks of disease, as carriers of pathogens. In the case of the hoverflies and their vital contribution to agriculture, they're known to visit billions of flowers yearly.

 Hoverflies, according to research, import 3 billion to 8 billion pollen grains into southern England in spring. And conversely as they fly south in the fall they take 3 to 19 billion pollen grains along with them in their exodus. Hoverflies are preyed upon by birds and other animals; those that die as a result of their natural lifespan coming to an end fertilize the soil. They represent about 70 tons of biomass equalling 35 million calories, according to the researchers' estimate.

Estimated biomass of migrating insects over southern United Kingdom recorded by radar and balloon flights.

Another 'Biological Wonder'

"After 20 minutes, we were still driving through these [large mounds located in northern Brazil], and I started saying, 'Well, what are they'?"
"As humans, we have never built a city that big, anywhere."
"These termites live on dead leaves, and they get to feed once a year."
"The first time I was there, it's just unbelievable. You just cannot believe what you're looking at. What's strange is they're really regularly spaced, as if there was a grand plan."
"They're actually the oldest living structures … made by insects and actually still occupied today, around about 4,000 years."
"These mounds were formed by a single termite species that excavated a massive network of tunnels to allow them to access dead leaves to eat safely and directly from the forest floor."
"It's incredible that, in this day and age, you can find an 'unknown' biological wonder of this sheer size and age still existing, with the occupants still present." 
Stephen J. Martin, entomologist, University of Salford, Britain

Murundus (termite mounds) in Brazil    Roy Funch

"[When termites build], the individual termite receives little signals from the other termites."
"It puts a ball of dirt down, and then when 100 million other balls of dirt are down, you suddenly have a mound."
"There are lots of different kinds of termite mounds. Some of them actually keep the termites cool during the day, and a little bit warmer at night."
"There's a lot to love about the termites, I think."
Lisa Margonell, science journalist

"This is apparently the world's most extensive bioengineering effort by a single insect species." "Perhaps most exciting of all -- the mounds are extremely old -- up to 4,000 years, similar to the ages of the pyramids."
"[They’re just amorphous lumps of soil, with no internal structures. Nothing lives inside them. Instead], they’re just slag piles."
"It used to be all green and brown, but around eight years ago, Google Earth sharpened their [satellite] images, and I could see the mounds that I had known from the ground."
"There’s no doubt that they’re termite-made. I’ve seen termites building the mounds with my own eyes. There’s no engineering involved. They’re just throwing the stuff out."
Roy Funch, ecologist, Universidade Estadual de Feira de Santana, Brazil

A termite queen, left, and a termite king are displayed at the Chongqing Termite Control Institute, on May 16, 2007 in Chongqing Municipality, China. (China Photos/Getty Images)

They looked like huge mounds of dirt, as though a large construction project had left them there after something like a new highway had just been completed. But these mounds were located in a very remote area and clearly no large construction projects undertaken by human agency had taken place there. Dr. Martin's companions, Brazilians, informed him it was their impression the mounds represented hills made by termites, and as such they were indeed waste left over from large and ancient construction projects, but not man-made.

Then Dr. Martin met a Brazilian ecologist, Roy R. Funch, at State University of Feira de Santana who was busy planning to undertake radioactive dating in a bid to date the age of the mounds. Several years of investigation ensued where the two scientists collaborated on studying the peculiar mounds, each three meters tall, and nine meters wide. They determined that the construction of what they realized from satellite images was 200 million mounds, represented the industry of Syntermes dirus. some of the largest termite species; insects roughly one centimeter in length.

More than 200 million termite mounds have been discovered in Brazil, spread across an area so vast that they are visible from space. (Submitted by Stephen Martin)

Spaced on average about 18 meters distance from one another, the mounds spread out across an area somewhat equal to the geographic size of Britain. Radioactive dating of eleven of those mounds put the youngest at about 690 years and the oldest at least 3,820 years of age; about equal in archaeological terms to the Great Pyramid of Giza, in Egypt.  According to the scientists' calculations the termites would have to excavate 10 cubic kilometers of dirt -- equal in volume to some 4,000 Great Pyramids -- to build those 200 million mounds.

