Author: todayinconservation

Explorers generally look to the far horizon for their adventures, but with the right perspective, nature provides adventures just as thrilling right in one’s own backyard.  Look there, and you might find yourself with the reputation as “the greatest living naturalist in America.”  Such was the case for Edwin Way Teale, born on June 2, 1899.

            Teale was born in Joliet, Illinois, just south of Chicago.  His original middle name was Alfred, but he changed it to Way when he was 12, purportedly because he thought Alfred was not sufficiently grand for someone who would become a famous naturalist (Way was also his mother’s maiden name).  He spent summers at his grandparents’ farm, Lone Oak, in the sand-dune region of northern Indiana, on the shores of Lake Michigan.  Of his summers, Teale said that the farm was “a starting point and a symbol.  It was a symbol of all the veiled and fascinating secrets of the out-of-doors.  It was the starting point of my absorption into the world of Nature.”

            He studied English at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, where he met his future wife and lifelong collaborator, Nellie Donovan.   The couple moved to New York, where Teale took a Master’s degree at Columbia and then a job as a writer for the magazine Popular Science.  He toiled at the magazine for a decade before resigning on his “own personal independence day.”

            And so began a career in which Teale embedded himself in nature and wrote about it with scientific clarity and compelling emotion.  He also became an expert nature photographer, pioneering up-close images of insects.  Unlike other nature writers and photographers, who concentrated on nature’s grandeur, Teale instead found beauty and wonder in the intrigue of his immediate surroundings.  He wrote 32 books, mostly about nature, from his boyhood memoir, Dune Boy, to a four-book series on nature, season by season.  One of the season books, Wandering Through Winter, earned Teale the Pulitzer Prize for Non-fiction in 1966.  He and Nellie chased nature across the country in their Buick sedan, travelling more than 75,000 miles in pursuit of the extraordinary in the ordinary.

            Although Teale was not a scientist, his writings brought him into “the vanguard of the new aristocracy of naturalists, according to famed ornithologist Roger Tory Peterson (learn more about Peterson here).  He was friends with Rachel Carson, and some suggest it was Teale’s urging that convinced Carson to write her second book, The Sea Around Us (after the commercial failure of her first book) (learn more about Carson here).  He won numerous prizes and awards from conservation, scientific and literary organizations. 

            But Edwin Way Teale was a nature writer, and the best way to get to know him is through his own words. 

“To the lost man, to the pioneer penetrating a new country, to the naturalist who wishes to see the wild land at its wildest, the advice is always the same—follow a river.  The river is the original forest highway.  It is nature’s own Wilderness Road.”

“For observing nature, the best pace is a snail’s pace.”

“Looking at life through the eyes of a Daddy long legs:  Imagine walking on legs so long you could cover a mile in fifty strides!  Imagine looking to either side through eyes set not in your head but in a … hump in the back!  Imagine your knees, when you walked, working a dozen feet or more above your head.”     

“A man who never sees a bluebird only half lives.”

“If I were to choose the sights, the sounds, the fragrances I most would want to see and hear and smell—among all the delights of the open world—on a final day on earth, I think I would choose these:  the clear, ethereal song of a white-throated sparrow singing at dawn; the smell of pine trees in the heat of the noon; the lonely calling of Canada geese; the sight of a dragon-fly glinting in the sunshine; the voice of a hermit thrush far in a darkening woods at evening; and—most spiritual and moving of sights—the white cathedral of a cumulus cloud floating serenely in the blue of the sky.”

References:

Archive.today.  Edwin Way Teale Papers 1981.0009.  Available at:  https://archive.ph/20140828224410/http://137.99.31.136:8080/xtf/view?docId=finding_aids/MSS19810009.xml&doc.view=print;chunk.id=.

Holland, Robert.  1984.  Edwin Way Teale.  Letter to Editor, The New York Times, August 12, 1984.  Available at:  https://www.nytimes.com/1984/08/12/books/l-edwin-way-teale-138720.html.

Indiana Historical Bureau.  Edwin Way Teale.  Available at:  https://www.in.gov/history/markers/EdwinWTeale.htm.

On June 1, 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump declared that the United States would withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement.  His announcement began a multi-year process that will lead to the U.S. withdrawal taking effect on November 4, 2020, one day after the next presidential election.

            The Paris Climate Agreement was reached on December 12, 2015, when the 197 parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, voted in Paris to move together toward controlling global climate change.  The Paris Agreement seeks to reduce carbon emissions so that the average global temperature remains lower than 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial-era average temperature.  The agreement commits all parties to this goal, but leaves the contributions made and techniques used to each individual country. The agreement came into force on November 4, 2016, when at least 55 countries responsible for 55% of global carbon emissions had ratified it.  Today, a total of 187 of the 197 original parties have ratified the agreement (learn more about the agreement here).