Tunnel networks are excavated below the earth, the dirt carried up along a central tube to the summit of a mound, and discarded there, enlarging the mound, bit by bit over time. The pattern revolving around the equal spacing of the mounds appeared to result from an inherently efficient spacing of 'garbage' dirt piles. The presence of the mounds has not been known to anyone outside the region, since the area is hidden by scrub forest where temperatures reach 38 degrees Celsius and greater for most months of the year.

In that landscape the trees are scorched by heat, where the landscape turns a temporary green following a limited month-long rainy season after which the foliage falls from the trees and the landscape once again reverts to its desolate, blanched appearance. It is those fallen leaves that represent the termites' food source, available for only a short period. Since the termites are so dependent on that source of food, when the forest is cut, while the mounds remain, the termites move elsewhere, deprived of their food source.


The area occupied by the mounds is hot and dry, unsuitable for agrarian purposes, though locals did make an effort to try to grow crops there, and failed. A part of the forest was cleared and it was hoped the ensuing field would be able to bear a crop; to no avail. When the two scientists investigated below the surface they discovered layers of 'galleries' where there was storage room for old leaves, and they could see nurseries where young termites were being nurtured to maturity.

Researcher Stephen Martin, bottom, stands next to a cross-section of one of the massive dirt mounds built by termites in northeastern Brazil. (Submitted by Stephen Martin)

 
 

Forest Preservation

"These trees [surviving wildfires] are lifeboats. There are some places in the landscape that seem to avoid fire time and time again."
"[A strategy for preserving refugia evades ecologists as yet]. That requires identifying where they are and why we think they're important."
"[If researchers can agree, an atlas of fire refugia could result]. That would be sort of the Holy Grail."
Meg Krawchuk, Oregon State University

What are fire refugia?: Wildfires are familiar landscape disturbances in forested ecosystems of western Canada and the United States that result in mosaics of fire effects. The concept of burn severity is used to quantify biological, physical, and chemical effects of fire, and can be broadly defined as the degree to which an ecosystem changes as a result of fire. Landscape heterogeneity produced by burning, which can include a range in severity from unburned patches to high severity fire, is important to conserving characteristic biodiversity of fire-adapted ecosystems. As a part of the burn mosaic, areas that experience comparatively low-severity fire or remain unburned are landscape legacies that can provide an essential environment for species sensitive to fire, and support populations that contribute to the reassembly of biotic communities after fire. Fire islands, residuals, remnants, skips, shadows, refuges, refugia, or unburned patches are all terms used to describe areas at the low end of the burn severity spectrum. Here, we use the term fire refugia to describe places that are disturbed less frequently or less severely by wildfire than the surrounding landscape matrix. Refugia can exist at a range of spatial scales, e.g., from an individual plant or small patch of vegetation to broader landscapes. And refugia can occur across a range of temporal scales, persisting only in the short term through a single fire event or in the longer-term through multiple events. The term fire refugia is adapted from the broader concept of refugia as places providing environmental stability and facilitating species persistence as regional biotic and abiotic environments change. An understanding of the processes and patterns of fire refugia formation, maintenance, and ecosystem role across multiple spatial and temporal scales is critical as we (society) strive(s) to meet landscape fire management and ecosystem restoration goals, now and into the future.
Landscape Fire and Conservation Research Group, Oregon State University

Firefighters try to stop a wildfire as wind drives embers across Highway 20 near Clearlake Oaks, Calif., on Sunday, July 1, 2018. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

"We might have a change of wind, it cools down at night, and the fire might not grab that patch of forest."
Arjan Meddens, University of Idaho

Trees and plants manage to survive even while forest fires rage within their range, in small isolated areas that ecologists have named 'refugia'. They are discrete refuges where green still meets the eye despite that they're an oasis in the midst of a grey, ashen, smouldering forest. They are areas where the fire for one reason or another has somehow skipped over, left intact to flourish and to succour whatever wildlife may have found its way within its haven, and will in time spread to bring new life to the burnt-out forest.