            In his June 1, 2017 statement, President Trump said, “As President, I have one obligation, and that obligation is to the American people.  The Paris Accord would undermine our economy, hamstring our workers, weaken our sovereignty, impose unacceptable legal risks, and put us at a permanent disadvantage to the other countries of the world.  It is time to exit the Paris Accord and time to pursue a new deal that protects the environment, our companies, our citizens, and our country.”  At that time, the president said all federal actions to meet the terms of the agreement would cease.

            The actual withdrawal from the agreement, however, had to wait.  According to the agreement, parties could not state their intention to withdraw until three years after the agreement entered into force.  That occurred on November 4, 2019, and on that day, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the U.S. was withdrawing: “Today the United States began the process to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. Per the terms of the Agreement, the United States submitted formal notification of its withdrawal to the United Nations. The withdrawal will take effect one year from delivery of the notification.”

            The withdrawal represented a major step-back from U.S. federal leadership in the effort to confront climate change.  It did not, however, mean that the United States as a whole backed away from this challenge.  On the same day as the president’s announcement—June 1, 2017—several states announced that they would continue to follow the Paris Agreement’s principles.  Together they formed the organization “United States Climate Alliance.”  The alliance now includes 24 states and Puerto Rico as members, all committed to the Paris Agreement.  Nearly 150 U.S. cities, including Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia, have also committed to moving to 100% renewable energy, as have dozens of major corporations and energy companies.

            So, despite leadership from the top, the United States continues to confront the terrible specter of climate change and the massive economic and societal problems it will cause (and is causing).  All levels—state, local and individual citizens—remain convinced that fighting climate change is not a bad thing for our economy and citizens. Remember what Margaret Mead said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

References:

Jaeger, Joel, Tom Cyrs and Kevin Kennedy.  2019.  As Trump Steps Away from Paris Climate Agreement, U.S. States, Cities and Businesses Step Up.  World Resources Institute, October 23, 2019.  https://www.wri.org/blog/2019/10/trump-steps-away-paris-climate-agreement-us-states-cities-and-businesses-step-up. Accessed February 13, 2020.

Kann, Drew.  2019.  US begins formal withdrawal from Paris climate accord.  CNN, November 4, 2019.  Available at:  https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/04/politics/trump-formal-withdrawal-paris-climate-agreement/index.html. Accessed February 13, 2020.

United Nations Climate Change.  What is the Paris Agreement.  Available at:  https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/what-is-the-paris-agreement.  Accessed February 13, 2020.

United States Climate Alliance.  About.  Available at:  http://www.usclimatealliance.org/about-us. Accessed February 13, 2020.

White House.  2017.  Statement by President Trump on the Paris Climate Accord.  June 1, 2017.  Available at:  https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-president-trump-paris-climate-accord/. Accessed February 13, 2020.

Groundhogs have a day, so why not wombats?  At least that’s what some unknown wombat lover decided when creating Wombat Day on October 22, 2005.  A man named Chris Mabe created a Facebook page for Wombat Day several years later, so perhaps we should give him credit for the whole wacky thing.. 

            It is a comical day to celebrate wombats, and eat lots of chocolate and wine gums.  Wine gums, apparently, are akin to gummy bears and Swedish fish—substitution is allowed.  October 22 was chosen because it is around the date when spring planting occurs in Australia.  For whatever reason, wombats now have their own day, so let’s celebrate them with a little natural history.

            Wombats live in southeastern Australia and on the Australian island of Tasmania.  There are three species:  the common or bare-nosed wombat (Vombatus ursinus), and the southern and northern hairy-nosed wombats (you can tell them apart by whether or not their noses are—hairy!).  They are marsupials, like all of Australia’s endemic mammals, and closely related to koalas.  But they are distinctive because the pouches in which they shelter their young face backward.  Right, towards the southern end of a north-going wombat.  It’s not stupid, though, it’s smart.  Wombats are great diggers, creating burrows in which they spend most of their lives.  If the pouch faced forward, it would fill with dirt as the female digs with its powerful front legs and claws.

            Digging is what wombats do.  They dig large and complex burrows, up to 9 feet deep and 20 feet long, with branching chambers.  They are generally solitary, but in some cases they make communal burrows for a group, called a “mob.”  The burrows are so massive that other animals often take up residence.  With the massive fires occurring in Australia during 2019, wombats became Internet sensations because they were said to herd other animals to safety in their burrows (not true, say scientists—no herding, just other creatures taking advantage of the wombats). 

            Wombats do most things slowly.  They are short and stocky, waddling when they are moving on land and wombat-paddling when they are swimming (all website, however, warn that wombats can move very quickly when motivated—25 miles per hour for short distances).  They are herbivores, and a long and complex digestive tract allow them to eat and digest the coarsest of plant materials  But they digest slowly—it takes 4-6 days for a meal to exit a wombat.  And when it does, it leaves in a series of very distinctive, almost cube shapes pellets numbering up to one hundred per day (enough said here, but this is quite a popular topic on the Internet).

            The young grow up slowly, too.  After a short gestation period of about 30 days, a female wombat gives birth to a single “joey,” about the size of a jelly-bean.  The young wombat stays in the backward-facing pouch for 6 to 10 months before even peeking out at the world.  But then it still hangs around, living in the pouch for another 8 to 10 month.  Not long after that, the young wombat is sexually mature and starts the whole—slow—cycle again.

            Wombats may be slow, but they get big.  They spend most of their time feeding, and their sluggish metabolism lets them pack on the pounds.  They can reach almost four feet long and weigh up to 80 pounds, making wombats one of the world’s largest rodents.  They have few natural predators, but when they are threatened, they dive into their burrows head-first, leaving their posterior, which has thick, tough skin, as a barricade to entry. 

            Through history, Australians were not fond of wombats.  Wombat burrows pock-marked fields and pastures, a nuisance to human settlers.  In 1906, Australia placed a bounty of wombats, and tens of thousands were shot for the reward.  The bounty is gone, but wombats are still considered vermin and, hence, taragets for unlimited hunting.  Wombats also cause considerable damage to vehicles through night-time collisions as they move—slowly—along and across highways.

            Which brings us back to the beginning.  Why have a special day for an animal that most people want to be rid of?  Any excuse for a party, I guess.  And this animal is almost as cute as its cousin, the koala.  Hurray for wombats!

References:

AFP Fact Check.  2020.  Australian bushfires:  animals that take refuge in wombat burrows usually uninvited, experts say.  Available at:  https://factcheck.afp.com/australian-bushfires-animals-take-refuge-wombat-burrows-usually-uninvited-experts-say.  Accessed February 11, 2020.

Australian Academy of Science.  All about wombat scat.  Available at:  https://www.science.org.au/curious/earth-environment/all-about-wombat-scat.  Accessed February 11, 2020.

Australian Museum.  Common Wombat.  Available at:  https://australianmuseum.net.au/learn/animals/mammals/common-wombat/. Accessed February 11, 2020.

National Geographic.  Common Wombat.  Available at:  https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/c/common-wombat/. Accessed February 11, 2020.

Wombania.com.  Wombat Day October 22.  Available at:  https://www.wombania.com/wombat-day.htm. Accessed February 11, 2020.

Danish immigrant Martin Hansen stopped for a rest before heading home after a day of work.  Hansen was high in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah, on the flanks of Mount Timpanogos, named for the Native Americans who lived there over thousands of years.  He was a logger, and the high demand for timber in the American Fork Canyon in 1887 meant he had to climb higher up the mountain every day to access suitable trees.  He leaned his ax against a tree and walked home.

            When he returned the next day, he noticed mountain lion tracks in the overnight snowfall. He followed the tracks up the mountain until they disappeared into an opening in the rocks.  Hansen had discovered a cave in a strange place—high on a mountainside.  As we now know, the cave had been formed first by shifts in the earth’s crust along fault lines; only then did underground water flowing through the fissures begin the erosion and deposition processes that created the extensive cave.

            Hansen and his family began giving tours of the cave, first leading explorers up the cliffs on a series of nearly vertical log ladders and then showing off the beauty inside the cave.  Now named for Hansen, his cave was the first of three discovered along the cliff.  Timpanogos Cave was found in 1913, then lost, and rediscovered in 1921.  The third, Middle Cave, was also discovered in 1921, by Hansen’s grandson and nephew.

            The caves were being badly plundered for their unusual formations and accessible veins of black onyx.  Consequently, President Warren Harding proclaimed the cave system a national monument on October 14, 1922, noting that it was of “unusual scientific interest and importance, and it appears that the public interest will be promoted by reserving this cave…”

            The park is small—only about 250 acres—and hard to access.  Although the log ladders are gone, visitors must still ascend a steep 1.5-mile trail before reaching the caves.  Access to the caves is only through guided tours by park rangers—with a warning that the experience is strenuous, dirty and only for those in good physical condition.  Still, well over 100,000 people make the journey every year.

            Most, I’m sure, are glad they made the effort.  The caves are noted for their abundance of helictites, small branching and curved formations that resemble coral.  Helictites begin as thin stalactites, but instead of water dripping down the formation, it evaporates in place, slowly building thin tubes that spread randomly in all directions.

            A central feature of the cave complex is the “Great Heart of Timpanogos,” a large stalactite that resembles a human heart.  Local myth holds that a Native American brave named Red Eagle fell in love with princess Utahna when they met in the cave.  Later, Utahna sacrificed herself to end a drought, and Red Eagle carried her body back to the cave where their hearts fused into the rock formation.