Those islands of green grass, shrubs and trees within the larger landscape of barren disaster are fire refugia, vital long-term to forest regeneration. They are where species can shelter. And they become the starting gate for the ecosystem's race to restore itself. Refugia are not yet full understood by botanists and ecologists but those involved in the well-being of forests understand full well that reaching a fuller understanding of how and why they survive can be critical to their ongoing capacity to save forests.

Climate change may threaten both the refugia existence and their valued capacity for restoration of the forest ecology. Fire refugia have been referred to by ecologists over the years as fire shadows, unburned islands, skips, or stringers in recognition of their function. While a forest fire rages desperate animals seek out shelter within refugia. And from their refuge there as the forest gradually regenerates those animals are able to return to refugia for nesting and to seek out food.



The charred landscape eventually welcomes seeds of trees that have survived within a refugium and new plants are slowly produced. Researchers relying on a half-century of satellite data are slowly piecing together those sanctuaries' histories. In the wake of a fire, refugia represent and resemble a glowing green gem in their scattering across blackened landscapes. Because of this phenomena, up to 25 percent of a forest is enabled to survive.

The north sides of mountains favour refugia in the Northern Hemisphere where plants are exposed to less sunlight enabling them to hold more moisture in their trunks and roots, as a consequence. Biodiversity is hugely dependent on these shelters. Patches of grasslands that catch fire yearly may survive one year and burn the following year. Yet these uneven fire refugia are invaluable to their survival as opposed to grasslands that burn in their entirety yearly, threatening the butterflies with extinction.

Invasive species and other like pests threaten refugia, but it is climate change that may in fact pose a greater threat where heat waves and droughts turn plants into fuel for fire. That could result in refugia becoming less frequently capable of surviving fires that become more intense in their nature. So it is critical to know more about refugia so that a strategy to preserve them can be achieved.

That Incomparable View -- Playing Chicken With Nature

Beachfront homes, Florida  Photo: the realtymedics.com

"Its foundation is already starting to slip."
"We're going to see more of this kind of thing happen to coastal housing, and not just in Oregon."
"A lot of these wealthier homeowners are playing chicken with nature, and losing."
Phillip Johnson, executive director, Oregon Shores Conservation Coalition

"I plan to stay and fight as long as I can."
"I'm not even thinking about giving up my house. At least, not yet."
Justine Kenney, retired stockbroker, Nantucket, Massachusetts

"Erosion doesn't destroy the beach or the environment."
"The problem comes when you build on them and you don't want to move away."
Robert Young, geologist, Western Carolina University

Some 3,000 cubic yards of sand were dumped outside these homes in Harvey Cedars, N.J., in early July as an emergency step. Most homeowners there want to go ahead with a beach restoration project, but a few are holding out. Erosion has created steep cliffs in some spots that the locals have dubbed "Harvey Cedars Bluffs.''

"When you look at oceanfront property, there are three things any property owner is interested in. Number one and the most important is the view of the ocean. Number two is access to the ocean, and number three is the breeze, which is an important factor."
"A lot of people don't like to use their air conditioning. They say the evening breeze off the ocean is something special. [Putting dunes as tall as 29 feet that are 50 feet wide in behind homes would reduce property values by 40 percent.] If you have a million-dollar property, it's now worth $600,000."
Ken Porro, lawyer, oceanfront property, Harvey Cedars, New Jersey

In the town of Rockaway Beach, Oregon, great beachfront swaths -- facing rising tides which result in record levels of erosion -- have been eaten away, threatening the stability of costly homes built on bluffs overlooking the ocean. A six-bedroom home on the northern coast of the state with a hot tub and a swimming pool, a Tuscan-style residence with a 3,300 square feet interior, boasting sweeping views of the Pacific Ocean is now in direct peril. The property was once considered a real estate treasure. Built in 2009 for over $1-million  it stood close to ten metres from the ocean.

Now, that last word in comfortable living, a sought-after property, is not quite so sought-after any longer. From the effect of erosion caused by those high tides the owners can enjoy watching from their large windows overlooking the ocean that sweep the beachfront, the house now is perilously perched under three metres from the dune's edge. It is a disaster waiting to happen, and happen it will, predict local officials -- guessing before the end of the year.