            Visitors also experience the beauty of the Wasatch Mountains on the way to and from the cave.  The park lies within the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest, a 2.1-million-acre forest that runs north-south along Utah’s main population corridor.  Mount Timpanogos is the second highest peak in the Wasatch Mountains, at a height of 11, 752 feet.

References:

National Park Foundation.  The Great Love Story of Timpanogos Cave National Monument.  Available at:  https://www.nationalparks.org/connect/blog/great-love-story-timpanogos-cave-national-monument.  Accessed February 6, 2020.

National Park Service.  Timpanogos Cave—Cave Discoverers.  Available at:  https://www.nps.gov/tica/learn/historyculture/cave-discoverers.htm.  Accessed February 6, 2020.

In 1989, the United Nations created a day to recognize the damage done to humanity by natural disasters and to exhort nations to reduce the risk associated with those disasters.  The day also recognizes that natural disasters, “many of which are exacerbated by climate change, have a negative impact on investment in sustainable development and the desired outcomes.”  In 2009, the UN chose October 13 as its permanent annual recognition of the need for disaster risk reduction.

            A twenty-year review of natural disasters by the UN demonstrated the rising costs, both economic and human, of disasters.  Compared to the early two decades, the period from 1998 to 2017 experienced a 151% increase in the economic losses from disasters, rising from $1.3 billion to $2.9 billion, Climate-related disasters accounted for 77% of the total loss (earthquakes and the resultant tsunamis were most of the rest).  The vast majority of climate-related events were floods (43.4%) and storms (28.2%).

            While the human costs of these disasters get the most attention, of course, the costs to biodiversity are similarly terrible.  A 2019 report by the National Wildlife Federation described the consequences of several recent events to wildlife.  Record July temperatures in Alaska caused die-offs of pink, sockeye and chum salmon.  Hurricane Irma in 2017 devastated southern Florida, including killing up to 22% of the remaining population of the endangered key deer.  Massive fires in the western U.S., including the 2016 Soberanes Fire, choked streams with sediment and other debris, affecting fish and amphibian species with nowhere else to go.  Floods associated with Hurricane Harvey in 2017 killed almost all of the remaining wild population of the endangered Attwater’s Prairie Chicken (only 12 birds remained alive after the floods).

            Natural disasters always cause losses, of course, but climate change is making these disasters worse.  More water in the atmosphere and warmer temperatures in both the air and water make storms larger, more frequent and more violent.  Weather events are getting more episodic, with higher rainfalls during storms causing bigger floods and longer droughts between storms causing habitat degradation and extreme wildfires.

            Which brings us back to the United Nations resolve to manage the risks of natural disasters better.  Communities and nations need to make their infrastructure and neighborhoods more resilient in the face of these increasingly violent episodes—that’s what is called climate adaptation.  But, more fundamental to our overall sustainability, is the other needed response:  mitigating climate change.  Mitigation means reducing the amount of greenhouse gases building up in the atmosphere by reducing fossil fuel burning.  Let’s just do it!

References:

NASA Earth Observatory.  2005.  The Impact of Climate Change on Natural Disasters.  Available at:  https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/RisingCost/rising_cost5.php. Accessed February 6, 2020.

National Wildlife Federation.  2019.  Climate Change, Natural Disasters, and Wildlife.  Available at:  https://www.nwf.org/-/media/Documents/PDFs/Environmental-Threats/Climate-Change-Natural-Disasters-fact-sheet.ashx.  Accessed February 6, 2020.

UN Office of Disaster Risk Reduction.  2018.  UN 20-year review:  earthquakes and tsunamis kill more people while climate change is driving up economic losses.  Available at:  https://www.undrr.org/news/un-20-year-review-earthquakes-and-tsunamis-kill-more-people-while-climate-change-driving. Accessed February 6, 2020.

One of the world’s most prominent conservation biologists, Bill Laurance, was born this day in 1957.  Among the many voices heard today for saving our planet, his may be the most respected—and the most grounded in science.

            William F. Laurance grew up on a ranch in the American west, where he immersed himself in nature.  In an interview, he said, “And I just loved animals, I raised mountain lions and bear cubs and I was a falconer, I had birds of prey and owls and ferrets and flying squirrels, just a whole menagerie that my long suffering parents put up with.”  He initially wanted to work in zoos, but became convinced that zoos were only a temporary answer to conservation—habitat protection was the sustainable answer.

            He received his undergraduate degree at Boise State University in Idaho, and was awarded a doctorate from the University of California-Berkeley in 1989.  Since then he has performed research throughout the tropics, including Central and South America, Australia, Africa and Asia.  His research focuses on the relationships between biodiversity and habitat characteristics, particularly habitat fragmentation.  He told an interviewer, “As you probably know, about forty million acres of tropical forest are being destroyed every year. That is about eighty football fields a minute. And as a consequence we are seeing vast landscapes being denuded of forest. We are also seeing the original rain forest being chopped up into isolated islands or parcels.” (the interview doesn’t have a date, so his stated figure on acres lost may not be accurate today)

            Laurance now holds a distinguished faculty position at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia.  He has published many books and hundreds of scientific and popular articles about the tropics and habitat conservation in particular.  Along the way, he has received a long list of awards and honors for his work, including receiving Australia’s Best Science Writing Award four times. 

            He believes that ecological scientists today must also be advocates for the resources they study.  To help that process, in 2013 he founded (and still directs) an organization called ALERT—the Alliance of Leading Environmental Researchers & thinkers.  ALERT helps scientists get their message to journalists, decision-makers and the general public through various outlets, both written and electronic.  ALERT is designed to “help world-class researchers have a concerted, highly credible voice on key environmental issues.”

            Laurance finds it hard to be too optimistic about the state of our environment because human population continues to grow and habitat continues to be lost and fragmented.  “There have been some successes, there have been some new parks and new reserves that have been designated, but I think we have to be very vigilant. Right now, I feel like we have our fingers in the dike, and we are trying to stave off a potentially catastrophic flood of extinctions….It is going to take a lot of effort, a lot of dedication, and I think more resources than what we are currently seeing in order to really try and stave off a catastrophic situation in tropical ecosystems.”

References:

Alliance of Leading Environmental Researchers & Thinkers.  About Us.  Available at:  http://alert-conservation.org/about-us.  Accessed February 5, 2020.

Annenberg Learner.  Interview with William F. Laurance.  Available at:  https://www.learner.org/series/the-habitable-planet-a-systems-approach-to-environmental-science/biodiversity-decline/interview-with-william-f-laurance/. Accessed February 5, 2020.

James Cook University.  Research Profile, Prof Bill Laurance.  Available at:  https://research.jcu.edu.au/portfolio/bill.laurance. Accessed February 5, 2020.

Dnieper.  Dnipro.  Dnepr.  Dnyapro.  No matter how you spell it, the name of this river is a tongue-twister.  It can get worse, though.  The Dnieper Dam (we’ll use the predominant English spelling, if you don’t mind) impounds the Dnieper River just upstream from the town of Zaporizhzhya!  Spelling aside, the river and dam are among the most important in Europe.

            The Dnieper River is the fourth largest in Europe (behind the Volga, Danube and Ural; maybe third if you consider the Ural River in Asia).  It flows more than 1,350 miles, from headwaters in Belarus and Russia, through the Ukraine (it bisects the capital, Kiev), and emptying into the Black Sea.  The watershed includes 80% of Ukrainian water resources, making the river essential to the economy of that nation.  The river is also an important cultural symbol for Ukrainians.

            A set of rapids just upstream of Zaporizhzhya had always made the river un-navigable.  Plans to dam the river go back to the 1800s, but they got serious during communist rule when the Ukraine was part of the USSR.  Leon Trotsky, famous (or perhaps infamous) Soviet leader, said, “In the south, the Dnieper runs its course through the wealthiest industrial lands; and it is wasting the prodigious weight of its pressure, playing over age-old rapids and waiting until we harness its stream, curb it with dams, and compel it to give lights to cities, to drive factories, and to enrich ploughland.  We shall compel it!”  Damming the Dnieper River became a central focus of the utilitarian communist philosophy.

            Construction of the dam began in 1927 and was completed in 1932.  The US government provided expertise, and General Electric built the electric-generating turbines.  On October 10, 1932, the dam began operation. The dam was nearly 2500 feet long and 200 feet high, and it flooded the upstream rapids. The power-generating capacity was the largest in Europe until the 1950s when larger facilities were built on the Volga River.  The dam included a series of locks that made almost the entire Dnieper River navigable.

            All of this, you might think, is rather ho-hum today.  Big dams that generate electricity and allow river transportation are commonplace.  And, like the Dnieper Dam, big dams often hold great cultural importance to the nations that build them (Hoover Dam, remember, was considered the epitome of American can-do personality in the 1930s).  But what happened to the Dnieper Dam got pretty spectacular during World War II.

            Early in the war, the Soviet Union was getting badly beaten by Nazi Germany.  German troops were advancing through the Ukraine, headed toward Kiev.  The forerunners of the Soviet KGB, on orders from Joseph Stalin, blew up Dnieper Dam on August 18, 1941.  Rather than let the Germans take over the hydro-electric facility and the city of Kiev, the USSR destroyed their great work.  An American journalist at the time reported, “I know what that dam meant to the Bolsheviks…It was the largest, most spectacular, and most popular of all the immense projects of the First Five-Year Plan…. Its destruction demonstrates a will to resist, which surpasses anything we had imagined.”