The owner of the property has expended tens of thousands of dollars, attempting to save his home. Dump-truck-loads of sand have been deposited on the beach in front of the residence. And the owner is contemplating the installation of permanent rock-and-boulder barriers, in the hope of protecting the bluff from any additional erosion under the waves' interminable onslaught. He is awaiting the go-ahead from state officials.

There is nothing particularly new about costly homes balancing on the edge of cliffs overlooking the ocean. Such homes are still in high demand, but that demand is soon to evaporate and the current owners left with little to celebrate. Affluent purchasers of such special beachfront properties were always willing to pay premium prices for palatial real estate, knowing those properties would be expected to increase in value. Rising sea levels, however, have altered both perceptions and the properties that were once so alluring.

Owners of homes in wealthy enclaves on both the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts of the United States now face similar battles caused by rising tides and the erosion they are responsible for. Some of the most prized waterfront real estate -- from New England to California is steadily evaporating into the oceans -- whose views and ocean-proximity were once the major selling point for these esteemed properties. True, the owners are wealthy, but they are discovering that their desperate efforts to save their investments are just that; desperate but futile.

Bluffs battered by rising tides that ravage their integrity edge homes ever closer to the sea despite millions some homeowners have dedicated to moving their homes further back on their lots. Experts estimate that in Malibu, California, home to one of the costliest beachfront areas in the country some lots have lost up to 17 metres of beach in the last ten years alone. Local authorities are prepared to spend millions -- up to $60M every ten years -- hauling tons of sand in hopes of restoring the vanishing beaches and dunes. Increased taxes will be levied on the over 100 properties involved, to achieve this.

Photo courtesy of Cocoran Group Real Estate

In Nags Head, North Carolina on the Outer Banks, waterfront property costs over a million dollars where the beach has been eroding roughly two metres each year, according to the North Carolina Division of Coastal Management; more than four times the median rate for North Carolina's coast and where the town is prepared to spend $48M dredging sand from the sea floor to dump it onto the beaches. At taxpayers' expense, of course. "These beaches are doomed. The buildings are doomed, too", states Orrin Pi8lkey, professor of geology, Duke University.

More than 300,000 homes in the United States likely will be affected by chronic flooding within the next 30 years as a result of rising sea levels, according to a study by the Union of Concerned Scientists. Properties valued at nearly $140-Billion across the country are at risk, suggests the study. Ocean City in Maryland, where town officials have been replenishing the beaches, spending millions in the process, is listed among a number of locations along the Atlantic Ocean at risk of chronic flooding by 2045.

Photo courtesy of Kiawah Island Real Estates

The Irreparable Loss of Giant Baobabs

"The largest and oldest trees are more sensitive to changing climatic conditions because of their large dimensions."
Adrian Patrut, chemist, Babes-Bolyai University, Romania

"There were some fairy tales and folklore that these trees could be as old as 6,000 years."
"The fact that these trees just suddenly died in the early part of this century is to me a canary in the mine."
Karl von Reden, co-author research, African Baobabs

"The new paper nicely brings together information showing that the death of the millennial baobabs is likely due to an unprecedented combination of temperature increase and drought."
"This information is valuable to the scientific community and the public, as the baobab is an outstanding and very important species in many African countries."
Jens Gebauer, horticulturist, Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences, Germany

The Chapman baobab tree in Botswana, which collapsed in 2016

At the very least, these baobab trees are majestic specimens of outsize vegetation, the oldest living things on Earth, and the largest. It was in 2016 that a celebrated baobab named Chapman's Baobab whose cavity within its trunk was once used as the African continent's first post office -- with its astonishing 25 meter outside circumference, and its mention by the early Scottish medical-explorer-missionary David Livingstone -- collapsed. Its age was put at 1,400 years of existence.

Baobabs, known for their astonishing girth and longevity have seen a disastrous decline, the oldest of them have been dying, puzzling scientists. Research published this past June in the journal Nature Plants has pointed to the probability that prolonged droughts and overheated atmospheres linked to global warming may likely be the cause. The parched giant trees are unable any longer to give support to the weight of their massive trunks, and thy consequently collapse.