            That will to resist also created an enormous human tragedy.  A film of the dam’s destruction shows the central portion of the dam erupting, and water from the reservoir behind the dam flowing through the gap like a raging river.  People living downstream had no warning as village after village was ripped apart.  No official count of the dead is available, but estimates range from 20,000 to 100,000 human casualties.  Dam tragedies are bad enough when the result of weather, but they are unspeakable when done on purpose.

            The Germans took over the area and partially rebuilt the dam.  But two years later, the course of the war had reversed, and Soviet troops were now pushing the Germans back out of the Ukraine.  As they retreated, the German forces blew up the dam for a second time!  This time, the dam was virtually obliterated. 

            But this is a dam that wouldn’t die.  At the end of the war, the Soviets rebuilt the dam for a third time, again with the help of the U.S. and General Electric.  After five years of construction, in, 1950, the dam again began producing electricity.

            The Dnieper Dam remains in operation today, producing electricity and impounding a large reservoir that allows river transportation through its system of locks.  It is less significant than before, now serving as just one element in a network of dams and fuel-burning electric plants.  But it remains a symbol of the resilience and sustainability, not only of the Ukraine, but also nature.

References:

Andrews, Stefan.  2017.  The Red Army troops dynamited the strategically important Dneprostroi Dam during WWI, as Germany invaded the Soviet Union.  The Vintage News, Jan 13, 2017.  Available at:  https://www.thevintagenews.com/2017/01/13/the-red-army-troops-dynamited-the-strategically-important-dneprostroi-dam-during-wwii-as-germany-invaded-the-soviet-union/.  Accessed February 4, 2020.

Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine.  Dnipro Hydroelectric Station.  Available at:  http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CD%5CN%5CDniproHydroelectricStation.htm.  Accessed February 4, 2020.

Micklin, Philip P., and Anatoly Petrovich Domanitsky.  Dnieper River.  Encyclopedia Britannica.  Available at:  https://www.britannica.com/place/Dnieper-River/Hydrology. Accessed February 4, 2020.

Moroz, Dmytro.  2013.  Ukrainian Activist Draw Attention To Little-Known WWII Tragedy.  Radio Free Europe, August 23, 2013.  Available at:  https://www.rferl.org/a/european-remembrance-day-ukraine-little-known-ww2-tragedy/25083847.html. Accessed February 4, 2020.

In early summer, 1975, I was driving by myself from Syracuse, New York, to Sullivan, Illinois.  It was a long drive, and I stayed awake by switching radio channels, seeing how often I could hear John Denver’s latest hit, “Thank God I’m a Country Boy.”  I don’t remember the details now, but my impression is still that I could just about hear that song continuously as I crossed the country!  In those days, John Denver was everyone’s best friend—and that includes the environment.

            Although his song claims he was “born in the summer of his twenty-seen year,” he was actually born on the last day of 1943 (died 1997).  And not in Colorado, but in Roswell, New Mexico.  He moved often growing up, following the military career of his father.  He dropped out of art school at Texas Tech in 1964 to become a song-writer and folk singer.  He changed his name from John Deutschendorf, Jr. to John Denver (yes, for the capital of his adopted state). In 1967, he wrote “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” which became a number-one hit for Peter, Paul and Mary.

            Just as “sunshine on my shoulder makes me happy,” John Denver’s music made American happy.  His musical star rose with hit after hit, with heart-warming songs that made us all yearn for simple pleasures like “grandma’s feather bed.”  He was the biggest singing star of the 1970s, turning sentiments like “take me home, country road” into pure gold.

            But along with the music, John Denver had another message.  He loved nature, and he worked tirelessly for conservation and sustainability.  He established two non-profit organizations on behalf of the environment.  The first was the Windstar Foundation, set on a 1,000-acre property near his home in Aspen, Colorado.  The Foundation worked to enhance education about sustainability across the world (it closed in 2012).  The second was Plant-It 2020, a tree-planting organization that still operates today, re-establishing degraded forests and planting new ones.  He also co-founded The Hunger Project, dedicated then to education and awareness about world hunger and still today performing valuable active grassroots programs to build local food security.  For two decades, he represented UNICEF.

            These organizations are important, of course, but it was the larger-than-life presence of John Denver that was his biggest contribution.  A close friend said, “You just have to find something you love and live al ife that shows it.  John found music.  He turned it into a vehicle to make a huge difference.”  John Denver wrote songs about the environment; perhaps the most famous was “Calypso,” honoring the work of Jacques Cousteau.  He was a leading spokesperson for the environment, going wherever he was needed—Congress, television, radio, public events.  He supported many other organizations, most notably the National Wildlife Federation; he dropped a special album, “Earth Songs,” with proceeds going to support the Federation’s programs.  He said, “I want to inspire people to make a better world and a healthier environment.  My songs…have to do with taking responsibility for the world we want to create.”