Dr. Patrut, lead author of the published study, found that the Chapman's Baobab's water content registered 40 percent, when the average water content of healthy baobabs should come in at 79 percent. The trees are called "wooden elephants" by Africans. Researchers, beginning in 2005, collected samples from over sixty of the largest baobabs, with trunk circumferences of 20 meters at the minimum. The oldest among them were dated back to roughly 2,500 years.

Carbon-14 levels from the tree samples were compared with samples from other tree species whose growth rings had been counted to determine their age, such as the bristlecone pine found in the Rocky Mountains of the southwestern United States, some of which have been found to be 3,000 years of age and one of which was determined to be 5,000 years old.

bristlecone pineGreat Basin bristlecone pine (Pinus aristata).U.S. Forest Service

The baobab's gigantic trunks are formed with the generation of new stems that arise around the original in a ring-shaped pattern. Those stems, as the tree matures, tend to fuse together, and an opening is created in its centre, which makes them 'hollow'. When some of the subject trees began collapsing the researchers were in disbelief, since the general view was that the trees were indestructible, old age didn't affect them.

Of the 13 oldest, eight collapsed, and five of the six largest died or partially collapsed during a 13-year study period. Disease did not appear to be involved.

The loss of the baobab trees strikes the entire ecosystem adversely, since they are home to large animal communities such as bats and bees. Local populations venerate the trees and often include them in ceremonies. During famines the trees' seeds which are edible provide food for humans and wildlife. The bark of the trees is a nutrition and hydration source for elephants; stripping the bark doesn't harm the tree.

Sunset at Baobab Alley with a pond in foreground near Morondava, Western Madagascar.
Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images

Wildfires: Let Them Burn Backcountry?

"It’s a few extreme fires that cause all our problems, at least from society’s point of view."
"This is where the appropriate response … allows you to concentrate on problem fires and hope to get to them while they’re still small, while allowing Mother Nature to take its course in the back 40."
Dr. Mike Flannigan, professor, University of Alberta

"That fire [a 1976 backwoods wildfire] could have probably been allowed to just burn and it would have put itself out. But in those days, the mantra was: All fire is bad, so we got to suppress it."

And that’s what we did."
"As a society, we have to recognize that if we’re going to manage this problem appropriately, we’re going to have to accept the fact that, at times, we may have to have a little smoke in the air that we may not like. But it’s going to a better outcome than what we’re seeing in the Chilcotin [region of British Columbia] today."
Brian Simpson, retired, former head, B.C. Wildfire Management Branch

A wildfire burns on a mountain behind a home in Cache Creek, B.C., in the early morning hours of July 8.  DARRYL DYCK/THE CANADIAN PRESS

"This huge grief that’s come from Fort Mac [ferocious 2016 Fort McMurray, Alberta wildfire] came from less than 10 per cent of the loss of that town and, really, what would we be looking at if we lost half of that?"

"We could have been looking at a staggering loss on the financial side and how we didn’t lose hundreds of people, I don’t know."
"If you look historically at some of the 19th-century fires: fire got into Fredericton [New Brunswick], fire’s gotten into Timmins [Ontario]. We even had one around Halifax [Nova Scotia] just a couple years ago where a few homes were lost. And the big fire in Tennessee late last year just shows we can have big fires in the East."
Glen McGillivray, managing director, Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction, Toronto

Last year’s Fort McMurray wildfire, shown in this May 7, 2017 file photo, destroyed nearly 1,600 buildings.  Jonathan Hayward/THE CANADIAN PRESS

There is now general agreement among scientists involved in ecological research that suppressing wildfires hasn't worked to the advantage it was meant to reflect through best forestry practise in response to these natural phenomena. The realization that a different kind of forest management is required is not new, it has been considered for quite some time, but old practises thought to be the logical reaction of authorities to fires threatening great swaths of forest and any towns and homes increasingly in their path are difficult to set aside.