            He was an avid pilot and used this skill also to support conservation.  His friend said, “John and I did an aerial educational tour of the forests of the Pacific Northwest….We did it in his Learjet.  We put the flaps down and flew very slowly with some notable dignitaries, which enlightened everyone to how rampant the clear-cutting was.  The aerial perspective puts it all together.  It lets the land speak for itself.”

            Tragically, his love of flying cut his life short.  John Denver died at age 53, when his experimental plane crashed in the sea near Monterey, California, on October 10, 1997.  His message, however, is eternal—and simple:  “Commit yourself to do whatever it is you can contribute in order to create a healthy and sustainable future—the world needs you desperately.  Find that in yourself and make a commitment—that is what will change the world.”

References:

Encyclopedia Britannica.  Joh Denver.  Available at:  https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Denver.  Accessed January 20, 2020.

Plantit2020.  Plant-It 2020 Overview.  Available at:  https://plantit2020.org/about.html.  Accessed January 20, 2020.

Pryweller, Joseph.  1990.  John Denver Still High on Being a Good Global Citizen.  Daily Press, July 3, 1990.  Available at:  https://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-xpm-19900703-1990-07-03-9006290344-story.html. Accessed January 20, 2020.

Stunda, Hilary.  2011.  John Denver:  An environmental legacy remembered.  The Aspen Times, October 7, 2011.  Available at:  https://www.aspentimes.com/news/john-denver-an-environmental-legacy-remembered/. Accessed January 20, 2020.

December 30 is the sixth day of Christmas.  In the song, “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” the sixth day is reserved for bird reproduction—six geese a-laying.  So, let’s talk today about the extremes that birds go to when they are a-laying.

            Let’s start with the Bee Hummingbird of Cuba.  This is the world’s smallest bird, about two and one-half inches long, half the size of the common Ruby-throated Hummingbird.  It looks more like a real bee than a bird, flitting around from flower to flower, hence the name.  So, it isn’t surprising that the Bee Hummingbird also holds the record for the world’s smallest egg,  It measures about one-third of an inch in diameter and weighs about .02 grams (right, basically nothing). 

            At the other end of the spectrum is the Ostrich, native to Africa (and earlier to Asia).  The Ostrich is the world’s largest bird, standing up to 9 feet tall and weighing up to 250 pounds.  So, it isn’t surprising that it also lays the world’s largest egg.  Ostrich eggs are 6 inches long and weigh about 3 pounds.  The shells are so strong that an adult human can stand on the eggs without damaging them—a good trait since their incubating parents weigh in at about the size of a football linebacker.  Historically, however, the Ostrich comes in second to the fossil Elephant Birds, a group of species that lived in Madagascar as recently as 3,000 years ago.  With eggs twice the size of Ostrich eggs, the Elephant Bird produced the biggest eggs ever known.

            Another way to look at size, however, is relative.  When egg size is expressed in terms of a bird’s overall size, the accomplishment of the Ostrich or Elephant Bird isn’t so impressive.  Ostrich eggs are about 2% of the weight on an adult, hardly worth an honorable mention  The champion is New Zealand’s national symbol–the Kiwi.  The Kiwi is a small (about 1.5 feet tall and weighing 2.5 pounds); it doesn’t fly and its feathers look more like hair, prompting some to call it an “honorary mammal.” But it is all bird when it comes to its egg.  The Kiwi lays a gigantic egg for its size, up to 25% of its body weight.  Imagine this in human terms—a 120-pound woman would be giving birth to a 30-pound baby!

            Well, maybe we need to look at the egg championship from even one more perspective.  The Kiwi lays a big egg, but it produces only one at a time.  So, perhaps we should think about egg-laying records in terms of the total amount of egg-stuff produced.  Which bird lays the most eggs?  That award goes to a series of Australian species (comprising the family Megapodes) collectively known as “mound builders.”  These ground-nesting birds excavate shallow depressions which they fill with decaying vegetation and cover with sand.  The decomposition produces heat that incubates the eggs, so the adults don’t have to mind the nest.  They don’t take care of the chick either.  I guess the mound builders figure they do enough by making the nest and filling it with eggs.  Lots of eggs.  World-record numbers of eggs.  One female can lay up to 35 eggs in a single brood.  When this mass of eggs is considered together, the Megapodes surpass all other bird groups in the relative amount of material—eggs and their contents—devoted to reproduction. 

            From big to small, few to many, egg-laying is one big job for our feathered friends.  Next time you make an omelet, pause to recognize the miracle you are about to crack into the frying pan!