However, a new approach involving backcountry fires permitted without human intervention to burn across millions of hectares is beginning to make sense to those tasked with the monumental job of husbanding these natural resources. Wildfires across North America still routinely see a response owing to the tradition of gathering fire-fighting resources to attempt to control them as they burn their way through valuable timberland. Now, the focus is to restrict firefighting activities to those areas where towns are threatened, and to simply allow wildfires where no human habitation is to burn themselves out.

Biologists are now recognizing that plants and animals appear to thrive in blackened, burnt-out forests, that renewal swiftly takes place, and that indeed some species of flora require that scorched-earth situation to enable them to renew and flourish. It is when human lives, and the livestock they maintain are threatened by being in the pathway of an out-of-control wildfire that the alarm bells bring in all the massive equipment and experienced wildfire-fighters to ward off catastrophe and then the lives of firefighters too are at stake.

Public safety where communities have established themselves in close proximity to forests, or communities that have long been in existence in those vulnerable forested areas remain the driving force behind firefighters answering the call to battle wildfires. An estimation of how often forests went through the natural process of burning out before the era of human habitation, hazards estimates of between eight million to 12 million hectares annually. At the present time that burnout is estimated at 1.5 million to two million hectares, with fire suppression action.

Around the 19th century the prevailing view was that forests ideally should be represented as economically valuable standing timber. Industrial scale techniques to battle wildfires gave firefighting agencies the capability of fighting wildfires by the 1930s, maintaining the landscape by suppressing wildfires. Even then a small grouping of environmental scientists felt that this type of response gave little benefit to the natural surroundings. The nature of wildfires has undergone a not-too-subtle change attributed to climate change; they have become more savage, more difficult to suppress and as such more dangerous to those fighting them.

Now, additionally, it is well understood that hundreds of species live, and some prefer to live in forests that have been recently burned, becoming by far the vastly preferred habitat. And with that realization the recognition by many more environmentalists that the health of the forests is maintained when fires thin them out of their climax condition, inviting the resurgence of the forest as saplings regenerate from the dead ash which in fact, enriches the forest soil.

It doesn't take long before trees begin sprouting, butterflies return to flit through shrubs when the density of a forest opens to the wind, sun and air and certain plants find their ideal growing places. The 'dead' forest in the wake of a wildfire becomes full of standing charred tree trunks called 'snags', many up to 24 to 30 meters in height, a sad and sorry sight, but a natural one. Environmentalists have noted that the black-backed woodpecker for one, included in the U.S. Endangered Species Act as threatened thrives under these conditions.

Environmentalists urge governments to help people living in forest-fire-vulnerable communities to think before they build there, or to withhold licenses to build. Alternately, taking steps in fire-prone areas to make homes fire-resistant, as for example, installing metal roofs on homes, enabling people to take partial responsibility for their choices and potential outcomes.

A wildfire burns on a mountain in the distance behind a house that remains standing on the Ashcroft First Nation, near Ashcroft, B.C., on Sunday July 9.  DARRYL DYCK/THE CANADIAN PRESS

Unsustainably Exploiting the Oceans

"Chinese fleets are all over the world now, and without these subsidies, the industry just wouldn't be sustainable."
"For Senegal and other countries of West Africa, the impact has been devastating."
Li Shuo, global policy adviser, Greenpeace East Asia

"Foreigners complain about Africa migrants coming to their countries, but they have no problem coming to our waters and stealing all our fish."
Moustapha Balde, 22, Senegal

"We always thought that sea life was boundless. [Now], we are facing a catastrophe."
"I understand why [local fishermen in Joal, Senegal] they hate me [for his campaign targeting Chinese boats and Senegalese boats alike against overfishing]. They are just trying to survive from day to day."
Abdou Karmim Sall, 50, president, Joal fishermen's association

"Sometimes the Chinese pay bribes [to local African authorities] to get access [along the African seacoast, for fishing], and that money doesn't trickle down, so the population is hit by a double whammy."
Rashid Sumaila, director, Fisheries Economics Research Unit, University of British Columbia Fisheries Center

A Chinese fisherman and three local e local sailors clean recently caught shark. (Greenpeace/Liu Yuyang)

Senegal has close to a 500 kilometer coastline along the Atlantic, and for the country the ocean represents their economic lifeblood, with seafood their main export. Fishing-linked industries give employment to close to 20 percent of the Senegalese work force. Declining fish stocks and drought linked to climate change has led millions of rural Senegalese to migrate to the coast, placing a further burden on sea dependency.

In the small fishing village of Joal, the population has swelled to 55,000 souls and as a result 4,900 pirogues fish from Joal, a substantial increase from the few dozen that were part of the local scene when Abdou Karim Sall was still in his teens. More latterly at age 50, he became a local celebrity
when he personally detained captains of two Chinese fishing boats fishing close by his village illegally.

Large, foreign-owners trawlers capriciously trawl the seacoast; at last estimate, over 100 of the boats representing European, Asian and locally flagged vessels. Apart from those fishing vessels, there are other boats flying Senegalese flags despite their ownership by Chinese companies. Chinese boats are flagged as among the worst offenders, stealing 40,000 tons of fish yearly from Senegalese waters, representing about $28-million the nation might have profited by.

What has been happening in Senegal is repeated throughout West Africa where countries like Guinea-Bissau, and Sierra Leone have few boats to police their national waters. "We used to have big grouper and tuna, but now we are fighting over a few sardinella" buyer Sente Camara, 68, complained. "The future is dark", she added.

In the nation of 14-million, impoverished Senegal has seen its fishing stocks plummet, and local fishermen with their hand-hewn canoes have a difficult time competing with the megatrawlers whose nets scoop every living thing out of the seas. The fish are sent abroad, much of it becoming fishmeal for chickens and pigs in the United States and Europe.

Local fishermen in Senegal cast their nets. Other than a motor and GPS, their boat lacks any modern equipment. (Greenpeace/Liu Yuyang)

Fewer returns from the sea translates to far less income for fishermen, itself ensuring high food prices for all Senegalese citizens traditionally dependent for protein on fish. China is the world's largest seafood exporter, its population accounting for over a third of all fish being consumed globally, with China's fishing industry giving employment to over 14-million people, another 30 million relying for their livelihood on the fish industry.

Indonesia has responded to the presence of Chinese trawlers caught poaching by impounding scores of them. A Chinese vessel was sunk by Argentina when it attempted to ram an Argentinian coast guard ship. Chinese fishermen and South Korean authorities have clashed with deadly results. Beijing, however, views its fishing vessels as a forerunner of its territorial ambitions in the South China Sea where in Hainan Province the government motivates boat owners to fish around the Spratly archipelago and the Paracel Islands claimed by the Philippines and Vietnam respectively.

Chinese fishing boats are not entirely on their own; they have naval power back-up, and Chinese naval frigates have driven off thousands of Filipino fishermen dependent on the rich fishing areas around the Spratly Islands.  China's distant-water fishing fleet has expanded to include close to 2,600 vesselsm most of them so large they scoop up as much fish in a week as Senegalese boats bring in throughout the space of a year.

The journal Frontiers in Marine Science estimates that China's fishing predation costs West African economies $2-billion yearly in lost income, while Chinese government subsidies valued at close to $22-billion-worth between 2011 and 2015, has created a dependency among Chinese boat owners.

Local fishermen beat the sides of their boat and sing traditional songs as they pull their nets in. (Greenpeace/Liu Yuyang)

Farewell, Dr. Bill

"Dr. Bill Freedman passed away Saturday, September 26, 2015 at his home in Halifax at the age of 65. He was a retired ecologist, former Chair of the Department of Biology and professor emeritus at Dalhousie University."

"The author of over 100 refereed scientific papers and publications, he received a Career Achievement Award from the Canadian Council of University Chairs (2007) and a Canadian Environment Award, Gold Medal Level, in the category of Community Awards for Conservation from the Canadian Geographic Society (2006)."
"Dr. Freedman was a 25-year volunteer with the Nature Conservancy of Canada, having served as National Board Chair from 2008 to 2009 and as Atlantic Regional Board Chair for two terms.
The Nature Conservancy of Canada is honouring a long-time volunteer and major contributor to conservation in Atlantic Canada and across the country."
"It has announced the Dr. Bill Freedman Science in Conservation Internship."