References:

Bradford, Alina.  2014.  Ostrich Facts:  The World’s Largest Bird.  LiveScience, September 17, 2014.  Available at:  https://www.livescience.com/27433-ostriches.html. Accessed January 19, 2020.

Bryce, Emma.  2015.  The Champion Egg-Layers of the Bird World.  Audubon, February 6, 2015.  Available at:  https://www.audubon.org/news/the-champion-egg-layers-bird-world. Accessed January 19, 2020.

Dean, Sam.  2015.  Why Is the Kiwi’s Egg So Big?  Audubon Science, February 25, 2015.  Available at:  https://www.audubon.org/news/why-kiwis-egg-so-big. Accessed January 19, 2020.

Encyclopedia Britannica.  Elephant bird.  Available at:  https://www.britannica.com/animal/elephant-bird.  Accessed January 19, 2020.

Encyclopedia Britannica.  Megapode.  Available at:  https://www.britannica.com/animal/megapode. Accessed January 19, 2020.

McCann, Mary.  2018.  Get to Know the Bee Hummingbird, the World’s Smallest Bird.  BirdNote, September 17, 2018.  Available at:  https://www.audubon.org/news/get-know-bee-hummingbird-worlds-smallest-bird.  Accessed January 19, 2020.

Science Epic.  2015.  Which Bird Lays the Smallest Egg?  May 25, 2015.  Available at:  http://www.sciencepic.com/which-bird-lays-the-smallest-egg/. Accessed January 19, 2020.

The 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, spawned many developments in the journey for global sustainability.  One of those is the Convention on Biological Diversity, which came into force on December 29, 1993, ninety days after the 30^th country ratified the treaty.

            And that is what it is—a treaty.  The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has 196 national parties, each of which has agreed, by law, to abide by the convention’s requirements.  Only one major nation is not party to the CBD—the United States.  By all accounts, the way the U.S. addresses biodiversity conservation was the basis for the convention, and U.S. representatives to the Rio conference were prime negotiators on its content.  President George H. W. Bush, however, declined to endorse the convention.  Later, President Clinton did sign the convention, but the Senate, which is required to approve all treaties, has never acted to ratify it.  Therefore, the U.S. participates as an “observer” in CBD activities, unable to negotiate on its implementation or amendment.  Nonetheless, the conservation laws and management practices of the U.S. meet the CBD requirements.

            The CBD has three main objectives, as stated in Article 1 of the Convention itself:  “The objectives … are the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources….”  So, the convention recognizes not only that biodiversity should be preserved, but also that its benefits should be used sustainably and justly among developed and developing economies.

            That is a tall order, and the CBD has served more as a global conscience for protecting biodiversity than as a set of specific objectives or the mechanisms to achieve them.  A ten-year strategic plan set in 2001 was largely aspirational, and the results were disappointing—biodiversity had continued to decline since the start of the millennium. 

            A new strategic plan was crafted, covering the decade from 2011-2020.  It included five strategic goals and twenty targets, known as the “Aichi Biodiversity Targets.”  Most of those targets are still qualitative rather than quantitative; Target 1, for example, states that by 2020 “people are aware of the values of biodiversity” and how to use and conserve it.  Some targets, however, are more specific and measurable, like Target 5, which asks that “the rate of loss of all natural habitats, including forests, is at least halved.”

            The element of the CBD which has garnered the most international attention seems to be its work on the international movement of “living modified organisms,” or LMOs.  LMOs are a more inclusive label that includes GMOs. The convention approved the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety in 2000 (entered into force in 2003).  The Protocol sets conditions for the export and import of living organisms that were produced by modern genetic biotechnology, specifically as they relate to impacts on native biological diversity.  The U.S. is not party to this protocol, but it does act in accordance with its requirements.

            Now that 2020 has begun, the CBD Secretariat (which operates from offices in Montreal, Canada) is working on the strategic plan for the next decade.  Let’s hope that this plan can move from being our conscience on biodiversity protection to become our roadmap for achieving a sustainable world.

References:

Convention on Biological Diversity.  Aichi Biodiversity Targets.  Available at:  https://www.cbd.int/sp/targets/.  Accessed January 17, 2020. 

Convention on Biological Diversity.  History of the Convention.  Available at:  https://www.cbd.int/history/. Accessed January 17, 2020. 

Defenders of Wildlife.  The United States and the Convention on Biological Diversity.  Available at:  https://defenders.org/sites/default/files/publications/the_u.s._and_the_convention_on_biological_diversity.pdf. Accessed January 17, 2020. 

UN Food and Agriculture Organization.  2004.  Living modified organisms:  new guidelines for risk assessment.   Available at:  http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2004/43684/index.html Accessed January 17, 2020.