Dr. Bill Freedman Nature Reserve at Prospect High Head, NS (Photo by NCC)

"The Dr. Bill Freedman Nature Reserve is located at Prospect High Head, 23 kilometres southwest of Hallifax. It is 10 kilometres east of Peggy’s Cove, a popular tourist spot."
"Prospect High Head is a popular coastal location for hikers, photographers and people who enjoy birdwatching! The Nature Conservancy of Canada has been working here since 2001, protecting 372 acres (151 hectares) for the area's important coastal barrens and coastal forest. The property provides habitat for native species and also migratory birds. The coastline is used by a variety of sea ducks, including eye-catching harlequin ducks, black scoters and long-tailed ducks."
The Nature Conservancy of Canada

A distinguished Canadian scientist has received recognition in the form of having his name memorialized academically and ecologically; just due for a lifetime in academia as a professor of botany, scientific writing, ecological activism, and love of nature expressed in a variety of experiences both personal and professional. In the waning days of 2014, a hale and healthy 64, with no symptoms to warn of impending health disaster, he was diagnosed with inoperable cancer. The cancer that had established itself in his abdominal cavity had metastasized.

Nothing could be done through medical/surgical intervention to save his life, though it could be prolonged through recommended chemotherapy, considered a part of his palliative care. The secondary cancerous tumours did respond to his first round of chemotherapy, as the radiologist and the oncologist looking after Bill explained to him. But the mass of tumours that represented the initial onslaught remained as they were, at diagnosis; formidable and death-delivering. Another round of chemotherapy was attempted, but to no avail.

This jovial man who so loved nature and avian life in particular which led him to exotic global places to expand the list of birds he had seen and noted, was anticipating his retirement from the workforce. He had experimented with signing on to Arctic cruises, acting in the capacity of scientific adviser to the passengers who appreciated explanations for the phenomena they were observing. He thought he might take that challenge on as a regular schedule, on retirement. He enjoyed the social aspect of being with others, and the usefulness of his experience and knowledge in advancing theirs.

And he was also in the process of completing several manuscripts for publication; one of the history and biological diversity of Sable Island, a second a series of personal stories based on his varied experiences. He was able to complete his Sable Island manuscript. And, with the editorial assistance of a few of his many close friends, he completed the collection of short stories. Both would add to his lifetime of published work, quite apart from the 100-some-odd scientific papers he was responsible for publishing in whole or in part.

He and his wife continued to enjoy the company of their many friends. Many of whom brought over dinners for them, leaving his wife, George-Anne Merrill, free to continue looking after her husband whose condition slowly deteriorated. Initially he reacted well physically; no nausea, no pain, no weight loss, no loss of appetite.

But he could no longer play his fiercely competitive games of squash, could no longer go for trips outside Halifax, let alone prolonged nature walks which he so loved. He did manage some brief excursions with his wife, along with some friends. His son who lives in California, came home. His daughter, who lives in Vancouver, gave birth to her parents' first grandchild, a week before her father Bill died. He was cared for throughout the period of his palliative care by his wife. Living in a three-story house with their bedroom on the third floor, a bed was moved for him to the ground floor.

In 1989, he'd had his first Canadian environmental science textbook, Environmental Ecology published. He later wrote Environmental Science: A Canadian Perspective; the sixth edition is soon to be published. He contributed to two encyclopedias; as well as a book on the 50-year history of the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC), a charitable organization dedicated to sustaining Canada’s plants and wildlife. And he was himself dedicated to furthering the work of the Nature Conservancy.

That smile seen on his face in the photograph above was a permanent fixture. He found amusement everywhere he looked. He was, however, serious about the preservation of nature's gift to all her creatures, and the need to be aware of our natural surroundings and to respect them, but life for this man was a constant source of amused inspiration. His mind rarely rested without some ideas kicking in that would lead him later to explore where they might lead him.

He was my brother.